5 ms·

> Which is why good analysis looks at excess deaths (ie, compared to the average over the last few years). The excess mortality graph you link to only goes bac

> Which is why good analysis looks at excess deaths (ie, compared to the average over the last few years). The excess mortality graph you link to only goes back 19 months, not a few years. Here's an article which [0] references a paper which says that over the past 4 years there's no difference between all cause mortality in Sweden and Norway: > "Our study shows that all-cause mortality was largely unchanged during the epidemic as compared to the previous four years in Norway and Sweden, two countries which employed very different strategies against the epidemic," emphasize study authors in this medRxiv paper. It may be that Sweden had more older people than Norway at the beginning of the pandemic, i.e. a more vulnerable population. Also they admitted to doing a poor job early on in nursing homes. I think you are simplifying this too much, insisting that it is valid to come to a conclusion on lockdowns based on a comparison of Sweden to two nearby countries. That doesn't exactly explain why a bunch of countries like the U.K., France, Spain, and Portugal that did lockdown had more per-capita deaths than Sweden. It ends up looking like you cherry picked your data, ignoring contradictory data, and not really explaining anything. About Dr. Bhatt, from the same article you quoted: > Samir Bhatt, professor of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen, and one of the team at Imperial College who pushed the UK's lockdown strategy. It's too bad nobody asked him why the the U.K. with lockdowns had more deaths that Sweden without lockdowns. [0] https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201116/Study-compares-deaths-in-Sweden-and-Norway-before-and-after-COVID-pandemic.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201116/Study-compares-de...

HWR_14 5y ago
> The excess mortality graph you link to only goes back 19 months, not a few years. The excess mortality graph only goes back 19 months, because that's when COVID start. It uses excess mortality, so those numbers are based on numbers in the previous years. It's like looking at a chart showing inflation over the past year and saying "this says nothing about the prices two years ago!" They're used to compute the numbers on the chart, not be shown on the chart.
- nl 5y ago
  Exactly. I don't really understand what they are thinking there.
- mikem170 5y ago
  I mentioned this because the comment I was responding to was factually incorrect when they states that Sweden mortality rate was worse than Norway over the past few years. It was not. The article I linked to explains the significance, which I tried to sum up in my comment: > In other words, excess mortality from COVID-19 may be less conspicuous than previously perceived in Sweden, while mortality displacement may be used to explain at least part of the observed findings. > More specifically, mortality displacement implies temporarily increased mortality (i.e., excess mortality) in a certain population as a result of external events, which likely arises because individuals in vulnerable groups die weeks or months earlier than they would otherwise – primarily due to the timing or severity of the unusual external event. The excess mortality is, thus, predated or followed by time periods of lower than expected mortality. In other words, Sweden was better than Norway at keeping older people alive before the pandemic. Therefore during the pandemic there were more older people in Sweden. Older people are notably more vulnerable. This may be the explanation why more people died of covid in Sweden. It alludes to there being more factors involved than just the nearness of two countries and lockdown protocols. Another way of saying this, exaggerated for clarity: More people will die of covid in a country of 80 year olds than in a country of 20 year olds. Remember that only 1 out of 695 people have dies from covid in Sweden since the start of the pandemic [0], two thirds of them over 80 years old [1]. This is consistent with the above information. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden-by-age-groups/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-corona...

HWR_14 5y ago

> The excess mortality graph you link to only goes back 19 months, not a few years. The excess mortality graph only goes back 19 months, because that's when COVID start. It uses excess mortality, so those numbers are based on numbers in the previous years. It's like looking at a chart showing inflation over the past year and saying "this says nothing about the prices two years ago!" They're used to compute the numbers on the chart, not be shown on the chart.

nl 5y ago
Exactly. I don't really understand what they are thinking there.
mikem170 5y ago
I mentioned this because the comment I was responding to was factually incorrect when they states that Sweden mortality rate was worse than Norway over the past few years. It was not. The article I linked to explains the significance, which I tried to sum up in my comment: > In other words, excess mortality from COVID-19 may be less conspicuous than previously perceived in Sweden, while mortality displacement may be used to explain at least part of the observed findings. > More specifically, mortality displacement implies temporarily increased mortality (i.e., excess mortality) in a certain population as a result of external events, which likely arises because individuals in vulnerable groups die weeks or months earlier than they would otherwise – primarily due to the timing or severity of the unusual external event. The excess mortality is, thus, predated or followed by time periods of lower than expected mortality. In other words, Sweden was better than Norway at keeping older people alive before the pandemic. Therefore during the pandemic there were more older people in Sweden. Older people are notably more vulnerable. This may be the explanation why more people died of covid in Sweden. It alludes to there being more factors involved than just the nearness of two countries and lockdown protocols. Another way of saying this, exaggerated for clarity: More people will die of covid in a country of 80 year olds than in a country of 20 year olds. Remember that only 1 out of 695 people have dies from covid in Sweden since the start of the pandemic [0], two thirds of them over 80 years old [1]. This is consistent with the above information. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden-by-age-groups/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-corona...