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>How come 0.05% died and not 1% to 2%? Isn't this evidence that the coronavirus isn't as big as a threat as we thought? I mean 0.05% deaths is 40 times smaller than 2% deaths.

Because the 1% death rate is a reference to people catching the disease, not the size of the population. Sweden as of now appears to have about 73k officially confirmed cases.

Swedes still voluntarily distanced and closed down, hence the economic damage mentioned in the article. Given that there is no widespread immunity still with total infections in the single digits, those deaths will eventually go up.

I'm not sure if the American attitude of indifference is taking hold here now, but 5000 deaths when 4000 of them could have been avoided is no matter to brush aside, it's in fact a straight up disaster. This is an unprecedent amount of needless death in modern Swedish history.

I'm not American, I'm Dutch. And there's a huge difference between WOII levels (which is what 2% deathrate in The Netherlands would be), versus an extra amount of death people comparable to the worst flu season.

In The Netherlands, the worst flu seasons still have a higher death toll than corona. I hope it stays that way for everyone.

This is empirically false. It's at least 25% worse than the 2018 flu season, which was the worst flu season in decades, and that's with unprecedented mitigation measures in place.

https://www.rivm.nl/monitoring-sterftecijfers-nederland

The peak in the graph is higher but the area under the graph, the total number of fatalities, is almost the same because the flu season lasted longer.

> De oversterfte in week 10 tot en met 19 van de COVID-19 epidemie was 9.768

> De oversterfte tijdens de 18 weken griepepidemie werd geschat op 9.444

Anyway definitely not 25% worse.

The average high for the flu is 650,000 fatalities a year.[0] COVID-19 has so far caused 540,000 fatalities,[1][2] and the year is far from over. Quick napkin math would suggest at least 1 million will have died from COVID-19 at year's end, globally.

That's far higher than all regular flu seasons, although nowhere near as bad as previous flu pandemics.

[0] http://jogh.org/documents/issue201902/jogh-09-020421.pdf

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[2] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

And that's with crushing restrictions on normal human activities.

> the worst flu seasons still have a higher death toll than corona.

Do you have a link to the statistics please? I think you're comparing two different methods of counting death. I think for covid-19 you're counting people who died after testing positive, or people where covid-19 is listed as the cause on the death certificate. But for flu I think you're counting excess mortality.

He was mentioning the same flu season I did [1].

You're right though, I think something different was counted. In one case it was covid-19 deaths vs excess mortality. A sister comment rectified it, fortunately. It took this source [2] that references the excess mortality of the Dutch worst flu season and covid-19.

Then you get:

> De oversterfte in week 10 tot en met 19 van de COVID-19 epidemie was 9.768

> De oversterfte tijdens de 18 weken griepepidemie werd geschat op 9.444

(I think you can gather which is which but you could use Google Translate to be 100% sure)

So COVID-19 is actually higher and in 10 weeks rather than 18 weeks. And also, now that we're comparing a bit more apples to apples (The Netherlands), then we have to take into account that an "intelligent lockdown" (whatever that means) has taken place.

We had less death per 1 million than the Swedish as we were on 6132 at the time of this comment with covid related deaths.

So in conclusion, I made a few subtle errors that ultimately really add up. I wish I could still edit my top comment, I am happy I could already admit one error I made (that Sweden wasn't 100% roaming free), but using different units of measurement (covid related deaths vs excess mortality was another one).

[1] In Dutch, unfortunately: https://www.rivm.nl/monitoring-sterftecijfers-nederland

[2] https://www.rivm.nl/monitoring-sterftecijfers-nederland

Not a scientific article, but this blog post gives some numbers for Sweden: https://emanuelkarlsten.se/more-swedes-died-in-one-month-199....

One big question would be why they chose April 2020 as the comparison point rather than May or June -- did the number of deaths per month in Sweden actually drop?

(I haven't read the article closely, and don't have a horse in this race --- I just thought it was apropos. Feel free to tear it to shreds if appropriate.)

I'm not going to tear it to shreds!

When people say "covid is like flu" sometimes they mean "flu is a big deal, and a bad flu year kills lots of people". (I agree with that).

But sometimes they mean "flu isn't so bad, it's a bit like a cold, doesn't kill so many people".

Even official numbers from Socialstyrelsen over the last 10-20 years showed that weekly excess deaths were only significant certain weeks, with other weeks even being lower than other years.

Yes, the death rate has dropped and is now down to normal.

