Sweden?

[Pakuni]

Based on my travels and knowledge of European history, Finland, which is not part of Scandinavia but is part of Europe.  There are differences, no two countries are exactly the same, but I found them quite similar.  Finland was controlled by Sweden for more than 500 years which is why there are so many cultural similarities.

Now, what does New Zealand compare to?

So your "other European nations" is a single neighboring country that is similar in every significant way but linguistic roots? OK.
How is Sweden stacking up to its neighbors during the pandemic these days?

As for New Zealand, Australia is comparable in many ways. Iceland to some extent.

[MUBurrow]

Taken at face value, neither Sweden nor New Zealand scales well for comparisons to the US.  The difference is why each doesn't scale well.  NZ doesn't scale due to geography, which we can do nothing about.  Sweden doesn't scale well due to policy choices, which are up to us.

[tower912]

Yup

[WarriorDad]

So your "other European nations" is a single neighboring country that is similar in every significant way but linguistic roots? OK.
How is Sweden stacking up to its neighbors during the pandemic these days?

As for New Zealand, Australia is comparable in many ways. Iceland to some extent.

Sweden is front end loading their approach, only time will tell if they are correct.  Do you agree?  I don’t think comparing them at this point in time is complete.

Australia and New Zealand have some similarities, but far more differences in my opinion.  Geography (28x bigger), considerably more entry points to the country (far more travel to Australia for virus to get in), population is 5x larger, and the populations are considerably different.  Australia is white, New Zealand more cosmopolitan.

New Zealand is a centralized govt, Australia has states like we do with their own gov’ts controlling.  Not that many similarities between the two nations.

 

[forgetful]

I'm confused by Sweden's numbers. They are adamant they are catching all their cases and deaths, because of meticulous testing. They say other nations are under-reporting, making them look worse than they are.

But they are also reporting a 12% mortality rate. Which either means they are doing a terrible job of treating this, or they are way under-testing, and then would also be way under-reporting.

Confused.

[WarriorDad]

I'm confused by Sweden's numbers. They are adamant they are catching all their cases and deaths, because of meticulous testing. They say other nations are under-reporting, making them look worse than they are.

But they are also reporting a 12% mortality rate. Which either means they are doing a terrible job of treating this, or they are way under-testing, and then would also be way under-reporting.

Confused.

Which numbers are you using?  Today's NY Times article on Sweden was fair in my opinion.  Mentioned the good and bad of their approach.  Cannot say others have been as balanced.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-herd-immunity.html

I prefer the deaths per 1M number because the mortality rate numbers assumes countries have a good handle on numerator and denominator of those with the disease.  They don't, but all countries know their population stats.  Sweden is at 244 deaths per 1M pop.  That is considerably better than Italy, UK, France, Netherlands and roughly the same as Ireland.   Other nations doing better, but is it due to delaying the inevitable or the right strategy while Sweden has pulled their deaths forward by not locking down? 

[forgetful]

Which numbers are you using?  Today's NY Times article on Sweden was fair in my opinion.  Mentioned the good and bad of their approach.  Cannot say others have been as balanced.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-herd-immunity.html

I prefer the deaths per 1M number because the mortality rate numbers assumes countries have a good handle on numerator and denominator of those with the disease.  They don't, but all countries know their population stats.  Sweden is at 244 deaths per 1M pop.  That is considerably better than Italy, UK, France, Netherlands and roughly the same as Ireland.   Other nations doing better, but is it due to delaying the inevitable or the right strategy while Sweden has pulled their deaths forward by not locking down?

2462 deaths: 20,302 cases. That is 12.1% mortality rate. So either they are not testing enough, which means both numbers are likely off. Or they suck at treating their patients.

[Pakuni]

2462 deaths: 20,302 cases. That is 12.1% mortality rate. So either they are not testing enough, which means both numbers are likely off. Or they suck at treating their patients.

Don't quote me on this, but from what I've read Sweden is largely limiting its testing to people who are hospitalized and health/elderly care workers.
Maybe when your national policy is not to care who gets it, testing and tracking isn't that important.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Don't quote me on this, but from what I've read Sweden is largely limiting its testing to people who are hospitalized and health/elderly care workers.
Maybe when your national policy is not to care who gets it, testing and tracking isn't that important.

The data suggests you are right. Tests per 1M:

Sweden 11,800
Denmark 33,300
Norway 31,200
Finland 16,900

Low test rates/only testing the sick ---> High mortality rate

[WarriorDad]

2462 deaths: 20,302 cases. That is 12.1% mortality rate. So either they are not testing enough, which means both numbers are likely off. Or they suck at treating their patients.

