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Sweden: 1,937 deaths. 50 fewer seasonal deaths than expected. Norway: 187 deaths. No increase in seasonal deaths. Denmark: 384 deaths. Seasonal deaths unknown

by marvin 7y ago

Sweden: 1,937 deaths. 50 fewer seasonal deaths than expected. Norway: 187 deaths. No increase in seasonal deaths. Denmark: 384 deaths. Seasonal deaths unknown to me. Finand: 149 deaths. Seasonal deaths unknown to me. Sweden has approximately twice the population of the other Nordic countries, so per capita they have between ~2.5x and ~6x the Covid19 mortality of their neighbors, who have stricter preventive measures. Honestly, I can't see how Anders Tegnell and his colleagues can sleep at night with the uncertainties they are powering through. By rights they should be terrified that they've gotten one of their assumptions wrong.

henrikschroder 7y ago
Denmark has ~2.5x the per-capita covid-19 mortality of Finland, should Danish authorities be terrified that they've gotten their assumptions wrong? The UK has ~2x the per-capita covid-19 mortality of Sweden, should English authorities be terrified that they've gotten their assumptions wrong? You are cherry-picking like crazy! There is clearly no evidence that stricter measures have any effect. If that was true, then there should at least be a linear correlation between strictness of measures vs. excess deaths, and that's simply not the case. You're extrapolating a linear correlation using a couple of data-points that happen to support your theory, i.e. Sweden vs other Nordic countries. Sweden vs. all of Europe paints a completely different picture, so you're not looking at that, because you're cherry-picking. There are so many uncertainties around this whole situation, and I think the only thing we can say with certainty is that if a country has no or a low rate of excess deaths, that country is doing "ok". Not doing great, not doing shit, just doing ok.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  > There is clearly no evidence that stricter measures have any effect Working for us in NZ, although I think the timing of our national lockdown is strongly significant to our success, we managed to do so before it was widespread in the community. Our new case rate is literally bottom of the FT Covid graph: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest And we have 50% the population of Sweden, and 0.72% the deaths. If we were to be per-capita equivalent with Sweden, we'd need about another 964 people to die.
  - henrikschroder 7y ago
    Look, I agree with you that stricter measures probably have an effect. All countries have some forms of restrictions, all countries have flattened their curves, no-one is really seeing crazy exponential growth, common sense dictates that it's working. But a lot of people in this thread are arguing that Sweden should have enforced stricter measures because that should have decreased the deaths further. And that position is unsupported, because there are comparable countries with stricter measures than Sweden that have a higher per-capita death count, for example the UK or Belgium. Looking at excess mortality the picture is similar. Sweden is absolutely not doing great, but it's not doing bad either. If stricter measures always resulted in less deaths, as you argue, why are so many countries doing worse than Sweden? Why are more people dying in those countries? Is their population stupider? Unluckier? More defiant towards government? Clearly there are multiple other unknown factors at work here, which is why there's no evidence that stricter measures in Sweden would have an effect.
    - arel 7y ago
      > for example the UK or Belgium It depends when each country locked down relative to the number of cases and deaths at the time. The UK is widely acknowledged (here anyway) to have acted too late in its lockdown as the were trying to pursue herd immunity.
      - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        Every country was widely acknowledged to be too late in its lockdown. In the ones that have seen disasters the accusation stuck, while in the ones that haven't it's been quietly forgotten.
    - EdwardDiego 7y ago
