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Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

nytimes.com

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Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#61

Post by makomk »

frereubu wrote: post #5

One thing missing from this report is that a large proportion of the deaths were in care homes, and ministers have publicly stated that not entirely locking down care homes from the outset was a big mistake. If they had done this, the figures may well not look nearly as bad. Also, what will count is not the first few months but the entire lifetime of this pandemic. I'll be interested to see where countries are a year…

This. It's pretty obvious at this point that a general lockdown is worthless as a replacement for locking down care homes specifically - Spain had one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe but massively screwed up their handling of their care homes, and ended up with an even worse per-capital death toll than Sweden. Unfortunately, mainstream media publications have been spinning this instead as evidence that herd immunity wouldn't work by taking the incredibly high infection fatality rate from Spain, scaling it up, and claiming this is the best measure of how many people would die to achieve herd immunity.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#62

Post by usrusr »

frereubu wrote: post #5

One thing missing from this report is that a large proportion of the deaths were in care homes, and ministers have publicly stated that not entirely locking down care homes from the outset was a big mistake. If they had done this, the figures may well not look nearly as bad. Also, what will count is not the first few months but the entire lifetime of this pandemic. I'll be interested to see where countries are a year…

How do you completely lock down a care home? It's a labor-intensive industry and you can't just put care on hold for a few weeks like you could with an assembly line. The only way to keep a virus like this away from care homes is to keep it away from friends and families of caretakers and from their friends and families. You can't focus prevention when you are dealing with presymptomatic spread.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#63

Post by Svip »

akmarinov wrote: post #59
oxymoran wrote: post #53

I find this article a little disingenuous and here is why: Sweden-5420 deaths out of a population of 10 million while no lock down. Michigan-6005 deaths out of a population of 10 million and we have been locked down since mid March. To be clear, I was in favor of the lockdown at first and I still am in favor of keeping things like bars and casinos closed but it’s become clear that the virus doesn’t have much affect o…

Well Sweden closed its borders, where Michigan can’t close its borders to other states, so Michigan’s is naturally higher.

Sweden did not close its borders, although it followed EU guidelines to close its borders beyond the EU. The US closed its borders to certain areas of the world, which is what this is comparable to.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#64

Post by berdario »

drummer wrote: post #44
drummer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden did the right thing. Covid-19 is not worse than the flu. Norway recently also admitted the lockdown there was not neccesary according to the data they have now. In March they thought differently.

Norway: ‘Lockdown was not necessary to tame Covid-19’ According to Camilla Stoltenberg, the Director-General of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (Folkehelseinstituttet), similar results would have been achieved in her country without a lockdown. She bases that statement on a study by her institution. The study collected data on confirmed cases of coronavirus registered in Norway, the number of hospital admiss…

"Virus never spread as fast as was feared"

Except in the US, in Italy, etc. where it's spreading or it has been spreading exactly as fast as feared.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#65

Post by addled »

vonmoltke wrote: post #41
addled wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm For US data, I like how this table compares deaths from covid, flu, and pneumonia against the total deaths for all causes each week. I especially like that they show the ratio of current deaths vs the average of the 3 years prior for the same week. The downside is how the data is slowly updated as each state trickles in data, so the most recent 4-8 weeks look lower…

FYI, you double-pasted the link. The correct one is https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

Ah, sorry. Fixed above now as well. Thanks!

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#66

Post by drummer »

saalweachter wrote: post #52
drummer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately covid deaths are highly unreliable as there is lots of evidence worldwide that people dying with covid are also counted with those dying of covid. Also lots of cases of dead people being counted while not being tested or positively tested for covid.

During the peak of crisis in NYC, the death rate was ~6 times normal. If those extra deaths weren't from COVID-19, what were they from?

You won't like the answer: https://youtube.com/watch?v=kIngGuof9E0

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#67

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

drummer wrote: post #31
martindbp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is definitely many times worse than the flu, but probably not 10 and definitely not 100 times.

