How is Sweden doing with COVID-19 today?

You got an answer picturing Sweden as a neighbor to Germany. Yes, and once upon a time (long, long time ago) the german cultural influence was substansial - whatever it and the old nobility has to do with Covid-19 and neighborhood. And the languages? The Nordic countries are North Germanic languages, the German together with English are West German Languages. But this is not relevant, not more than picturing Germany as a neighbor to Sweden. Sure, a lot of german tourists go north, and the economical ties are important. But neighbors? Borders in the sea.

As most countries the Nordics are influenced first and foremost by americaniazation. Even Sweden. Relevant to Covid-19. Nope.

In this second wave Sweden and Germany are hit approx. the same way so far. We'll see.

A comparasion, though. Some might see it as cherry picking. Germanys northern state, Schleswig Holstein, border to Denmark, population 2,9 M, density 180 qkm and 348 deaths/1M. The "neighbor to Sweden" Germany has a density of 234 qkm and we all know what that means.

Denmark has 372/1M, density 136 and a border to the Swedish region Skåne.

Skåne is still under the Swedish average, but rising sharply, 1030/1M. Population 1, 388 M and density 123. So Schleswig Holstein, Denmark and Skåne have a lot in common, except the death toll.

zxcvzvcx wrote:

Fear isn't a solution. The solution is wise action to prevent transmission, which is not difficult at all.

Almost everyone who dies of anything outside accidents and homicides has other conditions, making them susceptible to dying. 94% of cancer victims have comorbidities as well. That doesn't mean people don't die of cancer. Your act has worn thin here. 2.2 million people have died of COVID and world excess mortality is above that. Over 450,000 Americans have died and excess mortality is likely over 1/2 million. To me that is significant and most Americans agree. You're part of the problem.

Ya, Unkle... sad soul.

He's still shouting that anyone who takes COVID seriously, wears a mask, social distances and hopes for a better future (vs demanding normalcy now) is being duped. Meanwhile, his entire cause continues to fail, his beliefs and those promoting his beliefs have failed and the writing on the wall - that he was been skillfully and easily duped, is plain to see.

Sweden seems to be out of the woods now. A bit over 300 deaths this week. And it is trending downwards relatively fast. Though, the infections are not going down, staying at approx 3000. Compared to the rest of Europe they have managed this second wave much, much, better than in the first wave.

KaareV wrote:

Sweden seems to be out of the woods now. A bit over 300 deaths this week. And it is trending downwards relatively fast. Though, the infections are not going down, staying at approx 3000. Compared to the rest of Europe they have managed this second wave much, much, better than in the first wave.

The high number of deaths during the first outbreak in Sweden were attributed to poor practices in nursing homes and communication problems with immigrant communities. There were constant arguments about how the death toll would have been much lower during the initial outbreak but for those two achilles heals in Sweden's response. The second wave was widely predicted by just about everyone in the infectious disease community and could be seen coming from miles away. Sweden had months and month to prepare. The death toll on the second wave was even higher than the first. The only reason things weren't worse in Sweden was because the Swedes kept in place a few restrictions like 50 person max gatherings while many other countries in Europe dropped almost all restrictions over the summer.

And the comparison to Europe is a bit like comparing an abusive husband who beats his wife only when he gets drunk and an abusive husband who beats his wife when his wife every night. The former is better than the latter, but is still a very bad person and not at all worthy of praise for not beating his wife when sober.

Sweden is also not that far behind Western Europe. On deaths per mil, Sweden is at 1,226. France 1236, Spain 1373, Italy 1535. Germany has fared much better at 769. So, if Europe is the husband that beats his wife every night of the week, Sweden is the husband that beats his wife every night except for Sunday.

Sweden's neighbors Finland and Norway combined have about the same population as Sweden. Finland and Norway collectively saw about 700 deaths during the fall/winter surge. Sweden had about 6500 deaths.

Sweden deserves no praise at all. Sweden deserves condemnation. Swedes were fed disinformation by a government that pursued a herd immunity strategy that everyone in the infectious disease scientific community said was a prescription for a disaster. Swedes are not a bunch of Qanon following hyper individualists who spend weekends running around in the woods with AR 15s practicing for the overthrow of their government. Swedes would have gone along with the same measures that protected people in Finland and Norway. There was no political obstacle that prevented Sweden from doing the right thing. It was purely the arrogance of people like Tegnell that caused over 12,000 people to die in Sweden who should be alive today.

In many ways yes. They had one advantage; the one that caused all the unnecessary deaths in the spring. For that reason only the Swedes are not as covid-tired as many in most of those nations who made a second lockdown. Biut even though, it was a failed strategy.

I respect your attempt to read and write English here, but I never said that Sweden was a neighbor to Germany. I compare Sweden primarily to Scandinavian countries. I was responding to the claim that Sweden is doing better than Germany. Not so by the overall measure.

Sorry for my writing and reading skills, but I actually wrote to you: "You got an answer that picturing Sweden as a neighbor to Germany", it was refering to another person, not you, who replied to your post. I think we mostly agree.