      I perhaps didn't emphasise this enough in my original post, but I believe it answers your questions. > I think the timing of our national lock down is strongly significant to our success, we managed to do so before it was widespread in the community. > Why are more people dying in those countries? Timing is a very significant factor, I believe - I couch that as a belief, because I haven't had the time to compare all lockdowns, but you'll note that on this FT graph[1], NZ's lockdown began near immediately by the metric being used, whereas the UK's took a full two weeks. We know that the UK government dithered, initially focused on herd immunity (and worth noting that Johnson and his advisor Dominic Cummings who was hugely influential in pushing for it both went on to contract the illness), hired social media bots(?!)[2] to spin the party line, and only after all that, then went into lockdown. A veritable case of closing the barn door after the infectious horse has bolted. Of course there's a bunch of other factors in death rates - the comparative proportion of your population which is especially vulnerable, medical care capacity, but it seems obvious to me that the largest factor will always be the number of infections in the first instance. [1]: https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-us.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8850e4ac-84de-11ea-b872-8db45d5f6714?fit=scale-down&quality=highest&source=next&width=1260 https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt... [2]: https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/04/21/fake-nurses-propaganda-tweets-distract-from-further-government-coronavirus-shambles/ https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/04/21/fake-nurses-pro...
- zamfi 7y ago
  Ummm... > There is clearly no evidence that stricter measures have any effect. If that was true, then there should at least be a linear correlation between strictness of measures vs. excess deaths, and that's simply not the case. What? No, timing of measures is critical here. [0] The same exact strictness of measures, implemented a week later, can cause 4x more deaths (total, and thus per capita too) merely because of the delay. Yes, English and Danish authorities should absolutely be terrified that they waited to long to act, just as the Swedish authorities should be. [0] https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...
- notacoward 7y ago
  > Denmark has ~2.5x the per-capita covid-19 mortality of Finland ...and ~35% the per capita mortality of Sweden. Denmark is pretty much in the middle of the pack. That's clearly less reason for panic than if they were already in the top third and rising fast. And you accuse others of cherry-picking? > Sweden vs. all of Europe paints a completely different picture No, it really doesn't. Thanks for proving that this kind of jingoism isn't limited to the US.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  It's not just that Sweden has a higher death rate but that Sweden's death shows a sharp exponential rise still. This effectively in the last few days, a week ago Sweden could be pointed to as a "miracle". The other countries that have seen these exponential indeed effectively panic and impose any measure they can - social distancing and lock since that's all they have. As people point out, there's no absolute evidence that quarantines, lock-downs or parachutes save lives yet common sense still dictates they do more than nothing and when a disaster is approaching, do you really want to say you failed to do that could have averted mass deaths? Moreover, the Sweden versus the other Nordic countries does seem like a better comparison because these countries arguably have similar levels of relative isolation from the world, similar health care systems and similar cultures.
- DanBC 7y ago
  > is that if a country has no or a low rate of excess deaths, that country is doing "ok". Where are you getting figure for all cause mortality for Sweden please? > should English authorities be terrified that they've gotten their assumptions wrong? There is wide-spread condemnation about the UK approach - too little, too late.
bmn__ 7y ago
Compare countries of similar population: pop 10.7e6 https://covid.observer/gr/#daily https://covid.observer/gr/#daily pop 10.7e6 https://covid.observer/cz/#daily https://covid.observer/cz/#daily pop 10.3e6 https://covid.observer/se/#daily https://covid.observer/se/#daily pop 10.3e6 https://covid.observer/pt/#daily https://covid.observer/pt/#daily pop 9.8e6 https://covid.observer/hu/#daily https://covid.observer/hu/#daily pop 8.9e6 https://covid.observer/at/#daily https://covid.observer/at/#daily pop 8.6e6 https://covid.observer/ch/#daily https://covid.observer/ch/#daily I want to point out the high absolute numbers of deaths, the deficient recovery, and that the curve shows no decline in Sweden. I would be completely unsurprised that when this is over, an angry mob captures Tegnell and tears him limb from limb while alive.

