Ouch. That is a problem. We know that it is really hard to compare infection numbers, but this would suggest that Sweden may be significantly under-reporting relative to other nations.
Do you know how much contact tracing is being done? This is a pretty important task both for control, but also just to have any sense of the numbers involved.
And it seems it was nothing but a short term dip. They are back at a solid 1.24 daily average again. This is really worrying. Given the lag time between introducing restrictions and them taking effect, the simplistic numbers would suggest they will reach over a 1000 deaths a day before it gets better. Somewhere in here their medical system gets overwhelmed, and things could get very grim. This is seriously not good.
As noted earlier, mobility restrictions don’t seem to have had much of an impact on the populace as one (and certainly I) might have hoped for. Numbers from elsewhere seem to support that R is pretty robust until restrictions are screwed down quite tight.
No worries! No insult received, just a desire to correct the misperception.
Comparing mortality rates per million population only works if you compare like with like.
Each nation has its own Coronavirus schedule, so perhaps it would be better to compare death rates per million at the same point in the schedule of each nation.
So one might set a point of -say- the first fatality and examine the data again at stages of perhaps 10 days apart, that would give some comparable information and would also probably suggest which countries are genuinely having an impact on the growth rate through their control measures.
If that were done, then how would Sweden, or any other nation compare?
The one I find most scary is the US, they took very weak measures quite late on and in many states those measures were simply ignored and they are pretty much in very early days into the pandemic.
The curves we are referencing all start at 1 death per million as day zero. So yes the reference is to the same “point in the schedule.”
“Park” is also rather a broad term. In an urban setting many “parks” are small, designated activity areas that fill up quickly and that can be cordoned off with relative ease. In suburban and rural areas, “parks” often mean very large spaces with no access restrictions, which in fact are often indistinguishable from just “A place no one has built anything yet.”
Not sure of the details but Covid-19 falls under the disease control law so contact tracing is being done.
Updated death rates per million, two days on:
Sweden - 59 ➔ 79
Denmark - 35 ➔ 41
Norway - 16 ➔ 20
Finland - 6 ➔ 8
Iceland - 18 ➔18
Estonia - 16 ➔ 18
Latvia - 1 ➔ 2
Lithuania - 6 ➔ 6
Sweden’s death rate is still going up rapidly compared to other countries in the region, not leveling out. The graphs don’t look good either.
So there’s one thing I don’t understand about the Swedish data.
The Worldometer site has a count of “Serious, Critical” cases, which is currently up to 719.
Other information sources I’ve read have said pretty consistently that Sweden has about 5 ICU beds per 100,000 people, ie about 500 in the country
So how is their hospital system not overwhelmed right now already?
I’m assuming the answer is likely to be some combination of ‘not updating when people leave hospital’ and/or ‘outsourcing some of their sick to a neighbor country’ (I hear France has sent about 80 patients to Germany already). But it would be interesting to figure out which
I assume that ICU == critical, and serious == hospital bed.
Some countries have about doubled the number of effective ICU places by taking over surgical recovery. Normally people don’t spend long in recovery, but the facilities are not too far off ICU. Especially if mechanical ventilation is not yet needed.
The Swedes are not providing very good numbers. This is never a good thing. Always seems to be a hallmark of something wrong under the covers. Whether it be incompetence, denial, or structural problems, who knows? But when the numbers are askew I worry.
An opinion piece on whether Sweden’s approach to the coronavirus is working in the Washington Post.
Is Sweden’s lax approach to the coronavirus backfiring?
I’ve been following this story for a while now, thinking that watching the numbers would give an indication of whether social distancing works. In the beginning, it seemed like a scientific issue of interest. Over time, it became more political. People against social distancing used one set of numbers to compare with to say that social distancing didn’t matter. People for social distancing used different sets of numbers for comparison.
Early on,one article says that Sweden wasn’t going to count infection rates at all. Sweden Stops Counting Number of Coronavirus Infections – “The strategy is to achieve herd immunity” That was in mid-March. Some time after that, I read that herd immunity was never the strategy.
