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Sweden's deaths per capita attributed to COVID-19 is currently the 8th highest in the world (exempting a few tiny city states). That's about 20% more deaths per

Sweden's deaths per capita attributed to COVID-19 is currently the 8th highest in the world (exempting a few tiny city states). That's about 20% more deaths per capita than in the US. It also has one of the lowest testing rates in the Western world at 0.7%, compared to around 2% in Spain, Italy and Germany.

nabla9 7y ago
That's not counterargument against Swedish strategy. Year from now we will see the total number of deaths from different strategies and the thing is settled by then.
- yxhuvud 7y ago
  It also doesn't help that different countries count differently.
  - sesuximo 7y ago
    It's worse than that. Many countries publish sums of their regions' counts, and the regions count differently
  - devit 7y ago
    Ultimately you can just compare the total deaths to the averages from previous years, which works regardless of how they are counted (as long as the deaths are recorded at all, which I think is something that can generally be relied upon).
    - hinkley 7y ago
      That sounds as if it would be a good worst case number, but that number will be all over the place. During the quarantine, we will see fewer deaths due to misadventure, especially I’m places where those numbers are high. After or toward the end, more deaths and health complications due to complications of a sedentary lifestyle, especially in places where those numbers are already high.
rossdavidh 7y ago
Also lower than the UK, Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, i.e. a lot of their neighbors.
- bosie 7y ago
  Counting spain, UK, italy, france as sweden's neighbor is a bit odd. why not compare it to their actual neighbors, rather than tourism hotspots with lots of transit?
  - fullshark 7y ago
    Yeah Denmark is the closest to a baseline for comparison imo, Sweden has about 2-3x more deaths per capita at this point and new deaths every week is still growing.
  - thu2111 7y ago
    Because it doesn't matter. Sweden is middle of the pack and not experiencing the massive hospital overloads that they 'should' be according to the projections that drove the lockdowns. Not even close. It appears people are forgetting or retroactively changing the justifications already. The lockdowns were meant to reduce deaths by ensuring everyone who got infected could get healthcare. In Sweden that is the case despite having been much less severe than other countries. Thus, their approach is de facto more successful than elsewhere. Comparing to their direct neighbours is thus irrelevant, because a total reduction in deaths was never the goal (it cannot be, because there's no vaccine). But if you want an explanation for why Sweden may differ, for whatever reason it appears the virus hits non-whites much harder. This is being observed in the USA and Sweden reports that non-whites from e.g. Iraq, Somalia etc are disproportionately affected. Why that would be so is unclear, but a higher death rate than Norway is likely to be at least partly due to the much higher rate of immigration Sweden has allowed than its neighbours.
    - simonsaidit 7y ago
      “not experiencing the massive hospital overloads that they 'should' be according to the projections that drove the lockdowns.” And yet very sick patients are already being placed in field hospitals with no running water, laying too close, poor air circulation and on old ventilators which have received criticism from the doctors there.
flatline 7y ago
Yes but we cannot function as a society like this, indefinitely on lockdown. The proposals to test, track, and isolate sound good but are preposterous in terms of logistics - funding, manufacturing, personnel, accountability. It will optimistically be 12-18 months till we “have a vaccine” - but I suspect it will be 4-5 years more realistically till we have applied it planet-wide sufficiently to eradicate the disease. So, I don’t think Sweden is totally crazy, we have to find some way to live with the disease, and that still means a lot of people are going to die.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rpiguy 7y ago
  People really haven’t really woken up to the reality that contact tracking, forced testing, and eventually vaccination will NEVER happen in the US, at least not in a consistent and effective way. A significant portion of the population won’t stand for it, and given the current make up of the Supreme Court any mandatory citizen tracking, or job based discrimination based on mandatory testing will not pass muster. Nor will forced vaccinations. We can’t get people to vaccinate against measles and whooping cough, which spread faster and kill more people (including children). Civil liberty practically ensures that in most places tracking and vaccination will have to be optional. Whether we like it or not we are heading toward a herd immunity strategy. If this were killing 30% of the general population, like smallpox could, people would fall in line. But I can’t see it happening for something as comparatively mild as COVID-19.
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    I strongly suspect that attitudes to public health will change significantly in some places as a result of the current situation and our different experiences dealing with it. One of the things I think will probably happen is that the US public will shift to be more favourable towards a primarily public health service such as many other countries have in one form or another. Unfortunately, I expect this to happen because the shortcomings of the current system are going to be painfully exposed and result in a lot of people dying unnecessarily in the US and in the coronavirus problem taking longer to deal with than it will in most developed nations. I also think there is a small but non-zero chance of much of the world blocking travel for people who have recently been in the US until they get their house in order. Under normal circumstances, this might sound preposterous, but clearly these are not normal circumstances. The virus doesn't care about American exceptionalism, and if the anti-science agenda that starts right at the top of the US federal government today continues, nations that do follow the science and support their healthcare professionals and ultimately get it under control to a useful level are going to be very wary of undermining that progress even if it means a big economic cost due to isolating the US that would never be seriously considered without the public health threat.
BurningFrog 7y ago
It's early in this marathon race. It's not uninteresting who's in the lead now. But it's the goal line standings that matter.