It’s really deeply misleading to say that Sweden let the virus go “unchecked.” Sweden didn’t enforce a hard lockdown but strongly encouraged social distancing, mask wearing, staying at home, etc. Sweden did have a strong (if likely inadequate) national response to coronavirus. And Sweden was subject to EU-wide travel restrictions, including virtually no foreign tourism.

False regarding mask wearing; wearing a mask has always been and is still strongly discouraged, instead one should only "stay home if feeling sick".

Thanks for the clarification - I had read recently about Sweden considering a facemask policy but I misremembered it as about making them compulsory. Didn't realize that they were still discouraging it (at least as of late June).

> instead one should only "stay home if feeling sick"

My understanding is that this isn't true, but maybe you're being a bit pithy and I misunderstood - it's true that there weren't any bans or strict stay-at-home recommendations, but there were definitely recommendations for people to limit time outside of the home. Even in March Swedish employers were encouraged to implement remote work and Swedes were discouraged on travelling within the country.

Stay home if feeling sick is the strongest message and is also presented as the direct and better replacement for masks in public.

Late response: I had thought Sweden was changing this due to increased data about asymptomatic spread. The fact that they apparently aren't is quite discouraging...

If someone is feeling sick, are they encouraged to go out, but with a mask, elsewhere?

I don't know. That's the policy. Only those that wear a mask in their profession should do so. Not otherwise, regardless of how you feel. Instead of using masks, Swedes stay home if the feel sick.

I see, that's how I understood it. I never checked the media super carefully regarding the Swedes. But now I'm seeing that they did do stuff.

> Belgium seems to be way worse (9774 on 11,460,000 people, ~0.1% is getting truly uncomfortable)

Belgium counts all suspected deaths as well, including those that have not been tested for COVID-19. Which means Belgium is the country closest matching their excess death with COVID-19 fatalities. The Netherlands, for example, leaves about 50% unexplained due to their counting.[0]

[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-the-challenge-of...

Belgium is the closest of the 8 countries/regions considered in that article - not of the EU or the world. Reported deaths there comprise 93% of excess deaths.

Overreporting is possible too. Ireland is at 150-160% according to recent reports [0].

[0] https://www.thejournal.ie/covid-19-deaths-ireland-hiqa-51404...

For comparison, Massachusetts with 8000 deaths out of a population of 6.9M (which is #4 for deaths per-capita worldwide after NY, NJ and CT).

For some reason MA is now being held up as "the exception to America's coronavirus failure":

https://theweek.com/articles/923075/massachusetts-exception-...

Massachusetts is the exception because our re-infection rates (Rt) have been successfully driven down to well below 1.00 (~0.90 in a recent report), despite having started with a nearly out of control situation. We've gone from thousands of new cases per day to now averaging ~100.

The doubling days started out at around 2.4, stayed stubbornly in the dozens for many weeks, then rise, to now averaging well over 400. The original terrifying exponential growth has clearly been halted.

New levels of opening ("Level 3") are now happening this week - gyms, movies, restaurants, all w/large spacing requirements. In the few times I've gone out (making heavy use of delivery), seeing generally very good mask compliance - 75-90%, but less on one recent trip, which is worrying.

I'm concerned about the opening, but confident that the plan is really data driven, and this is as far as they will go until a vaccine, and they'll quickly roll back if numbers slide.

source: MA resident, track & analyze data daily.

Not sure they were "driven" down by policy per-se:

According to rt.live, we started March 3rd with an Rt of 2.22 and were already in a steep Rt decline by the time Baker issued the stay-home request on March 24rd (Rt 1.22) and got below Rt 1.0 a week later on March 31st.

Baker issued his mask order May 6th (Rt 0.88) and we've been bouncing around at that since although we're creeping up now from our low of 0.75 around when reopening started and been slowly ticking upwards since late May to Rt 0.98 now.

A few weeks ago we had the lowest Rt in the nation, now we're only 5th lowest. Hopefully the start of Phase 3 this week won't push us up over 1, but I suspect it will.

https://rt.live/us/MA

A day later, 30 more deaths and we're now 7th lowest, our Rt is up to 0.99 and 3-day hospitalization average is now going up for the first time in a while. The state is now also offering expanded free testing to anyone so it'll be interesting to see how that changes it.

Yes, the Rt declines before the lockdown are curious, but I wonder if they are statistical anomalies related to initial small numbers or some other factor. It could also be that the people were independently starting to take measures, distancing, masks, etc. I know I was, and I'm not the only one.