Nope: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32201354/ Some quotes: “Under these conditions, there does not seem to be a significant difference between the mortality rate of SARS-CoV-2 in OECD countries and that of common coronaviruses (χ2 test, P=0.11). Of course, the major flaw in this study is that the percentage of deaths attributable to the virus is not determined, but this is the case for all studies reporting respira…

Another quote (from the abstract): "It is concluded that the problem of SARS-CoV-2 is probably being overestimated, as 2.6 million people die of respiratory infections each year compared with less than 4000 deaths for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of writing. "

As of the Mar 19th 2020 issue of the Journal of Antimicrobial Agents.

Even without reading the paper, I can tell you that if this analysis were to be repeated, we would get different results, given that we are now (four months later) at 540,000 (confirmed, which is definitely an underestimate) deaths, rather than 4000.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#68

Post by bjourne »

You have to look at the excess deaths figures. That is, how many usually dies from January to June in a normal year and compare that to how many extra that died in 2020. For Sweden the excess deaths almost exactly matches the number of Covid deaths, give or take 10%.

That is not the case for many other countries. For example, the UK had almost twice the number of excess deaths as Covid deaths in a few weeks in April. That indicates that Covid deaths were under reported in the UK. There are also some indications that Covid deaths have been under reported in other countries.

In other words, comparing countries by their Covid deaths/capita rates is meaningless. The statistics are likely completely wrong because different countries use different definitions of "Covid deaths" and different reporting procedures.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/may/29...

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#69

Post by addled »

drummer wrote: post #37
addled wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm For US data, I like how this table compares deaths from covid, flu, and pneumonia against the total deaths for all causes each week. I especially like that they show the ratio of current deaths vs the average of the 3 years prior for the same week. The downside is how the data is slowly updated as each state trickles in data, so the most recent 4-8 weeks look lower…

Unfortunately covid deaths are highly unreliable as there is lots of evidence worldwide that people dying with covid are also counted with those dying of covid. Also lots of cases of dead people being counted while not being tested or positively tested for covid.

That's exactly why I like the link I posted. It tries to provide context on how many people die with covid, flu, pneumonia, or some combination of the 3.

Then more importantly, it looks at the overall death rate. Because even if you completely ignore the covid count, the fact that there are so many more people dying than normal should grab people's attention.

Re: Sweden: higher Covid-19 death rate while failing to collect on economic gains

#70

Post by drummer »

berdario wrote: post #64
drummer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway: ‘Lockdown was not necessary to tame Covid-19’ According to Camilla Stoltenberg, the Director-General of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (Folkehelseinstituttet), similar results would have been achieved in her country without a lockdown. She bases that statement on a study by her institution. The study collected data on confirmed cases of coronavirus registered in Norway, the number of hospital admiss…

"Virus never spread as fast as was feared" Except in the US, in Italy, etc. where it's spreading or it has been spreading exactly as fast as feared.

This is what was happening in Italy:

"The figures are questionable

Angelo Borrelli, the head of Civil Protection, who announces the latest figures every day at 6 p.m., said Saturday night that the 793 new deaths have been caused “by and with” the coronavirus. “We count all the dead, we make no distinction between with and by the coronavirus.” However, one wonders whether these daily figures reflect the situation correctly. The dead are said to have almost all had one or more other diseases, which leaves a question mark as to exactly how deadly the coronavirus is. At the same time, it has become clear that a large number of people who die at home (which is often a retirement home) do not undergo a coronavirus test."

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2020/03/22/als-italie-het-voorland...

"On Friday, April 24, 2020, Vittorio Sgarbi, a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, denounced what he claims are false coronavirus death statistics. Sgarbi feels that fake statistics are being propagated by the government and the media to terrorize the citizens of Italy and establish a dictatorship.

The member of the Forza Italia party slammed the closure of 60% of Italian businesses for 25,000 Chinese-Coronavirus deaths from the floor of the legislature. “It’s not true,” he said. “Don’t use the deaths for rhetoric and terrorism.” According to the National Institute of Health, 96.3% did not die of coronavirus, but of other pathologies stated Sgarbi – which means that only 925 have died from the virus and 24,075 have died of other things claimed Sgarbi, “….the virus was little more than an influenza. Don’t lie! Tell the truth!”"

https://rairfoundation.com/italian-leader-slams-false-corona...

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