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Comment by aazaa | Hacker News Reader

Looks like Sweden doesn't stand out much in its case growth compared to neighbors:

https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?country=Finland&country=Ger...

Sweden has also a small population. Values from smaller populations are less statistically relevant. Once the number of infections growth the number will be more significant.

Small number are problematic. There are 2.27 Popes per square kilometer in the Vatican.

Sweden is almost certainly growing faster than Norway. Norway is testing more broadly (note the 6x death rate in Sweden) and they have similar case count growth per day (implying Sweden might actually be growing 3x as fast factoring population difference).

Case counts also lag measures by 2 weeks.

Could just as well be statistical anomaly. Denmark (which has about the same population as Norway) has 50% more deaths per capita compared to Sweden, with stronger restrictions than Norway.

With the numbers we’re looking at (10-100 deaths), a single nursing home being hit is the difference between entire countries. Any judgement on effectiveness needs weeks more of data.

The statistics change quickly: Denmark and Sweden now have the same number of deaths per capita, after 5 more in Denmark but 36 in Sweden.

Don't look at case growth. That is limited by testing capacity/policy. Look at deaths.

And Sweden is not testing people either.

The way it’s being communicated to me is that by testing people they will bring more people together and thus spread the virus.

Yes, from what the government agencies communicate they most closely look at the number being admitted to ICUs per day, which has actually been declining.

But deaths is influenced by health care capacity.

What about looking at number of people in need of emergency care?

(regardless of if they get it or not)

That's why you should really be looking at the rate of acceleration of the deaths, but you should still be looking at the deaths.

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