5 ms·

You can find a very informative chart of Sweden's weekly deaths here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1115707/sweden-number-of-deaths-per-week/ https://www

You can find a very informative chart of Sweden's weekly deaths here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1115707/sweden-number-of-deaths-per-week/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1115707/sweden-number-of... It shows 2020 weekly deaths in comparison with a 2015-2019 average which is a good indication of the normal - precovid rate. You can see how there was a massive spike around week 12 to week 21, which is exactly when the initial covid outbreak hit and Sweden's disastrous "herd immunity" policy failed. Now Swedes have been scared and changed their behavior and covid deaths are less. Furthermore, the defensive behavior of covid prevents other deaths. People, do not drive, do not party, do not engage in sports, do not take drugs, or over-drink or over-eat at parties, so that other causes of death go down. So it is possible that covid isolation reduces death rate more than the deaths caused by the virus itself. But that is not a solution, people cannot live in covid isolation forever.

Gwypaas 6y ago
Both mobility data and the curves of ICU cases and deaths, which are fairly reliable proxies for the infection level in the society regardless of variations in testing capacity, are orthogonal to your claims. ICU cases peaked early april, deaths a week later, then a fatter tail happened due to a less restrictive approach. See the official Swedish data by the public health agency. [0] The mobility showed a similar curve, creeping back up to 10% less than baseline early June and staying there. [1] [0]: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa/page/page_0/ https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6... [1]: https://www.teliacompany.com/sv/om-foretaget/uppdatering/mobility-analysis/ https://www.teliacompany.com/sv/om-foretaget/uppdatering/mob...
- hristov 6y ago
  Why do you say this is "orthoganal to my claims"? It seems pretty supportive of my claims. Looks like swedes moved around less which means that they changed their behavior due to covid which resulted in less non-covid deaths than previous years.
agarden 6y ago
Do you have a source on your claim that Swedes have changed their behavior?
- hristov 6y ago
  Yes I do. For example, this is an article from the company that owns all of Swedens large airports saying traffic fell by 87%. https://www.swedavia.com/visby/press/swedavias-traffic-statistics-for-july-2020-passenger-volume-down-87-per-cent/ https://www.swedavia.com/visby/press/swedavias-traffic-stati... Here you can see that in september 2020 road traffic accidents fell sharply from the september average of the previous years. https://www.ssb.no/en/vtu https://www.ssb.no/en/vtu
  - oxymoron 6y ago
    You claimed that we did that in response to being scared by “the disastrous herd immunity strategy”. Week by week data (reported on in the weekly reports here: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/folkhalsorapportering-statistik/statistik-a-o/sjukdomsstatistik/covid-19-veckorapporter/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/folkhalsorapportering-st...) shows that it happened as soon as restrictions were announced though, so that doesn’t actually support your thesis.
- phreeza 6y ago
  Certainly not conclusive proof, but Google Mobility data shows Swedes are using public transport -28% compared to pre-pandemic levels: https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-10-18_SE_Mobility_Report_en.pdf https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-10-18_SE_Mobil... This is a stronger effect than in many other countries with official measures in place, e.g. Germany has -21% and was at -8% before case numbers started spiking again a few weeks ago.
oxymoron 6y ago
Anecdotally, we were all scared shitless in March and that’s when there was a drastic change in behavior. People stayed at home and stopped traveling. The period after which you describe is actually the period in which travel restrictions was relaxed, and people became _less_ careful. More formally, the decline after mid April was probably due to widespread immunity and weather effects. That’s only my conclusion, but based on the following: * https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/e/estimates-of-the-peak-day-and-the-number-of-infected-individuals-during-the-covid-19-outbreak-in-the-stockholm-region-sweden-february--april-2020/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publ... - A model releases mid april bases on march data which accurately placed the peak around mid april. It’s a standard SEIR model, so it predicts that it tapers off only based on population immunity. * https://news.ki.se/immunity-to-covid-19-is-probably-higher-than-tests-have-shown https://news.ki.se/immunity-to-covid-19-is-probably-higher-t... - Study showing much higher incidence of T-cell immunity in Stockholm than the incidence of individuals with anti bodies, indicating that the true population immunity is much higher than what anti body studies will show * https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6505/846 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6505/846 - Another mathematical modeling study, based loosely on Stockholm dynamics, which demonstrates that hers immunity thresholds may be much lower when accounting for social stratification. In particular, Sweden asked ages 70+ to isolate themselves, so it’s likely the case that immunity rates are much lower in that group. * Finally, warm weather surely helped drive down the spread.