Excess mortality for the 31 EU/EEA+UK countries 2020.

Can't be bothered to translate:

Liechtenstein: 20,8 %

Spanien: 18,9 %

Polen: 18,7 %

Slovenien: 18,5 %

Italien: 17,4 %

Belgien: 16,7 %

Tjeckien: 16,6 %

Bulgarien: 15,1 %

Storbritannien: 15,1 %

Schweiz: 13,0 %

Malta: 12,6 %

Litauen: 12,3 %

Nederländerna: 11,6 %

Rumänien: 11,1 %

Österrike: 11,1 %

Portugal: 11,0 %

Slovakien: 10,5 %

Luxemburg: 10,4 %

Frankrike: 10,4 %

Cypern: 9,2 %

Kroatien: 9,1 %

Ungern: 8,1 %

Sverige: 7,6 %

Grekland: 7,5 %

Tyskland: 5,3 %

Estland: 3,1 %

Finland: 2,7 %

Island: 1,6 %

Danmark: 1,6 %

Lettland: 0,4 %

Norge: -0,4 %

Källa: Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, utifrån data från Eurostat, University of Oxford och SCB.

Seems the very slow swedish system catches the real number of deaths better than most.

Surprising, but not really, as we saw in the spring wave that the swedish system of registering covid-19 catches more excess deaths than most.. (it caught 101% of excess deaths in spring)

Or in the word of the swedish professor that have done the comparison:

"– Det är ett robust mått, som gör det möjligt att jämföra olika länder med liknande demografi. Att utgå från ländernas egen rapportering av smitta och dödsfall i covid-19 är i princip meningslöst, eftersom testning och kriterier varierar så mycket. Att dessutom göra det vecka för vecka i början av en pandemi är närmast intetsägande, eftersom situationen förändras kraftigt ju längre smittan pågår. Det vet vi sedan tidigare pandemier, säger Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist

Also turns out they're not even bang average for Europe anymore, but rather extremely improved to the point they must be said to be among the better performing countries even in excess deaths for 2020.

Who would have thought given the spring wave and sentiment in this thread?

Cherry pick arguments all you like peeps, I am not going to bite.

The swedish history professor that has done the comparison also had this to say, can't be bothered to translate so google has done the job.

I think he ended with sayin something interesting but also something (in my opinion) VERY IMPORTANT, so I chose to highlight that part.

Funnily enough it coincides with my perspective on things, so you could argue I cherry picked it.

Under de senaste stora sjukdomsutbrotten – Asiaten (1957), Hongkonginfluensan (1968) och den svåra influensan 1976 – har Sverige tillsammans med Danmark mestadels drabbats hårdare än Norge, Island och Finland. Vad det beror på har ingen helt lyckats förklara. Tänkbara orsaker kan enligt Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist vara Sveriges och Danmarks betydligt större och sammanhängande urbana områden och tätare kontakt med kontinenten.

Allvarliga pandemier har varit ett förhållandevis vanligt tillstånd genom historien, som har drabbat mänskligheten med ungefär 30 års mellanrum de senaste århundradena. Mot den bakgrunden tycker Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist att det egentligen är en historisk ovanlighet att denna pandemi dröjde så pass länge.

En till synes paradoxal effekt av alla medicinska framsteg, är enligt, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, är att även mindre allvarliga virus kan få svårare konsekvenser i dag, i och med att andelen äldre och sårbara har ökat kraftigt.

– Det är ju i grunden något mycket positivt. Men det kan också bli svårare för samhället att hantera en sådan här sjukdom, och ovanan vid pandemier kan orsaka stor oro och panik. Då är det lätt att tappa helhetsperspektivet, säger Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist.

Google translation:

"During the most recent major outbreaks of disease - the Asian (1957), the Hong Kong flu (1968) and the severe flu in 1976 - Sweden, together with Denmark, has mostly been hit harder than Norway, Iceland and Finland. Nobody has been able to fully explain what this is due to. According to Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, possible causes could be Sweden's and Denmark's much larger and cohesive urban areas and closer contact with the continent.

Severe pandemics have been a relatively common condition throughout history, affecting humanity at approximately 30-year intervals in recent centuries. Against this background, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist thinks that it is actually a historical unusual that this pandemic lasted so long.

According to Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, a seemingly paradoxical effect of all medical advances is that even less serious viruses can have more severe consequences today, as the proportion of the elderly and vulnerable has increased sharply.

- It is basically something very positive. But it can also be more difficult for society to deal with such a disease, and the habit of pandemics can cause great anxiety and panic. Then it is easy to lose the holistic perspective, says Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist."

A little more perspective on swedish excess mortality:

Column 1 is year, 2 is number of deaths, 3 is population, 4 mortality rate.

