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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

#131

Post by bjourne »

ptx wrote: post #95
bjourne wrote: post #68

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.…

Taiwan has 7 COVID-19 deaths[1]. It seems far-fetched to suppose that they would be somehow covering up the 12000 additional deaths that would be required to reach Sweden's per-capita numbers. South Korea would have had to neglect to report 99% of COVID-19 deaths. [1] https://www.cdc.gov.tw/En

True. And Sweden stands out when you compare it to other Nordic countries. My point is only that you can't draw too many conclusions from just looking at leaderboards at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ and similar sites.

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

#132

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

drummer wrote: post #70
berdario wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 corr…

Yawn. You look at the excess death and it is actually higher than counted coronavirus death numbers.

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

#133

Post by [deleted] »

ptx wrote: post #95
bjourne wrote: post #68

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.…

Taiwan has 7 COVID-19 deaths[1]. It seems far-fetched to suppose that they would be somehow covering up the 12000 additional deaths that would be required to reach Sweden's per-capita numbers. South Korea would have had to neglect to report 99% of COVID-19 deaths. [1] https://www.cdc.gov.tw/En

[deleted]

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

#134

Post by detaro »

drummer wrote: post #73
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.

Let's not forget Germany: "A report on the coronavirus by the German Ministry of the Interior was leaked on May 9th 2020 by officer Stephan Kohn to the magazine Tichys Einblick, one of the most popular alternative media in Germany. The report, on which a dozen or so doctors and professors from various universities in Germany have worked, states that “the state has failed in the coronavirus crisis in an almost grotesq…

Just to be clear: that is a "report on the coronavirus by the German Ministry of the Interior" in the sense that the "leaker" works there, wrote that report on his own (he wasn't part of the groups working on COVID specifically) based on at least cherry-picked data and then sent out on the official letterhead without permission.

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

#135

Post by microtherion »

sjg007 wrote: post #102
microtherion wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a large proportion of the deaths were in care homes … which is no different from other countries. I seem to recall articles comparing the numbers, and the proportions seem similar in many places. > Also, what will count is not the first few months but the entire lifetime of this pandemic. Considering only the improvements in treatments made between March and now, it seems fairly evident that a strategy of front-loa…

There’s been no real progress in clinical treatment since March.

There have been numerous improvements, summarized here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-lesson...

* Some medication which appears to be effective, i.e. dexamethasone and remdesivir

* Proning

* An increased focus on avoiding blood clots, e.g. by using blood thinners.

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

#136

Post by tinus_hn »

Pepe1vo wrote: post #49
mettamage wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not American, I'm Dutch. And there's a huge difference between WOII levels (which is what 2% deathrate in The Netherlands would be), versus an extra amount of death people comparable to the worst flu season. In The Netherlands, the worst flu seasons still have a higher death toll than corona. I hope it stays that way for everyone.

This is empirically false. It's at least 25% worse than the 2018 flu season, which was the worst flu season in decades, and that's with unprecedented mitigation measures in place. https://www.rivm.nl/monitoring-sterftecijfers-nederland

The peak in the graph is higher but the area under the graph, the total number of fatalities, is almost the same because the flu season lasted longer.

> De oversterfte in week 10 tot en met 19 van de COVID-19 epidemie was 9.768

> De oversterfte tijdens de 18 weken griepepidemie werd geschat op 9.444

Anyway definitely not 25% worse.

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

#137

Post by glofish »

Sweden is much hated because it demonstrates how the scientific epidemiological models, the studies on mask effectiveness, lockdown estimations etc are all junk science. None of their models would have predicted the trajectory for Sweden, not even close.

And that is because none are based on sound science but are guesstimates at best yet are paraded around as the product of the best minds in the world.

Much is made about the growing anti-science sentiment in the world, the rushed pseudo scientific justification will only strengthen that.

Give it a year and most of the justification will be walked back, it will turn out that wearing a mask is actually detrimental to public health. It boggles the mind that people assume there must be no ill effects to breathing through a mucus-laden cotton sheet filled with microorganisms captured from the air, ...

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

#138

Post by sampo »

neuronexmachina wrote: post #130
bjourne wrote: post #68

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.…

Btw, here's a couple charts similar to the one you posted that have been updated more recently: * https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav... * https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06...

EU has a project to track excess mortality: EuroMOMO. They have time series for countries:

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country

Here is how they explain what the z-score is:

https://www.euromomo.eu/how-it-works/what-is-a-z-score/

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

#139

Post by aaaxyz »

makomk wrote: post #61
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 immu…

The same thing happened in Quebec and it lead to one of the highest per-capita death rates in the world (5,500/8,500,000)

The previous government gutted budgets for care homes which lead to chronic understaffing. When the pandemic hit, the current government enacted a fairly strict lockdown but still did nothing to help the situation in care homes, which was worsened by caretakers staying home by fear of catching the virus. This in turn lead to patients being neglected and to caregivers working in both "cold" and "hot" facilities, causing even more outbreaks.

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

#140

Post by cs702 »

bjourne wrote: post #68

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.…

> 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.

Very true. At the other end of the spectrum, consider North Korea, which is apparently reporting ZERO Covid-19 deaths and also ZERO Covid-19 cases, so its official infection and mortality rates are 0% and 0%.[a] If we were to judge only by those official figures, it would appear the country has done a truly incredible job at combating Covid-19.

[a] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-northk...

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