by marvin 7y ago

henrikschroder 7y ago

Denmark has ~2.5x the per-capita covid-19 mortality of Finland, should Danish authorities be terrified that they've gotten their assumptions wrong? The UK has ~2x the per-capita covid-19 mortality of Sweden, should English authorities be terrified that they've gotten their assumptions wrong? You are cherry-picking like crazy! There is clearly no evidence that stricter measures have any effect. If that was true, then there should at least be a linear correlation between strictness of measures vs. excess deaths, and that's simply not the case. You're extrapolating a linear correlation using a couple of data-points that happen to support your theory, i.e. Sweden vs other Nordic countries. Sweden vs. all of Europe paints a completely different picture, so you're not looking at that, because you're cherry-picking. There are so many uncertainties around this whole situation, and I think the only thing we can say with certainty is that if a country has no or a low rate of excess deaths, that country is doing "ok". Not doing great, not doing shit, just doing ok.

EdwardDiego 7y ago
> There is clearly no evidence that stricter measures have any effect Working for us in NZ, although I think the timing of our national lockdown is strongly significant to our success, we managed to do so before it was widespread in the community. Our new case rate is literally bottom of the FT Covid graph: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest And we have 50% the population of Sweden, and 0.72% the deaths. If we were to be per-capita equivalent with Sweden, we'd need about another 964 people to die.
- henrikschroder 7y ago
  Look, I agree with you that stricter measures probably have an effect. All countries have some forms of restrictions, all countries have flattened their curves, no-one is really seeing crazy exponential growth, common sense dictates that it's working. But a lot of people in this thread are arguing that Sweden should have enforced stricter measures because that should have decreased the deaths further. And that position is unsupported, because there are comparable countries with stricter measures than Sweden that have a higher per-capita death count, for example the UK or Belgium. Looking at excess mortality the picture is similar. Sweden is absolutely not doing great, but it's not doing bad either. If stricter measures always resulted in less deaths, as you argue, why are so many countries doing worse than Sweden? Why are more people dying in those countries? Is their population stupider? Unluckier? More defiant towards government? Clearly there are multiple other unknown factors at work here, which is why there's no evidence that stricter measures in Sweden would have an effect.
  - arel 7y ago
    > for example the UK or Belgium It depends when each country locked down relative to the number of cases and deaths at the time. The UK is widely acknowledged (here anyway) to have acted too late in its lockdown as the were trying to pursue herd immunity.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      Every country was widely acknowledged to be too late in its lockdown. In the ones that have seen disasters the accusation stuck, while in the ones that haven't it's been quietly forgotten.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    I perhaps didn't emphasise this enough in my original post, but I believe it answers your questions. > I think the timing of our national lock down is strongly significant to our success, we managed to do so before it was widespread in the community. > Why are more people dying in those countries? Timing is a very significant factor, I believe - I couch that as a belief, because I haven't had the time to compare all lockdowns, but you'll note that on this FT graph[1], NZ's lockdown began near immediately by the metric being used, whereas the UK's took a full two weeks. We know that the UK government dithered, initially focused on herd immunity (and worth noting that Johnson and his advisor Dominic Cummings who was hugely influential in pushing for it both went on to contract the illness), hired social media bots(?!)[2] to spin the party line, and only after all that, then went into lockdown. A veritable case of closing the barn door after the infectious horse has bolted. Of course there's a bunch of other factors in death rates - the comparative proportion of your population which is especially vulnerable, medical care capacity, but it seems obvious to me that the largest factor will always be the number of infections in the first instance. [1]: https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-us.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8850e4ac-84de-11ea-b872-8db45d5f6714?fit=scale-down&quality=highest&source=next&width=1260 https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt... [2]: https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/04/21/fake-nurses-propaganda-tweets-distract-from-further-government-coronavirus-shambles/ https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/04/21/fake-nurses-pro...
zamfi 7y ago
Ummm... > There is clearly no evidence that stricter measures have any effect. If that was true, then there should at least be a linear correlation between strictness of measures vs. excess deaths, and that's simply not the case. What? No, timing of measures is critical here. [0] The same exact strictness of measures, implemented a week later, can cause 4x more deaths (total, and thus per capita too) merely because of the delay. Yes, English and Danish authorities should absolutely be terrified that they waited to long to act, just as the Swedish authorities should be. [0] https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...
notacoward 7y ago
> Denmark has ~2.5x the per-capita covid-19 mortality of Finland ...and ~35% the per capita mortality of Sweden. Denmark is pretty much in the middle of the pack. That's clearly less reason for panic than if they were already in the top third and rising fast. And you accuse others of cherry-picking? > Sweden vs. all of Europe paints a completely different picture No, it really doesn't. Thanks for proving that this kind of jingoism isn't limited to the US.
joe_the_user 7y ago
It's not just that Sweden has a higher death rate but that Sweden's death shows a sharp exponential rise still. This effectively in the last few days, a week ago Sweden could be pointed to as a "miracle". The other countries that have seen these exponential indeed effectively panic and impose any measure they can - social distancing and lock since that's all they have. As people point out, there's no absolute evidence that quarantines, lock-downs or parachutes save lives yet common sense still dictates they do more than nothing and when a disaster is approaching, do you really want to say you failed to do that could have averted mass deaths? Moreover, the Sweden versus the other Nordic countries does seem like a better comparison because these countries arguably have similar levels of relative isolation from the world, similar health care systems and similar cultures.
DanBC 7y ago
> is that if a country has no or a low rate of excess deaths, that country is doing "ok". Where are you getting figure for all cause mortality for Sweden please? > should English authorities be terrified that they've gotten their assumptions wrong? There is wide-spread condemnation about the UK approach - too little, too late.

bmn__ 7y ago

Compare countries of similar population: pop 10.7e6 https://covid.observer/gr/#daily https://covid.observer/gr/#daily pop 10.7e6 https://covid.observer/cz/#daily https://covid.observer/cz/#daily pop 10.3e6 https://covid.observer/se/#daily https://covid.observer/se/#daily pop 10.3e6 https://covid.observer/pt/#daily https://covid.observer/pt/#daily pop 9.8e6 https://covid.observer/hu/#daily https://covid.observer/hu/#daily pop 8.9e6 https://covid.observer/at/#daily https://covid.observer/at/#daily pop 8.6e6 https://covid.observer/ch/#daily https://covid.observer/ch/#daily I want to point out the high absolute numbers of deaths, the deficient recovery, and that the curve shows no decline in Sweden. I would be completely unsurprised that when this is over, an angry mob captures Tegnell and tears him limb from limb while alive.