5 ms·

A New World Health Organization Report Once Again Proves Sweden Right

28 points by tomohawk 4y ago

spupe 4y ago
Very misleading analysis here. First of all, the obvious: Sweden should not be compared with an average European country, but with its peers. It is richer and has a much different weather and population density compared to all the big countries which the author incessantly compares it to. And in fact, if you compare Sweden with its Scandinavian peers, it fared much worse. In the only part where he addresses it, he says this: > Although the determination of pro-mandate fanatics to exclusively compare Sweden to other Scandinavian countries is nonsensical, the 2021 excess mortality rates show Sweden with lower numbers than both Finland and Denmark. Well, when a bigger proportion of your vulnerable population died in 2020, it's not surprising that in the subsequent year you see a decrease. The author also seems confused about the causes for the lockdowns in all the other countries. Unlike Sweden, most of them reached a threshold where further spread of the disease would mean hospitals exceed capacity. It's simply incorrect to use the number of deaths as the single measure of effectiveness of lockdowns, as the true counterfactual would be countries that did no lockdowns and also had their healthcare system collapse.
- pigeonhole123 4y ago
  I seem to remember Sweden had similar excess mortality in 2018 and 2020. Comparing with the "peers" you see fit is just as much cherrypicking as comparing with other European countries. Comparing against the same country should correct for some of the obvious confounding factors of comparing a whole country to another.
  - spupe 4y ago
    > Comparing with the "peers" you see fit is just as much cherrypicking as comparing with other European countries. I disagree. If you imagine almost any variable - wealth, education, weather, socialization patterns -, Sweden is vastly more different from Italy than from Finland. Any sensible analysis has to take into account what a valid comparison really is.
    - pigeonhole123 4y ago
      Yes but we have no way of quantifying that similarity except the data itself. Better to look at the country's own performance in 2018 and not have to pretend to be able to correct for any of the other of a multitude of factors.
      - spupe 4y ago
        It's not as simple as that. First of all, why pick only 2018, but not 2019, or in fact an average of previous years? Second problem is that 2020 was an exceptional year. People contacted each other less, so we expect them to die less from many other causes (traffic accidents, other transmissible diseases, etc).
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  >Very misleading analysis here. First of all, the obvious: Sweden should not be compared with an average European country, but with its peers. This is an interesting question, and it really depends on what question you are trying to answer with with the comparison. If you are trying to ask if Sweden could have done more, then I think your suggestion is correct. If you are trying to ask if Sweden did enough then the comparison may be different. For example, if the goal was to not have a huge spike in excess deaths, it seems like their approach worked well.
- native_samples 4y ago
  It's not misleading. Sweden's "peers" are all rich western countries, because there's nothing different about the Nordics that a virus would care about. That's why he ridicules this illogical form of obfuscation by pro-maskers/pro-lockdowners: it's just obviously nonsense on its face but it's the only thing left they can think of, so the blind insistence that everyone ignore data proving them wrong remains. "Unlike Sweden, most of them reached a threshold where further spread of the disease would mean hospitals exceed capacity" No they didn't. Epidemiologists and their models claimed such thresholds would be reached but those models were wrong about everything. It never actually happened. Look at Switzerland for an obvious counter example. Lockdowns happened, then they didn't, but hospitals never went above 80% utilization no matter what. Or at the UK. Freedom day came and the experts said it was an unethical experiment on the entire world because cases would surely soar. They dropped dramatically and immediately. "It's simply incorrect to use the number of deaths as the single measure of effectiveness of lockdowns" Reducing that one number was the entire justification for lockdowns! Now it's "simply incorrect" to observe that there is no link between them. Absurd.
  - spupe 4y ago
