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https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=SWE~NOR~DNK~FIN~DEU~EST&region=World&deathsMetric=true

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=SWE~NOR~DNK~FIN~DEU~EST&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&pickerSort=desc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS... Here is the Swedish COVID death toll per million plotted against comparable countries in Northern Europe. Sweden is a clear outlier, and there is little debate that their lax strategy was the reason. What are you suggesting exactly? That old people with medical issues are quarantined in empty hotels? So we can protect the civil liberties of those who are less vulnerable?

zelos 6y ago
It would be interesting to determine the effects of things like population density and urbanisation on the death rate. Sweden is a pretty sparsely populated country I think, which presumably acts to reduce the rate of spreading?
- ptaipale 6y ago
  Sweden has a population density and urbanisation rate that is somewhat higher than Norway or Finland, but Denmark is far more dense. However, Sweden's infection rate is far higher than Denmark's. Of course here we are comparing a fairly small data set. But fortunately our friends at Our World In Data have collected a nice graph of it: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-population-density?minPopulationFilter=1000000&time=latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-po... As you can see, it's not easy to draw a trendline that would show that a higher population density would produce higher covid infection rate. Basically, the pattern is what you get from a shotgun.
  - collyw 6y ago
    Population density is a red herring on it's own. Spain has a relatively low population density, but the cities are probably some of the most dense in Europe. Likewise 1/3 of Swedes live in cities, while there are huge areas that are very sparsely populated in the north.
EvanRed 6y ago
You should add more countries to your chart https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=SWE~NOR~DNK~FIN~DEU~EST~GBR~SMR~BEL~SVN~BIH~ITA~MKD~PER~POL~AND~ESP~MNE~BGR~CZE~FRA&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=total_deaths_per_million&pickerSort=desc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS... Clearly Sweden is not the outlier, more the medium as the following are worse Belgium, Spain, Bulgaria, Uk, Czech, France
- hef19898 6y ago
  All of these countries are not the right baseline to compare against. Funny, how positive shutdown results are hand waved away with population density and so on, while Sweden never gets compared against the other Scandinavian countries Finland and Norway. I know Finland is not technically Scandinavia, but a better to compare Sweden against than Denmark.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Why is it better to compare Sweden against Finland, which is not Scandinavia, than to Denmark, which is?
    - hef19898 6y ago
      Similar population density, similar climate, similar lifestyle. Denmark is to far south and to small for that. Denmark more closely resembles, say, Belgium or some northern states in Germany.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - ptaipale 6y ago
      Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland form an entity that has shared history, culture, legislation and many other traits that make them comparable. For decades, the legislation, regulation etc in the countries has been developed together (often with Sweden as the progressive model that others are following, though that has now turned around a bit). Geographically it is not so important that there is a bit of sea between Sweden and Finland (Scandinavia vs. Fennoscandia); this sea used to be something that connects, not something that differentiates between the lands.
qwytw 6y ago
You absolutely cherry picked the countries in that list. If Estonia is there so should be Lithuania and Latvia (to which Estonia is much more comparable economically and to a large degree socially than to the Nordic countries). And if Germany is there so should be Austria and Switzerland (small, highly developed and not that much less densely populated than Sweden if you only look at the areas where most people live) and so should France & UK (smaller populations than Germany, similar level of economic development). https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=SWE~NOR~DNK~FIN~DEU~EST~GBR~CHE~AUT~FRA~LVA~LTU&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&pickerSort=desc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS... and in this list Sweden while very badly hit is no away an outlier amongst the most affected countries.

zelos 6y ago

It would be interesting to determine the effects of things like population density and urbanisation on the death rate. Sweden is a pretty sparsely populated country I think, which presumably acts to reduce the rate of spreading?

ptaipale 6y ago
Sweden has a population density and urbanisation rate that is somewhat higher than Norway or Finland, but Denmark is far more dense. However, Sweden's infection rate is far higher than Denmark's. Of course here we are comparing a fairly small data set. But fortunately our friends at Our World In Data have collected a nice graph of it: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-population-density?minPopulationFilter=1000000&time=latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-po... As you can see, it's not easy to draw a trendline that would show that a higher population density would produce higher covid infection rate. Basically, the pattern is what you get from a shotgun.
- collyw 6y ago
  Population density is a red herring on it's own. Spain has a relatively low population density, but the cities are probably some of the most dense in Europe. Likewise 1/3 of Swedes live in cities, while there are huge areas that are very sparsely populated in the north.

EvanRed 6y ago

You should add more countries to your chart https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=SWE~NOR~DNK~FIN~DEU~EST~GBR~SMR~BEL~SVN~BIH~ITA~MKD~PER~POL~AND~ESP~MNE~BGR~CZE~FRA&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=total_deaths_per_million&pickerSort=desc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS... Clearly Sweden is not the outlier, more the medium as the following are worse Belgium, Spain, Bulgaria, Uk, Czech, France

hef19898 6y ago
All of these countries are not the right baseline to compare against. Funny, how positive shutdown results are hand waved away with population density and so on, while Sweden never gets compared against the other Scandinavian countries Finland and Norway. I know Finland is not technically Scandinavia, but a better to compare Sweden against than Denmark.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Why is it better to compare Sweden against Finland, which is not Scandinavia, than to Denmark, which is?
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Similar population density, similar climate, similar lifestyle. Denmark is to far south and to small for that. Denmark more closely resembles, say, Belgium or some northern states in Germany.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ptaipale 6y ago
    Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland form an entity that has shared history, culture, legislation and many other traits that make them comparable. For decades, the legislation, regulation etc in the countries has been developed together (often with Sweden as the progressive model that others are following, though that has now turned around a bit). Geographically it is not so important that there is a bit of sea between Sweden and Finland (Scandinavia vs. Fennoscandia); this sea used to be something that connects, not something that differentiates between the lands.

qwytw 6y ago

You absolutely cherry picked the countries in that list. If Estonia is there so should be Lithuania and Latvia (to which Estonia is much more comparable economically and to a large degree socially than to the Nordic countries). And if Germany is there so should be Austria and Switzerland (small, highly developed and not that much less densely populated than Sweden if you only look at the areas where most people live) and so should France & UK (smaller populations than Germany, similar level of economic development). https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=SWE~NOR~DNK~FIN~DEU~EST~GBR~CHE~AUT~FRA~LVA~LTU&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&pickerSort=desc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS... and in this list Sweden while very badly hit is no away an outlier amongst the most affected countries.