I find the flu argument pretty weak, but it ultimately boils down to a claim of demographic differences (that Sweden had more people at the beginning of the pan

I find the flu argument pretty weak, but it ultimately boils down to a claim of demographic differences (that Sweden had more people at the beginning of the pandemic that were likely to die than neighbouring countries). Belgium feels like a cherry picked example, having as it does a miserably poor record compared to its own neighbours, and being rather unlike the nordic countries in lots of other likely relevant ways - climate, population density, etc. Perhaps a more likely demographic cause might be the age of the population in Sweden, which I believe does have a particularly old population. The racial/skin colour angle is difficult to evaluate. There may be something to it, but there are so many potentially confounding factors - immigrant populations are unlike the native population in a number of ways. Some of the ways they are different are that they are overrepresented in high risk groups like front line medical workers or living in poorer quality accommodation or having more difficulty getting access to health care. If the primary cause that they are overrepresented in covid-19 deaths relates to any of those, then having a lower immigrant population may just redistribute the deaths rather than reduce them (the bottom socioeconomic 10% will likely be overrepresented in deaths, and that bottom 10% may feature more or fewer immigrants).