    > It's not misleading. Sweden's "peers" are all rich western countries, because there's nothing different about the Nordics that a virus would care about. Sweden's GDP per capita is more than double of Portugal and 40% bigger than Italy, two countries prominently noted in his analysis. There are two huge factors here other than wealth that are vastly different between Scandinavian countries and the rest of Europe: socialization patterns and weather, with both tending to make the virus way less likely to spread in the North. > Epidemiologists and their models claimed such thresholds would be reached but those models were wrong about everything. It never actually happened. Italy's healthcare system was overwhelmed early on in the epidemic, causing a ton of deaths, and hospitals all over the world approached 100% ICU capacity at several points in the last two years. I don't know where you pulled your numbers from, but they are wrong, and so is your conclusion. >> "It's simply incorrect to use the number of deaths as the single measure of effectiveness of lockdowns" > Reducing that one number was the entire justification for lockdowns! Now it's "simply incorrect" to observe that there is no link between them. Absurd. It's basic logic: if we had to use lockdowns in the most extreme cases where hospitals were reaching capacity, then these countries would have experienced a higher death rate regardless of what they did. The question is whether the lockdowns had any effect on easing the burdens in the hospitals or not, but you cannot compare Portugal with Sweden and say "oh hey, more people died in Portugal and they did a lockdown, therefore lockdowns are bad/useless".
RappingBoomer 4y ago
the most interesting thing about covid is how it revealed that the corpgovmedia complex is pretty much untrustworthy whenever they seize upon a certain narrative...after that point is reached, when their credibility is at stake, they will never back down and will only double down, no matter the evidence, at least until a certain number of years has passed....
s1artibartfast 4y ago
If I understand the charts correctly, they are excess deaths per 100k people. It would be also be interesting to see excess mortality as a percent of baseline mortality. This would go a long way to address demographic differences between countries. Looking at Sweden alone, it appears that the baseline mortality rate is 901/100k. Based on this, 50 excess deaths would be about a 5.5% spike.
zumu 4y ago
Looks like the author is a contributor to this: https://brownstone.org/ https://brownstone.org/ which was founded to be critical of the global COVID response and generally push anti-vaxx theories.
- tomohawk 4y ago
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  It is pretty clear they they are critical of the global covid response from the article title... That said it looks pretty clear from the data that Sweden did fine with its personal discretion policy. That doesn't mean the policy would have translated well to poorer or more dense than countries either though.
  - pierrebai 4y ago
    From somewhere else [1]: "If you think that lockdowns, travel bans, and mask mandates were the right approach, then you probably see Sweden as failure. Unlike almost every other wealthy nation, it held off doing those things. And the result was a much higher death rate than its neighbors Norway and Denmark. Approximately 13,000 Swedes have died since the beginning of the pandemic — half of them in nursing homes. In comparison, only about 700 Norwegians have died of COVID-19." In that same article, it says Sweden "strategy surrounded physical distancing, limiting large gatherings, and staying home while you’re sick." IOW, pick your facts, pick your facts! You can have any opinion if you pick your facts. [1] https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/edu-coronavirus-crime-food/sweden-covid https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-br...
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      Was this addressed to me? Im not sure how this relates to my comment. IF you are asking me to pick my fact between an analysis of verifiable deaths per capita by the WHO or a crappy KCRW article, I go with the WHO. KCRW is trying to compare countries without even thinking about the population difference. It also ignores that countries differ in when they report covid as a leading cause of death.
pierrebai 4y ago
Weird analysis. I mean, if you believe the analysis, then what you must conclude is that lock-down, isolation and masks cause more COVID mortality? Since this seems hard to believe, then the conclusion is that Sweden performance must be unrelated, surely?
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  You dont have to draw that conclusion at all. All you have to believe is: 1) Countries and situations have different levels of risk from covid, and 2) Lockdowns, isolation, and masks are not necessary to achieve low mortality in every single situation. or 3) The approach of informing individuals and letting them make personal choices was effective at lowering mortality in Sweden. Switzerland was another country that took a more individual based approach and is also at the bottom of the list.
- native_samples 4y ago

