Sweden’s herd immunity experiment = highest death rate in Europe

dqhall

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pitabread

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How is the death rate being calculated? Because on a per capita basis, there are other European countries with higher mortality rates. As well as other European countries with more deaths as a % of Covid-19 cases.

I'm not sure on what basis they are claiming that Sweden has the highest mortality rate in Europe. That doesn't seem correct. :scratch:
 
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Shemjaza

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How is the death rate being calculated? Because on a per capita basis, there are other European countries with higher mortality rates. As well as other European countries with more deaths as a % of Covid-19 cases.

I'm not sure on what basis they are claiming that Sweden has the highest mortality rate in Europe. That doesn't seem correct. :scratch:
By no means the highest in Europe... but by far the highest in the Nordic region.
 
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Yttrium

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If they're trying for herd immunity, then they have to expect a high death rate. That's not really a backfire. The backfire will be if the antibodies are insufficient and not long lasting enough to provide herd immunity.
 
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dqhall

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How is the death rate being calculated? Because on a per capita basis, there are other European countries with higher mortality rates. As well as other European countries with more deaths as a % of Covid-19 cases.

I'm not sure on what basis they are claiming that Sweden has the highest mortality rate in Europe. That doesn't seem correct. :scratch:
8.71 deaths per million; supposedly the highest in Europe.
 
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pitabread

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8.71 deaths per million; supposedly the highest in Europe.

Where is that number coming from though?

The link in the article for the alleged source just links to a heat map with no actual numerical data in it. And that heat map shows a higher rate for Spain than Sweden.

edited to add:

I found another article that states the following:

Scandinavia’s biggest economy will shrink 7 per cent this year, Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Tuesday. And while overall deaths are on the decline, Sweden’s had 6.25 deaths per million inhabitants per day in a rolling average between May 12 and May 19, according to Ourworldinsata.org. That was the highest in Europe on a per capita basis and just above the United Kingdom, which had 5.75 deaths per million.

Sweden in deep economic crisis despite soft lockdown, as per capita deaths rise

If the article linked in the OP is comparing the same sort of thing, it looks like they are just looking at the recent fatality rates.
 
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hedrick

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Where is that number coming from though?

The link in the article for the alleged source just links to a heat map with no actual numerical data in it. And that heat map shows a higher rate for Spain than Sweden.

edited to add:

I found another article that states the following:

Scandinavia’s biggest economy will shrink 7 per cent this year, Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Tuesday. And while overall deaths are on the decline, Sweden’s had 6.25 deaths per million inhabitants per day in a rolling average between May 12 and May 19, according to Ourworldinsata.org. That was the highest in Europe on a per capita basis and just above the United Kingdom, which had 5.75 deaths per million.

Sweden in deep economic crisis despite soft lockdown, as per capita deaths rise

If the article linked in the OP is comparing the same sort of thing, it looks like they are just looking at the recent fatality rates.
Sweden’s death rate is holdIng roughly constant. Other countries in Europe have been bringing it down. But they’ll have to back off, and Sweden’s approach may be sustainable. So it’s unclear which will prove better in the end.
 
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messianist

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Sweden’s death rate is holdIng roughly constant. Other countries in Europe have been bringing it down. But they’ll have to back off, and Sweden’s approach may be sustainable. So it’s unclear which will prove better in the end.
In what sense, do you mean which one will be better?
 
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hedrick

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In what sense, do you mean which one will be better?
It's hard to formulate a single criterion, but clearly we have to judge both health and economics. It's not yet obvious what will happen when countries let up on rules. Will there be a rebound, and how much? It's also not clear whether Sweden will continue at a constant rate of deaths, or start to go down. Ask again in 6 months. I think Sweden is paying a price in deaths, but it's just a guess. Whether that price is justified by not shutting down, only the Swedish people can judge.
 
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SoldierOfTheKing

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Belgium's death rate is nearly twice Sweden's.

Supposedly authoritarian Belarus has no government mandated social distancing measures at all - the only country in Europe where soccer matches are still played in packed stadiums. Which I would admit probably isn't wise. They quarantine people entering the country from abroad, and that's pretty much it.

Yet the death rate in Belarus is far below Germany, roughly the same as its neighbors that do have lockdowns.
 
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pitabread

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Yet the death rate in Belarus is far below Germany, roughly the same as its neighbors that do have lockdowns.

I'd take stats from Belarus with a grain of salt, given they are an authoritarian government that has been in firm denial over the pandemic.

North Korea has also had great success against coronavirus, but does anyone *really* believe that?
 
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solid_core

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tall73

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The article noted they were going for herd immunity. But their experts have said that is not a goal of their program directly. They estimated around a third of the population would be immune by now, and it was tested at just slightly below that.

The goal however was maintaining medical capacity. If you have too much spread to eliminate the virus, then it will run through the population one way or another. Therefore the goal is to maintain beds, ICU beds, etc.
 
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hedrick

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The article noted they were going for herd immunity. But their experts have said that is not a goal of their program directly. They estimated around a third of the population would be immune by now, and it was tested at just slightly below that.
Make that 7.3%. Swedish antibody study shows long road to immunity as COVID-19 toll mounts

It looks like 7.3% was late April. Are they saying that by now it's nearly 1/3?

They've had 33,000 cases by now. At the end of April it was 21,000. Looks like they should have 10% with antibodies now, unless I'm missing something.
 
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tall73

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Make that 7.3%. Swedish antibody study shows long road to immunity as COVID-19 toll mounts

It looks like 7.3% was late April. Are they saying that by now it's nearly 1/3?

Thank you, I was reading this part of the article:

The findings were roughly in line with models predicting a third of the Swedish capital’s population would have had the virus by now and where at least limited herd immunity could have set in, the Swedish Health Agency said on Wednesday.

“It is a little bit lower (than expected) but not remarkably lower, maybe one or a couple of percent,” Tegnell told a Stockholm news conference. “It squares pretty well with the models we have.”

But that must have been spin then:


The country's chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said the number was a "little lower" than expected "but not remarkably lower, maybe one or a couple of percent,” CNN reported. But the public health agency previously said it expected about 25% of the population to have been infected by May 1, according to the Guardian.
 
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hedrick

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The country's chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said the number was a "little lower" than expected "but not remarkably lower, maybe one or a couple of percent,” CNN reported. But the public health agency previously said it expected about 25% of the population to have been infected by May 1, according to the Guardian.
If it was really 7.3% at the end of April, they seem to think some kind of magic happened between then and now.
 
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tall73

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If it was really 7.3% at the end of April, they seem to think some kind of magic happened between then and now.

Yeah, or he was just downplaying it.

All of the articles in our other thread have documented, and this one does too, that herd immunity is not their goal. But you can't help but get the idea they were wanting it, for obvious reasons, as a secondary benefit.
 
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