The numbers for 2020 are per january 11, so final numbers for 2020 will be a little higher.. (Probably maybe 3000 higher would be my guess, could be higher, could be lower, can't be bothered to compare with final mortality numbers but they can probably be found fairly easily at Scb or FHM)

Dødelighetsrater i Sverige 1998-2020

Chart

År Totalt antall døde Folkemengde*** Dødelighetsrate i prosent

1998 93 271 8 854 322 1,05%

1999 94 726 8 861 426 1,07%

2000 93 461 8 882 792 1,05%

2001 93 752 8 909 128 1,05%

2002 95 009 8 940 788 1,06%

2003 92 961 8 975 670 1,04%

2015 90 907 9 851 017 0,92%

2016 90 982 9 995 153 0,91%

2017 91 972 10 12 0242 0,91%

2018 92 185 10 230 185 0,90%

2019 88 766 10 327 589 0,86%

2020* 97 164 10 380 245** 0,94%

*Foreløpige tall for 2020, publisert 11. januar 2021. Dødstall for 2020 er forventet å stige pga. etterrapportering.

** Folketall for 2020 er fra november.

***Et mer riktig mål er middelfolkemengde, men forskjellen er liten. Vi har her beholdt samme tallkilde for folkemengde som i Facebook-innlegget.

Kilde: SCB 1, 2 og 3

So what can we learn from this?

2020 does indeed have excess mortality. as excess mortality is typically calculated comparing only against the average of previous 5 years and those numbers are record low levels.

The main reason for this is obviously covid-19.

When understanding the severity of this, it is very important to know that mortality have dropped significantly (as can be seen when comparing with the 20 year old numbers), giving Sweden an older and more vulnerable population, so even a fairly mild pandemic like the current one, will of course "eat" into this population.

Still think it is interesting that 2002 was a slaughter year on the swedish population compared to 2020, yet nobody even noticed..

Excess mortality would of course not be high that year, as the previous years also had high mortality rates.

I am not going to engage in debate as these numbers are objective and sourced and anyone can read them for themselves.

As mentioned by the swedish professor, the severity of covid-19 obviously needs to be understood in the context of this mortality drop.

That part of the story seem drowned in the hysteria to me.

I suspect this is the situation in many other western countries as well.

When not obsessing over death/million charts, but rather taking a step back and look at a somewhat bigger picture, it's very hard to say other than Covid 19 being a hype bordering on psychosis .

I am not going to engage any doom mongerers on the subject, as if you want to read covid-19 numbers as the devil read the bible you clearly can.

I think they provide important context.

A third wave is under way in Sweden. The government now has the power to order a nationwide lockdown thanks to legislation that passed in January. That looks to be inevitable as cases are climbing quickly and vaccination is not moving fast enough to head off the surge.

https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/sweden-warns-of-first-lockdown-amid-surge-in-covid-19-cases/

Third wave is underway in Sweden. COVID 19 restrictions have been very weak despite new legislation giving the government broader powers. 7 day moving average for infections is now up to @5,600 a day with back to back reports of 8k+ infections over the past two days. The third wave has developed more gradually than the second, but is now approaching the same highs as the second wave.

Precious Roy wrote:

[

Sweden deserves no praise at all. Sweden deserves condemnation. Swedes were fed disinformation by a government that pursued a herd immunity strategy that everyone in the infectious disease scientific community said was a prescription for a disaster. Swedes are not a bunch of Qanon following hyper individualists who spend weekends running around in the woods with AR 15s practicing for the overthrow of their government. Swedes would have gone along with the same measures that protected people in Finland and Norway. There was no political obstacle that prevented Sweden from doing the right thing. It was purely the arrogance of people like Tegnell that caused over 12,000 people to die in Sweden who should be alive today.

Okay Fauci

Precious Roy wrote:

Third wave is underway in Sweden. COVID 19 restrictions have been very weak despite new legislation giving the government broader powers. 7 day moving average for infections is now up to @5,600 a day with back to back reports of 8k+ infections over the past two days. The third wave has developed more gradually than the second, but is now approaching the same highs as the second wave.

Fearmongering at its best.

Precious Roy wrote:

A third wave is under way in Sweden. The government now has the power to order a nationwide lockdown thanks to legislation that passed in January. That looks to be inevitable as cases are climbing quickly and vaccination is not moving fast enough to head off the surge

I thought you said, four weeks ago, that a lockdown was inevitable.

Guess what? Your "Just wait two weeks!!!!!" tactics backfired again.

Apparently you enjoy losing, and spreading fear.

Cases not looking great:

https://monkeystyping.neocities.org/WeeklyCovid19CasesMorberg.png

Deaths appear to have bottomed out, but no clear sign of an upturn thus far:

https://monkeystyping.neocities.org/WeeklyCovid19DeathsMorberg.png

Upturn does show in hospitialization stats:

https://monkeystyping.neocities.org/SweHospICU.png

Sweden now has the highest rate of new Covid infections per person in all of Europe, and totally out pacing their Nordic neighbors. Round of applause for Sweden who bravely led by example and proudly takes that number one spot.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/13/sweden-has-highest-new-covid-cases-per-person-in-europe

But Ioannidis, Levitt, LRC geniuses told me they took the had taken smart route and had reached herd immunity last June??? Plz explain!

Not good, bro. 5th in the world in per capita cases over the last week. Not as bad as Uruguay, but definitely not good.