The chart of inferred infections by date seems to show very strong correlations to the lockdown measures: * very steep rate of rise in cases until 24-March * a bit of reduced slope right at the date * sudden peak/drop-off about a week later on 01-April * steep decline, then flatter decline during lockdown * then, a week after lockdown ends / next phase, around 25-May, the declining slope flattens

And the Rt starts to increase again in the last week of May

So, yes, the re-opening is looking very much like it's increasing re-transmission rates. Today just hit 1.01 on that chart.

Interesting times ahead. New England overall has relatively flat growth rates. Let's hope they continue measures to keep it that way!

Actually, the chart for every state shows the initial high value and steep decline of the Rt rate

So, this is likely of no practical value and some kind of data artifact. Best guess is spread before testing, and testing rates ramping up as it spreads, logging new cases at rates faster than they are actually being created, and normalizing to actual Rt rates as the testing catches up

It's honestly hard to find a lot of fault with Massachusetts' response compared to most other places--at least within the constraints of testing availability and other constraints at a national level. And people have been pretty good at following restrictions as far as I can tell.

That said, like elsewhere along the Northeast Corridor, outcomes have not been great overall especially in poorer immigrant communities. But that doesn't align nicely with a narrative that bad outcomes are a result of bad government policy or kids going to the beach or whatever.

As Nate Silver has noted on multiple occasions, we'll probably come out of this maybe not understanding why results were so different in different places or, at best, understanding that the differences are due to factors that couldn't realistically have been controlled for.

Remember that IFR (infection fatality rate) is the (total number of deaths / total number of infections). You can't use 10 million as the denominator because not everyone in Sweden has actually been infected.

An antibody study[1] indicated that 7.3% of Stockholm has been infected, but that number is 1) from April and 2) is going to be higher than average because Stockholm was harder hit than the rest of the country.

[1] https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/nyheter-och-press/nyhets...

> How come 0.05% died and not 1% to 2%? Isn't this evidence that the coronavirus isn't as big as a threat as we thought? I mean 0.05% deaths is 40 times smaller than 2% deaths.

Naive death rate is deaths/totally cases of infection, not deaths/total population. Most of Sweden never contracted covid in the first place.

A first approximation of Sweden's covid death rate would be around ~7.4% to date (almost certainly lower in practice bc total infections > officially diagnosed)

"On a country left completely unchecked?" not unchecked. There were a lot of closures and measures taken. Just not the same as elsewhere.

That would be almost 200 000 were it to be in America, and that's quite a lot of people to die in 3 or so months.

More than Vietnam+Korean wars put together and those wars lasted years.

So it's not a small number.

It has not been running rampant in Sweden, because many individuals altered their behaviors as well. Which is to say, Sweden is nowhere close to herd immunity, so it stands to lose many more lives in the future as well. So far: it has lost many more lives per capita than its neighbors, and is economically worse off.

There are also two other important reasons to have locked down early in the pandemic: - with time, we have already learned how to treat patients better and reduce mortality. This includes proning, dexamethasone and remdesivir which will reduce deaths. So exposing people to it in spring 2020 will produce very different mortality outcomes compared to fall or spring 2021 - We also have important therapeutic advances happening in monoclonal antibodies, and of course phase 3 trials of vaccines.

I would bet that, with some luck, other European communities avoid ever accumulating the deaths Sweden did.

Finally, it's more than deaths: many long-haul COVID patients are facing permanent disability and diminished capacity. The statistics aren't capturing this yet, but collectively, I think it was very foolish to have tried to push for herd immunity so early in a pandemic.

> I thought the novel corona virus had a death rate of about 1% to 2%

That's the guess at least. But we don't know. The argument for being careful about covid-19 isn't because we know it's more dangerous than other things, it's because we don't know.

It's still novel, we've only been tracking it since last December. The flu been around for a long time. Maybe we'll live with covid-19 for a long time, or maybe we'll find a vaccine.

As it seems right now, it's deadlier than the flu and we weren't really ready for it, so it caused a ripple effect of problems. No matter if a country implemented a quarantine or not, they took a lot of damage one way or another.

It's too early to make any conclusions around this, time will tell what was the best way considering the circumstances

Handwashing practices, physical greetings (kissing in some cultures), sharing of eating utensils, personal space, city density; There's no reason to expect R0 values to be the same all over the world.

Our treatment of race is quite sensical given that it’s misuse in the past has lead to totally nonsensical slaughter and destruction.