Yeah, Sweden has a remarkably high death rate due to very old populations like 80+ or 85+. I mean, really high, it's been pretty terrible. So would probably be

Yeah, Sweden has a remarkably high death rate due to very old populations like 80+ or 85+. I mean, really high, it's been pretty terrible. So would probably be quite different and more "normal" numbers if it hadn't hit our nursing homes like it did. Death rate is very low in comparison if you instead look at figures for age 70 and lower. This problem has also been acknowledged as probably the greatest problem and a failure during the coronavirus crisis by Swedish epidemiologists despite "Protect the elderly!" being an early, daily mantra. It's been asked why Sweden then had this problem and not our Nordic friends. Some answers might be understaffing or underestimated equipment needs. When the crisis hit them, there was already a global shortage of disinfectants etc. It's also been asked how the virus entered the nursing homes to begin with. A too liberal stance for visitors a bit too long? Or brought in by staff using too crowded public transports? Many questions and the investigations are still ongoing. Compounding the death rate problem in Sweden was probably also a lack of centralized detail management and confusing directives that even led to palliative care for elderly in nursing homes not even being covid-19 victims. In Sweden, nursing homes work quite independently from each other, and even hospitals are strongly regionally controlled rather than directly state controlled even in a crisis like this. (there are some exceptions though, in these catastrophies, staff can be flewn across the country to help man understaffed hospitals etc) tl;dr I think nursing home infections are the single outstanding factor for the abnormal Swedish death rates. If they are infected, they already have particularly weak immune systems that can often not even begin to fight this beast off. Hell, they probably often already have respiratory diseases and/or use immunosuppressants.