I understand the math, it's the formula that I think is misleading because the denominator is unknown.

Using the same math equation, the mortality rate in the US for this virus is 5.7%.  I get to that number dividing 62K into 1.076M cases.  Do you believe that is the real mortality rate in the US because that is what the math as we know it today suggests?  Dr. Fauci has said it is likely below 1%, because he is factoring in a true mortality rate because he knows far more people have the virus than cases totaled and of those people, 98% of them aren't dying.  More than 80% had such mild symptoms they may not have even known they had it.

What you are really saying is of the citizens they know have the virus (cases), the mortality rate is 12.1%.  But that number is somewhat useless and doesn't appear in any dashboards I have seen for a reason, because it is flawed without having a more complete data set.   If the mortality rate was truly as high as 12.1%, the deaths in the country per million or any other comparison would be extreme.  They are not.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

I understand the math, it's the formula that I think is misleading because the denominator is unknown.

Using the same math equation, the mortality rate in the US for this virus is 5.7%.  I get to that number dividing 62K into 1.076M cases.  Do you believe that is the real mortality rate in the US because that is what the math as we know it today suggests?  Dr. Fauci has said it is likely below 1%, because he is factoring in a true mortality rate because he knows far more people have the virus than cases totaled and of those people, 98% of them aren't dying.  More than 80% had such mild symptoms they may not have even known they had it.

What you are really saying is of the citizens they know have the virus (cases), the mortality rate is 12.1%.  But that number is somewhat useless and doesn't appear in any dashboards I have seen for a reason, because it is flawed without having a more complete data set.   If the mortality rate was truly as high as 12.1%, the deaths in the country per million or any other comparison would be extreme.  They are not.

Deaths per million is pretty high in Sweden.



From this article.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-strategy-intl/index.html

[WarriorDad]

NPR this week delves into what a crude mortality rate is and why a true mortality rate is so hard to figure out at the moment.

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/24/844562935/why-the-true-fatality-rate-of-covid-19-is-hard-to-estimate

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

NPR this week delves into what a crude mortality rate is and why a true mortality rate is so hard to figure out at the moment.

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/24/844562935/why-the-true-fatality-rate-of-covid-19-is-hard-to-estimate

You just said "If the mortality rate was truly as high as 12.1%, the deaths in the country per million or any other comparison would be extreme.  They are not."

Yet when I post that the deaths per million is more than three times its Nordic neighbors, you ignore it and post more on death rates - which everyone knows is problematic due to....well....math.

[jesmu84]

You just said "If the mortality rate was truly as high as 12.1%, the deaths in the country per million or any other comparison would be extreme.  They are not."

Yet when I post that the deaths per million is more than three times its Nordic neighbors, you ignore it and post more on death rates - which everyone knows is problematic due to....well....math.

Intellectual dishonesty

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

I don’t understand this “mortality rate debate”. Fauci estimated it at 0.8% back in early March.  So far data points have corroborated it.  If antibody shows lower-great.  Due to how easily this is transmitted.  That’s still a ton of people globally and domestically. 

[#UnleashSean]

Not sure whats going on in Europe but other countries are being pretty dishonest about their death rates. Some are pretending covid barely exists, then some like states in the US are doing the opposite. We're counting pretty much every death due to covid symptoms as a covid death (problematic as these are very standard symptoms) as well as people dying of other issues who have covid as a covid death. I know of two personally. One died of a heart attach unrelated to covid, and another died in a car accident. Both were counted.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Not sure whats going on in Europe but other countries are being pretty dishonest about their death rates. Some are pretending covid barely exists, then some like states in the US are doing the opposite. We're counting pretty much every death due to covid symptoms as a covid death (problematic as these are very standard symptoms) as well as people dying of other issues who have covid as a covid death. I know of two personally. One died of a heart attach unrelated to covid, and another died in a car accident. Both were counted.

How do you know this?  My understanding is that individualized information isn't released. 

[MarquetteDano]

Not sure whats going on in Europe but other countries are being pretty dishonest about their death rates. Some are pretending covid barely exists, then some like states in the US are doing the opposite. We're counting pretty much every death due to covid symptoms as a covid death (problematic as these are very standard symptoms) as well as people dying of other issues who have covid as a covid death. I know of two personally. One died of a heart attach unrelated to covid, and another died in a car accident. Both were counted.

Which states are you saying are over-stating deaths due to COVID?

[WarriorDad]

Deaths per million is pretty high in Sweden.

Lower than Italy, France, UK, in line with Ireland despite the tactics those nations took.  Sweden is moving their deaths forward in the count in the hope of herd mentality.  They may be wrong in that approach.  Despite taking their lumps now, their deaths per 1M looks better than a number of countries and worse than others.  With the amount of opposition to their approach, one would seem to think they are worst in the world or close to it.  The data doesn't show that to be the case.