Then the argument seemed to be that locking down would create more death through economic destruction: Sweden determined it has smarter strategy for dealing with COVID-19
It seemed pretty cruel to make a calculation that people dying now is better than possibly people dying later. But if the economic calculations in the Washington Post article are right and the death toll from the coronavirus continues to rise, there may be both in Sweden. If that happens, I wonder if the government would lose some of the trust that many of its citizens place in it.
This article says that Sweden has set up makeshift beds up to 1,200. They’re quickly approaching that number.
Google’s mobility change tracking just updated, and the latest figures for Swede are available. There has been no change in their movements. Numbers good up until the 5th. OTOH, most countries have settled down to a constant number over the last week. Just at significantly different numbers. Comparing absolute numbers is probably no terribly useful, as the metrics are very broad, and significant differences in geography exist. The numbers seem to be simply relative to an averaged baseline, so weekly variations in normal patterns are not normalised out.
Aftonbladetprint a document that has been leaked.
Google Translate:
I guess the authorities are a bit worried.
Again in my mind the number that matters is where is is relative to the day in the progression (using the day of 1 death/million as the origin). Sweden at 1.15 is indeed not yet consistently slowing down and is running higher than their neighbors. More worrisome for them is that a majority of other Western countries have had their rate more consistently slowing down by this day into the progression
I saw that opinion piece too and was a bit annoyed that the only data they offered was the meaningless CFR based off of test numbers. It may be that they will overwhelm their system, but the case of that was not well made in that bit.
I do not think the actual question potentially answered by following their approach was “whether social distancing works” but whether a less draconian approach to social distancing works well enough, at least in that specific cultural and demographic circumstance. If their current deaths rate had dropped down by this point to 1.11 or less the hypothesis that the draconian approach is always required would have been falsified. If their rate does not drop off significantly more over the next few days then the hypothesis in their culture a more draconian approach is not required begins to look falsified.
Here’s a pretty good CNN overview of the Swedish situation: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/10/europe/sweden-lockdown-turmp-intl/index.html
Well, that’s easy enough to see on the Worldometer site.
Sweden - population ~10 million
Norway, Denmark, Finland - population ~5 million
Sweden reached ~10 deaths on March 18
Norway and Denmark reached ~5 deaths on March 18 and 19 respectively
Finland reached ~5 deaths on March 26
So Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are at the same point on their curves, Finland is about a week behind.
Currently Sweden has 2x deaths/m as Denmark, and 4x deaths/m as Norway - at the same point on their curves.
Can I just say that I’m highly amused by Americans worrying about Sweden?
Green Wyvern isn’t American. Neither am I. Think DSeid is the only American on this page of the discussion. Hopefully that doesn’t diminish your amusement too much.
The real question is whether Sweden stays within their hospital capacity, which so far they seem to be doing fine with.
It’s not that people are ‘worrying’ about Sweden, it’s that we have a good comparison of the effect of following different policies in similar countries.
In fact, the USA is doing a bit worse than Sweden.
USA reached ~1 death/m on Mar 22, Sweden on Mar 18, so the US is about 4 days behind on the curve.
Yesterday the US death rate was ~50/m, and on Apr 5 (at a similar point on their curve) Sweden was at ~40/m, so the US is doing 25% worse.
Sweden about doubled their death rate in the last 4 days, and if the US does the same or a little worse, they may be at 35,000 total deaths in 4 days time.
Reasonable time for an update. With recognition that the last three days may again reflect some weekend reporting bias with some uptick likely as those numbers get reported during the next couple of days, but still looking at the overall trend.
Sweden has clearly had significantly more deaths per million to date since hitting 1 death per million than their Nordic peer group has. About 89 for Sweden to about 49 for fairly well matched Denmark. Average daily growth rate for the last week 1.10 Sweden to 1.06 Denmark.
Weekend reporting lull or not the overall curve for Sweden seems to be following Switzerland’s (which has engage in a much more stringent approach), is flattening out some, and as of yet does not seem to be overwhelming their health system. They have not yet peaked however so they may yet reach that point, may yet be able to be declared a disaster. And Denmark for its sake is already at a point of starting to loosen its restrictions some with plans to bring kids back to school this week and soon may begin to allow some back to work.