Gwypaas 6y ago

Both mobility data and the curves of ICU cases and deaths, which are fairly reliable proxies for the infection level in the society regardless of variations in testing capacity, are orthogonal to your claims. ICU cases peaked early april, deaths a week later, then a fatter tail happened due to a less restrictive approach. See the official Swedish data by the public health agency. [0] The mobility showed a similar curve, creeping back up to 10% less than baseline early June and staying there. [1] [0]: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa/page/page_0/ https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6... [1]: https://www.teliacompany.com/sv/om-foretaget/uppdatering/mobility-analysis/ https://www.teliacompany.com/sv/om-foretaget/uppdatering/mob...

hristov 6y ago
Why do you say this is "orthoganal to my claims"? It seems pretty supportive of my claims. Looks like swedes moved around less which means that they changed their behavior due to covid which resulted in less non-covid deaths than previous years.

agarden 6y ago

Do you have a source on your claim that Swedes have changed their behavior?

hristov 6y ago
Yes I do. For example, this is an article from the company that owns all of Swedens large airports saying traffic fell by 87%. https://www.swedavia.com/visby/press/swedavias-traffic-statistics-for-july-2020-passenger-volume-down-87-per-cent/ https://www.swedavia.com/visby/press/swedavias-traffic-stati... Here you can see that in september 2020 road traffic accidents fell sharply from the september average of the previous years. https://www.ssb.no/en/vtu https://www.ssb.no/en/vtu
- oxymoron 6y ago
  You claimed that we did that in response to being scared by “the disastrous herd immunity strategy”. Week by week data (reported on in the weekly reports here: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/folkhalsorapportering-statistik/statistik-a-o/sjukdomsstatistik/covid-19-veckorapporter/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/folkhalsorapportering-st...) shows that it happened as soon as restrictions were announced though, so that doesn’t actually support your thesis.
phreeza 6y ago
Certainly not conclusive proof, but Google Mobility data shows Swedes are using public transport -28% compared to pre-pandemic levels: https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-10-18_SE_Mobility_Report_en.pdf https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-10-18_SE_Mobil... This is a stronger effect than in many other countries with official measures in place, e.g. Germany has -21% and was at -8% before case numbers started spiking again a few weeks ago.

oxymoron 6y ago

Anecdotally, we were all scared shitless in March and that’s when there was a drastic change in behavior. People stayed at home and stopped traveling. The period after which you describe is actually the period in which travel restrictions was relaxed, and people became _less_ careful. More formally, the decline after mid April was probably due to widespread immunity and weather effects. That’s only my conclusion, but based on the following: * https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/e/estimates-of-the-peak-day-and-the-number-of-infected-individuals-during-the-covid-19-outbreak-in-the-stockholm-region-sweden-february--april-2020/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publ... - A model releases mid april bases on march data which accurately placed the peak around mid april. It’s a standard SEIR model, so it predicts that it tapers off only based on population immunity. * https://news.ki.se/immunity-to-covid-19-is-probably-higher-than-tests-have-shown https://news.ki.se/immunity-to-covid-19-is-probably-higher-t... - Study showing much higher incidence of T-cell immunity in Stockholm than the incidence of individuals with anti bodies, indicating that the true population immunity is much higher than what anti body studies will show * https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6505/846 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6505/846 - Another mathematical modeling study, based loosely on Stockholm dynamics, which demonstrates that hers immunity thresholds may be much lower when accounting for social stratification. In particular, Sweden asked ages 70+ to isolate themselves, so it’s likely the case that immunity rates are much lower in that group. * Finally, warm weather surely helped drive down the spread.