nabla9 7y ago

That's not counterargument against Swedish strategy. Year from now we will see the total number of deaths from different strategies and the thing is settled by then.

yxhuvud 7y ago
It also doesn't help that different countries count differently.
- sesuximo 7y ago
  It's worse than that. Many countries publish sums of their regions' counts, and the regions count differently
- devit 7y ago
  Ultimately you can just compare the total deaths to the averages from previous years, which works regardless of how they are counted (as long as the deaths are recorded at all, which I think is something that can generally be relied upon).
  - hinkley 7y ago
    That sounds as if it would be a good worst case number, but that number will be all over the place. During the quarantine, we will see fewer deaths due to misadventure, especially I’m places where those numbers are high. After or toward the end, more deaths and health complications due to complications of a sedentary lifestyle, especially in places where those numbers are already high.

rossdavidh 7y ago

Also lower than the UK, Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, i.e. a lot of their neighbors.

bosie 7y ago
Counting spain, UK, italy, france as sweden's neighbor is a bit odd. why not compare it to their actual neighbors, rather than tourism hotspots with lots of transit?
- fullshark 7y ago
  Yeah Denmark is the closest to a baseline for comparison imo, Sweden has about 2-3x more deaths per capita at this point and new deaths every week is still growing.
- thu2111 7y ago
  Because it doesn't matter. Sweden is middle of the pack and not experiencing the massive hospital overloads that they 'should' be according to the projections that drove the lockdowns. Not even close. It appears people are forgetting or retroactively changing the justifications already. The lockdowns were meant to reduce deaths by ensuring everyone who got infected could get healthcare. In Sweden that is the case despite having been much less severe than other countries. Thus, their approach is de facto more successful than elsewhere. Comparing to their direct neighbours is thus irrelevant, because a total reduction in deaths was never the goal (it cannot be, because there's no vaccine). But if you want an explanation for why Sweden may differ, for whatever reason it appears the virus hits non-whites much harder. This is being observed in the USA and Sweden reports that non-whites from e.g. Iraq, Somalia etc are disproportionately affected. Why that would be so is unclear, but a higher death rate than Norway is likely to be at least partly due to the much higher rate of immigration Sweden has allowed than its neighbours.
  - simonsaidit 7y ago
    “not experiencing the massive hospital overloads that they 'should' be according to the projections that drove the lockdowns.” And yet very sick patients are already being placed in field hospitals with no running water, laying too close, poor air circulation and on old ventilators which have received criticism from the doctors there.

flatline 7y ago

Yes but we cannot function as a society like this, indefinitely on lockdown. The proposals to test, track, and isolate sound good but are preposterous in terms of logistics - funding, manufacturing, personnel, accountability. It will optimistically be 12-18 months till we “have a vaccine” - but I suspect it will be 4-5 years more realistically till we have applied it planet-wide sufficiently to eradicate the disease. So, I don’t think Sweden is totally crazy, we have to find some way to live with the disease, and that still means a lot of people are going to die.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rpiguy 7y ago
People really haven’t really woken up to the reality that contact tracking, forced testing, and eventually vaccination will NEVER happen in the US, at least not in a consistent and effective way. A significant portion of the population won’t stand for it, and given the current make up of the Supreme Court any mandatory citizen tracking, or job based discrimination based on mandatory testing will not pass muster. Nor will forced vaccinations. We can’t get people to vaccinate against measles and whooping cough, which spread faster and kill more people (including children). Civil liberty practically ensures that in most places tracking and vaccination will have to be optional. Whether we like it or not we are heading toward a herd immunity strategy. If this were killing 30% of the general population, like smallpox could, people would fall in line. But I can’t see it happening for something as comparatively mild as COVID-19.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  I strongly suspect that attitudes to public health will change significantly in some places as a result of the current situation and our different experiences dealing with it. One of the things I think will probably happen is that the US public will shift to be more favourable towards a primarily public health service such as many other countries have in one form or another. Unfortunately, I expect this to happen because the shortcomings of the current system are going to be painfully exposed and result in a lot of people dying unnecessarily in the US and in the coronavirus problem taking longer to deal with than it will in most developed nations. I also think there is a small but non-zero chance of much of the world blocking travel for people who have recently been in the US until they get their house in order. Under normal circumstances, this might sound preposterous, but clearly these are not normal circumstances. The virus doesn't care about American exceptionalism, and if the anti-science agenda that starts right at the top of the US federal government today continues, nations that do follow the science and support their healthcare professionals and ultimately get it under control to a useful level are going to be very wary of undermining that progress even if it means a big economic cost due to isolating the US that would never be seriously considered without the public health threat.

BurningFrog 7y ago

It's early in this marathon race. It's not uninteresting who's in the lead now. But it's the goal line standings that matter.