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Sweden also has significantly higher death rates than any other Scandinavian country so I'm not sure why its Covid response keeps being trotted out as a herd im

by everly 6y ago

Sweden also has significantly higher death rates than any other Scandinavian country so I'm not sure why its Covid response keeps being trotted out as a herd immunity success story.

orblivion 6y ago
What are the death rates? Is this based on confirmed cases or extrapolations from randomly testing the population? If you're talking about raw numbers of dead, _of course_ they have more dead, they're explicitly running this movie on fast forward. The question is number of dead in the long run.
- everly 6y ago
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-has-avoided-a-coronavirus-lockdown-its-economy-is-hurting-anyway-11588870062 https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-has-avoided-a-coronaviru... 301 dead per million in Sweden vs. 86 in Denmark, 46 in Finland, and 40 in Norway. Based on Johns Hopkins study of confirmed cases.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - orblivion 6y ago
    Your figures are deaths per capita, irrespective of confirmed cases. Not sure why you mention Johns Hopkins and confirmed cases here. Do you mean confirmed _dead_ cases? So, of course Sweden's numbers are highest. Their gambit (as I understood it) was that if they infect people faster, they'll get immune faster. If they infect people faster, it obviously also means that people will die faster. It doesn't mean more will have died; Norway could just be killing people more slowly. We won't know who got it right until this is over. (This is what I meant earlier by "raw numbers", but it's now a bad choice of words given that your figures are per capita)
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > What are the death rates? Is this based on confirmed cases or extrapolations from randomly testing the population? Case fatality rate is defined as deaths per confirmed diagnosis. Estimates based on population testing would be of the infection fatality rate, which is a different measure. Assuming similar profile of cases diagnosed, a higher CFR could be a key indicator of greater health system strain. > The question is number of dead in the long run. Everyone is dead on the long run, when and how are the only things that vary and, generally speaking, sooner is less desirable.
  - orblivion 6y ago
    > Case fatality vs infection fatality rate Okay. So by case fatality rate, Sweden does look a lot worse than Norway. Your argument is that a high CFR implies a lot more dead than would have otherwise been, because it strains the health system. From a quick look at the news, it seems that they were afraid of an overload of the medical system in Stockholm 1 week ago, but it had been okay so far; not sure how it played out. Couldn't a high CFR also just imply they triage their testing more because they have more sick people to test? > Everyone is dead on the long run, when and how are the only things that vary and, generally speaking, sooner is less desirable. Fair enough but that's moving the goal post. The claim as stated is "Sweden has significantly higher death rates", not "people are dying significantly sooner in Sweden". To this point, though, I'll say that if there's a Deus ex machina that cures people next month, Sweden will have clearly lost out by letting people die sooner.
m4rtink 6y ago
Sweden has roughly the same population as Czech Republic. There has been pretty strong lockdown since the beginning of March, which appears to have been successful and is now slowly being lifted. There have been 263 death so far and the number of new infection has been under 100 per day for more than a week and is generally trending down. In comparison Sweden now has 3040 dead and more than 600 new cases during the last 3 days, with no downward trend. I don't think you can call this successful & I'm not sure how are they going to get out of this with such a sustained infection rate, if their neighbors can get things under control & minimize new infections. That could kinda turn Sweden into a plague lang that risks spreading infection in countries that handled the infection responsibly.

by everly 6y ago

Sweden also has significantly higher death rates than any other Scandinavian country so I'm not sure why its Covid response keeps being trotted out as a herd immunity success story.

orblivion 6y ago

What are the death rates? Is this based on confirmed cases or extrapolations from randomly testing the population? If you're talking about raw numbers of dead, _of course_ they have more dead, they're explicitly running this movie on fast forward. The question is number of dead in the long run.

everly 6y ago
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-has-avoided-a-coronavirus-lockdown-its-economy-is-hurting-anyway-11588870062 https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-has-avoided-a-coronaviru... 301 dead per million in Sweden vs. 86 in Denmark, 46 in Finland, and 40 in Norway. Based on Johns Hopkins study of confirmed cases.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- orblivion 6y ago
  Your figures are deaths per capita, irrespective of confirmed cases. Not sure why you mention Johns Hopkins and confirmed cases here. Do you mean confirmed _dead_ cases? So, of course Sweden's numbers are highest. Their gambit (as I understood it) was that if they infect people faster, they'll get immune faster. If they infect people faster, it obviously also means that people will die faster. It doesn't mean more will have died; Norway could just be killing people more slowly. We won't know who got it right until this is over. (This is what I meant earlier by "raw numbers", but it's now a bad choice of words given that your figures are per capita)
dragonwriter 6y ago
> What are the death rates? Is this based on confirmed cases or extrapolations from randomly testing the population? Case fatality rate is defined as deaths per confirmed diagnosis. Estimates based on population testing would be of the infection fatality rate, which is a different measure. Assuming similar profile of cases diagnosed, a higher CFR could be a key indicator of greater health system strain. > The question is number of dead in the long run. Everyone is dead on the long run, when and how are the only things that vary and, generally speaking, sooner is less desirable.
- orblivion 6y ago
  > Case fatality vs infection fatality rate Okay. So by case fatality rate, Sweden does look a lot worse than Norway. Your argument is that a high CFR implies a lot more dead than would have otherwise been, because it strains the health system. From a quick look at the news, it seems that they were afraid of an overload of the medical system in Stockholm 1 week ago, but it had been okay so far; not sure how it played out. Couldn't a high CFR also just imply they triage their testing more because they have more sick people to test? > Everyone is dead on the long run, when and how are the only things that vary and, generally speaking, sooner is less desirable. Fair enough but that's moving the goal post. The claim as stated is "Sweden has significantly higher death rates", not "people are dying significantly sooner in Sweden". To this point, though, I'll say that if there's a Deus ex machina that cures people next month, Sweden will have clearly lost out by letting people die sooner.

m4rtink 6y ago

Sweden has roughly the same population as Czech Republic. There has been pretty strong lockdown since the beginning of March, which appears to have been successful and is now slowly being lifted. There have been 263 death so far and the number of new infection has been under 100 per day for more than a week and is generally trending down. In comparison Sweden now has 3040 dead and more than 600 new cases during the last 3 days, with no downward trend. I don't think you can call this successful & I'm not sure how are they going to get out of this with such a sustained infection rate, if their neighbors can get things under control & minimize new infections. That could kinda turn Sweden into a plague lang that risks spreading infection in countries that handled the infection responsibly.