4 ms·

Off topic I know but I can't let the idea that Sweden's death rate wasn't significantly different to other similar nations with stricter restrictions slide - th

Off topic I know but I can't let the idea that Sweden's death rate wasn't significantly different to other similar nations with stricter restrictions slide - that was true only for people under 70. I don't know about you but I intend to be fully fit & healthy and living a meaningful existence at 70 that I don't wish to have cut short because public health measures in a crisis are insufficient. Further, talk to some frontline healthcare workers about the extreme case load they had to deal with.

kwhitefoot 4y ago
Sweden's total COVID death rate per unit population is three times that of neighbouring Norway. 190 per 100k versus 65 per 100k It wasn't just the over 70s in Sweden who were dying. See https://www.vg.no/spesial/corona/verden/ https://www.vg.no/spesial/corona/verden/
- wizofaus 4y ago
  I can only assume your Norwegian is a lot better than mine. But I had read from a reliable source that excluding those over 70 the excess death rate (all causes) in Sweden wasn't notably higher than other Nordic countries.
  - evgen 4y ago
    So if you exclude the largest category of deaths and cherry-pick from the remaining data you think a point is being made? Sweden and Norway has similar covid death rates for children aged 6-8, therefore the public health policy differences between the two countries had no effect? Do you know what actually was the same among the various Scandinavian countries? The economic impact of covid. Swedish policy failures that ended up killing more people did not provide the expected economic benefit. Sweden fucked up and their population paid the price.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      I think you need to go back and re-read what I wrote. I quite clearly objected to omitting deaths of those over 70.
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    I can't say anything about the excess death rate. My source is the VG webpage I included. It seems unlikely that there are enough people over 70 to make a 3 to 1 difference between the two countries. Perhaps someone can provide a reference to correct me.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      It's likely to be somewhere in the order of 20% (that's the figure for over 65s for Europe as a whole). Excess deaths is definitely a better measure than those attributed to Covid - e.g. it was reported in Australia deaths were recorded as due to covid in any case that a hospital patient tested +ve even if the immediate cause of death was unrelated - i.e. they almost certainly would have died anyway regardless of Covid.
      - kwhitefoot 4y ago
        Our excess death rate in Norway was negative.
  - hmlongco 4y ago
    Yeah, let's exclude the numbers for those over 70. Not like they're actually people or anything...
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  That’s death attributed to Covid. If you look at total excess mortality you will see that Sweden mostly did fine and it’s probably be even better if you look at long term trend. Obviously no country wants to talk too much about it. Who wants to tell their population than the sacrifice they made were useless? I don’t know about the situation in the USA where everything seemed very political and what was done was far less stringent than in my own country but here in France it was pretty obvious that most of the measures were taken haphazardly mostly to placate an ageing population. It was very funny. The media kept blaming the young socialising for cases when it was painfully obvious that most contaminations came from schools.
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    Got some numbers and a reference?
woweoe 4y ago
The death rate for elderly people was attributed to poor safeguards in care homes by the Swedish Health Authority.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  What % of people over 70 are in care homes (in Australia it's about 6% and we apparently have one of the highest rates in the world)? Pretty sure if it were just those in care homes dying from COVID it would barely show up in the stats.

kwhitefoot 4y ago

Sweden's total COVID death rate per unit population is three times that of neighbouring Norway. 190 per 100k versus 65 per 100k It wasn't just the over 70s in Sweden who were dying. See https://www.vg.no/spesial/corona/verden/ https://www.vg.no/spesial/corona/verden/

wizofaus 4y ago
I can only assume your Norwegian is a lot better than mine. But I had read from a reliable source that excluding those over 70 the excess death rate (all causes) in Sweden wasn't notably higher than other Nordic countries.
- evgen 4y ago
  So if you exclude the largest category of deaths and cherry-pick from the remaining data you think a point is being made? Sweden and Norway has similar covid death rates for children aged 6-8, therefore the public health policy differences between the two countries had no effect? Do you know what actually was the same among the various Scandinavian countries? The economic impact of covid. Swedish policy failures that ended up killing more people did not provide the expected economic benefit. Sweden fucked up and their population paid the price.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    I think you need to go back and re-read what I wrote. I quite clearly objected to omitting deaths of those over 70.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  I can't say anything about the excess death rate. My source is the VG webpage I included. It seems unlikely that there are enough people over 70 to make a 3 to 1 difference between the two countries. Perhaps someone can provide a reference to correct me.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    It's likely to be somewhere in the order of 20% (that's the figure for over 65s for Europe as a whole). Excess deaths is definitely a better measure than those attributed to Covid - e.g. it was reported in Australia deaths were recorded as due to covid in any case that a hospital patient tested +ve even if the immediate cause of death was unrelated - i.e. they almost certainly would have died anyway regardless of Covid.
    - kwhitefoot 4y ago
      Our excess death rate in Norway was negative.
- hmlongco 4y ago
  Yeah, let's exclude the numbers for those over 70. Not like they're actually people or anything...
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
That’s death attributed to Covid. If you look at total excess mortality you will see that Sweden mostly did fine and it’s probably be even better if you look at long term trend. Obviously no country wants to talk too much about it. Who wants to tell their population than the sacrifice they made were useless? I don’t know about the situation in the USA where everything seemed very political and what was done was far less stringent than in my own country but here in France it was pretty obvious that most of the measures were taken haphazardly mostly to placate an ageing population. It was very funny. The media kept blaming the young socialising for cases when it was painfully obvious that most contaminations came from schools.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  Got some numbers and a reference?

woweoe 4y ago

The death rate for elderly people was attributed to poor safeguards in care homes by the Swedish Health Authority.

wizofaus 4y ago
What % of people over 70 are in care homes (in Australia it's about 6% and we apparently have one of the highest rates in the world)? Pretty sure if it were just those in care homes dying from COVID it would barely show up in the stats.