28 points by tomohawk 4y ago

Very misleading analysis here. First of all, the obvious: Sweden should not be compared with an average European country, but with its peers. It is richer and has a much different weather and population density compared to all the big countries which the author incessantly compares it to. And in fact, if you compare Sweden with its Scandinavian peers, it fared much worse. In the only part where he addresses it, he says this: > Although the determination of pro-mandate fanatics to exclusively compare Sweden to other Scandinavian countries is nonsensical, the 2021 excess mortality rates show Sweden with lower numbers than both Finland and Denmark. Well, when a bigger proportion of your vulnerable population died in 2020, it's not surprising that in the subsequent year you see a decrease. The author also seems confused about the causes for the lockdowns in all the other countries. Unlike Sweden, most of them reached a threshold where further spread of the disease would mean hospitals exceed capacity. It's simply incorrect to use the number of deaths as the single measure of effectiveness of lockdowns, as the true counterfactual would be countries that did no lockdowns and also had their healthcare system collapse.

pigeonhole123 4y ago
I seem to remember Sweden had similar excess mortality in 2018 and 2020. Comparing with the "peers" you see fit is just as much cherrypicking as comparing with other European countries. Comparing against the same country should correct for some of the obvious confounding factors of comparing a whole country to another.
- spupe 4y ago
  > Comparing with the "peers" you see fit is just as much cherrypicking as comparing with other European countries. I disagree. If you imagine almost any variable - wealth, education, weather, socialization patterns -, Sweden is vastly more different from Italy than from Finland. Any sensible analysis has to take into account what a valid comparison really is.
  - pigeonhole123 4y ago
    Yes but we have no way of quantifying that similarity except the data itself. Better to look at the country's own performance in 2018 and not have to pretend to be able to correct for any of the other of a multitude of factors.
    - spupe 4y ago
      It's not as simple as that. First of all, why pick only 2018, but not 2019, or in fact an average of previous years? Second problem is that 2020 was an exceptional year. People contacted each other less, so we expect them to die less from many other causes (traffic accidents, other transmissible diseases, etc).
s1artibartfast 4y ago
>Very misleading analysis here. First of all, the obvious: Sweden should not be compared with an average European country, but with its peers. This is an interesting question, and it really depends on what question you are trying to answer with with the comparison. If you are trying to ask if Sweden could have done more, then I think your suggestion is correct. If you are trying to ask if Sweden did enough then the comparison may be different. For example, if the goal was to not have a huge spike in excess deaths, it seems like their approach worked well.
native_samples 4y ago
It's not misleading. Sweden's "peers" are all rich western countries, because there's nothing different about the Nordics that a virus would care about. That's why he ridicules this illogical form of obfuscation by pro-maskers/pro-lockdowners: it's just obviously nonsense on its face but it's the only thing left they can think of, so the blind insistence that everyone ignore data proving them wrong remains. "Unlike Sweden, most of them reached a threshold where further spread of the disease would mean hospitals exceed capacity" No they didn't. Epidemiologists and their models claimed such thresholds would be reached but those models were wrong about everything. It never actually happened. Look at Switzerland for an obvious counter example. Lockdowns happened, then they didn't, but hospitals never went above 80% utilization no matter what. Or at the UK. Freedom day came and the experts said it was an unethical experiment on the entire world because cases would surely soar. They dropped dramatically and immediately. "It's simply incorrect to use the number of deaths as the single measure of effectiveness of lockdowns" Reducing that one number was the entire justification for lockdowns! Now it's "simply incorrect" to observe that there is no link between them. Absurd.
- spupe 4y ago
  > It's not misleading. Sweden's "peers" are all rich western countries, because there's nothing different about the Nordics that a virus would care about. Sweden's GDP per capita is more than double of Portugal and 40% bigger than Italy, two countries prominently noted in his analysis. There are two huge factors here other than wealth that are vastly different between Scandinavian countries and the rest of Europe: socialization patterns and weather, with both tending to make the virus way less likely to spread in the North. > Epidemiologists and their models claimed such thresholds would be reached but those models were wrong about everything. It never actually happened. Italy's healthcare system was overwhelmed early on in the epidemic, causing a ton of deaths, and hospitals all over the world approached 100% ICU capacity at several points in the last two years. I don't know where you pulled your numbers from, but they are wrong, and so is your conclusion. >> "It's simply incorrect to use the number of deaths as the single measure of effectiveness of lockdowns" > Reducing that one number was the entire justification for lockdowns! Now it's "simply incorrect" to observe that there is no link between them. Absurd. It's basic logic: if we had to use lockdowns in the most extreme cases where hospitals were reaching capacity, then these countries would have experienced a higher death rate regardless of what they did. The question is whether the lockdowns had any effect on easing the burdens in the hospitals or not, but you cannot compare Portugal with Sweden and say "oh hey, more people died in Portugal and they did a lockdown, therefore lockdowns are bad/useless".

RappingBoomer 4y ago

the most interesting thing about covid is how it revealed that the corpgovmedia complex is pretty much untrustworthy whenever they seize upon a certain narrative...after that point is reached, when their credibility is at stake, they will never back down and will only double down, no matter the evidence, at least until a certain number of years has passed....

s1artibartfast 4y ago

If I understand the charts correctly, they are excess deaths per 100k people. It would be also be interesting to see excess mortality as a percent of baseline mortality. This would go a long way to address demographic differences between countries. Looking at Sweden alone, it appears that the baseline mortality rate is 901/100k. Based on this, 50 excess deaths would be about a 5.5% spike.

zumu 4y ago

Looks like the author is a contributor to this: https://brownstone.org/ https://brownstone.org/ which was founded to be critical of the global COVID response and generally push anti-vaxx theories.

tomohawk 4y ago
s1artibartfast 4y ago
It is pretty clear they they are critical of the global covid response from the article title... That said it looks pretty clear from the data that Sweden did fine with its personal discretion policy. That doesn't mean the policy would have translated well to poorer or more dense than countries either though.
- pierrebai 4y ago
  From somewhere else [1]: "If you think that lockdowns, travel bans, and mask mandates were the right approach, then you probably see Sweden as failure. Unlike almost every other wealthy nation, it held off doing those things. And the result was a much higher death rate than its neighbors Norway and Denmark. Approximately 13,000 Swedes have died since the beginning of the pandemic — half of them in nursing homes. In comparison, only about 700 Norwegians have died of COVID-19." In that same article, it says Sweden "strategy surrounded physical distancing, limiting large gatherings, and staying home while you’re sick." IOW, pick your facts, pick your facts! You can have any opinion if you pick your facts. [1] https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/edu-coronavirus-crime-food/sweden-covid https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-br...
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    Was this addressed to me? Im not sure how this relates to my comment. IF you are asking me to pick my fact between an analysis of verifiable deaths per capita by the WHO or a crappy KCRW article, I go with the WHO. KCRW is trying to compare countries without even thinking about the population difference. It also ignores that countries differ in when they report covid as a leading cause of death.

pierrebai 4y ago

Weird analysis. I mean, if you believe the analysis, then what you must conclude is that lock-down, isolation and masks cause more COVID mortality? Since this seems hard to believe, then the conclusion is that Sweden performance must be unrelated, surely?

s1artibartfast 4y ago
You dont have to draw that conclusion at all. All you have to believe is: 1) Countries and situations have different levels of risk from covid, and 2) Lockdowns, isolation, and masks are not necessary to achieve low mortality in every single situation. or 3) The approach of informing individuals and letting them make personal choices was effective at lowering mortality in Sweden. Switzerland was another country that took a more individual based approach and is also at the bottom of the list.
native_samples 4y ago