[WarriorDad]

You just said "If the mortality rate was truly as high as 12.1%, the deaths in the country per million or any other comparison would be extreme.  They are not."

Yet when I post that the deaths per million is more than three times its Nordic neighbors, you ignore it and post more on death rates - which everyone knows is problematic due to....well....math.

I addressed this yesterday.  Higher than some of its neighbors, but better than some European nations.  And again, they are taking their lumps now in the hopes of less deaths later.  Some call that intellectual dishonesty, but that is exactly their stated goal to try and acquire herd immunity.  By doing so, more deaths happen now. 

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Lower than Italy, France, UK, in line with Ireland despite the tactics those nations took. 

Whoa, whoa, whoa....  Earlier you said this:

Swedish population is an excellent comparison against other Scandinavian nations and even some other European nations.

Then when others asked you "which European nations," you said this:

Based on my travels and knowledge of European history, Finland, which is not part of Scandinavia but is part of Europe. 

So when I show that the death per million are out of whack compared to the Scandinavian nations and Finland, the nations YOU mentioned would be a good comparison, you bring up France, Italy, etc.

Intellectual dishonesty and goal-post shifting at its finest!  A veritable Chicos masterpiece!!!  <chef's kiss>

[WarriorDad]

I don’t understand this “mortality rate debate”. Fauci estimated it at 0.8% back in early March.  So far data points have corroborated it.  If antibody shows lower-great.  Due to how easily this is transmitted.  That’s still a ton of people globally and domestically.

The debate is around projecting numbers that aren't true.  Claiming a 12% mortality rate, or even 5% is not accurate and accomplishes what exactly?  Other than more fear, confusion and panic.   The true rate based on any number of worldwide estimates is less than 1%.  That is higher than the flu, which is .1 to .3%, but if it lands at .8% that is significantly different than 5% or 12% that some are using erroneously.   

[WarriorDad]

Whoa, whoa, whoa....  Earlier you said this:

Then when others asked you "which European nations," you said this:


So when I show that the death per million are out of whack compared to the Scandinavian nations and Finland, the nations YOU mentioned would be a good comparison, you bring up France, Italy, etc.

Intellectual dishonesty and goal-post shifting at its finest!  A veritable Chicos masterpiece!!!  <chef's kiss>

Are they out of whack?  When you factor in the timing and their approach?  Thought it was clear that timing is everything.  This has been addressed by me and a few others here.  Not sure how a goalpost was shifted.  Their deaths will be higher now because of their approach.  What they are gambling on is their overall deaths and death rate by proxy will be lower in the months ahead if they can realize herd immunity.  Why would you not factor in time when you know clear well their approach is to accelerate deaths now and not distribute deaths later as most nations have done?

[Pakuni]

The debate is around projecting numbers that aren't true.  Claiming a 12% mortality rate, or even 5% is not accurate and accomplishes what exactly?  Other than more fear, confusion and panic.   The true rate based on any number of worldwide estimates is less than 1%.  That is higher than the flu, which is .1 to .3%, but if it lands at .8% that is significantly different than 5% or 12% that some are using erroneously.

You're confusing mortality rates of infection with mortality rates of known cases. These are not the same thing.

The case mortality rate for the flu is about .1 percent - that is, for every 1,000 reported cases, 1 person dies. The case mortality rate for COVID-19 is about 6 percent, meaning that for every 1,000 reported cases, 60 people die.

The infection mortality rates for both are much lower, but show that COVID-19 is significantly more dangerous. The estimated infection mortality rate is currently .5 to .6 percent. So, working off the lower number, 5 in 1,000 who contract it (reported or not), are dying. That's still five times higher than the mortality rates of known flu cases, much less the millions of cases every year that never get reported.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Are they out of whack?  When you factor in the timing and their approach?  Thought it was clear that timing is everything.  This has been addressed by me and a few others here.  Not sure how a goalpost was shifted.  Their deaths will be higher now because of their approach.  What they are gambling on is their overall deaths and death rate by proxy will be lower in the months ahead if they can realize herd immunity.  Why would you not factor in time when you know clear well their approach is to accelerate deaths now and not distribute deaths later as most nations have done?

Of course they are out of whack.  More than three times their per capita population is dying due to the disease than the best comparables YOU provided.

And yes, they are trying to get to herd immunity by letting the infection run rampant, which is morally problematic.  It assumes that treatment or prevention techniques would not improve over time.  So the curve my not only flatten, but decrease.