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Comment by taxicab | Hacker News Reader

Maybe comparing pandemic response is more complicated than a dumping of numbers on wildly unrelated countries?

A more accurate comparison that controls for location, culture, political structure, economic situation, etc is between Sweden and the other Nordic countries where it had both higher mortality and worse economic outcomes than its sister nations. Carefully consider your preexisting biases when it comes to interpreting something as complex as the respond of entire nations to an unprecedented pandemic.

Maybe Argentinians just refuse to listen to their government? Maybe environmental factors or lack of infrastructure made it way worse down there and it would be even worse if it weren't for the lockdowns?

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Honest question, what is unique about Nordic culture that makes it altogether different than the UK, France, Belgium and Italy, such that Sweden is not allowed to be compared to other European countries which fared worse or about the same as they did despite draconian lockdowns? Is the argument that Nordic people are more naturally resistant to this disease and therefore Sweden could have lost fewer people? Or is it merely that Norway and Finland were able to prevent the outbreaks among their most vulnerable since they had the benefit of the virus arriving later and so they could better prepare?

The most recent stat I read showed that Sweden currently has less than a dozen people in the hospital with Covid conditions. We're 8-9 months in to this and so far the Swedes are not dropping like flies. They had an early spike in deaths and it since fizzled out.

The Swedes are best compared to their neighbours Norway and Finland, who share contiguous borders, very similar climate, comparable cultures and similar economies.

As of today[0]:

Norway (pop 5.5Mn): 16,136 confirmed cases, 278 deaths in total, 915 new cases in the last 7 days.

Finland (pop 5.2Mn): 13,133 confirmed cases, 351 deaths in total, 1,553 new cases in the past 7 days.

Sweden (pop 10.3Mn): 103,200 confirmed cases, 5,918 deaths in total, 3,280 confirmed new cases in the past 7 days.

On each of these measures Sweden fares far worse. They have 4x the cases of Finland and Norway combined, 9x the deaths of Finland and Norway combined, 1.5x the new cases of Finland and Norway combined.

In absolute and relative terms, Sweden are not worthy of emulation.

[0] https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/se

That did not answer my question, at all. Why can't Sweden also be compared with the UK and Belgium?

There's no evidence that coronavirus has a climate-related outcome, save for vitamin D sufficiency, which is only partly related to climate.

According to this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...

Sweden is at number 13 and falling. Many latin American countries as well as UK, Spain, Belgium, US, and Italy have all fared worse on a per capita basis than Sweden.

Coronavirus does not discriminate based on economy. Many first world nations have been hard hit. Coronavirus does not discriminate based on climate, many warm latin american countries are in the top 10. Coronavirus has hit many areas of the US the hardest during the summer.

Sweden has never locked down, never mandated masks, and they currently have only a couple dozen hospitalizations. Their deaths, even by your chart, have completely flatlined at near zero for now going on three months.

A more interesting issue is why Belgium can never be compared to Germany and Netherlands, in the same way as Sweden is constantly compared to Norway and Finland.

The way the beliefs are repeated is just as interesting as why the Groupthink has come about in the first place.

It’s a worldview. Note that the elderly have to be protected as though they are cattle rather than being told they can choose to protect themselves if they want.

Top down vs bottom up

Weather does affect spread, because it affects how often folks go outside, where and when they interact with others and so on.

In any case, you've fixated on one similarity and missed the larger point. Comparing Sweden to its immediate neighbours is a stronger comparison than any other. No other countries in the world are as comparable, not even close. When you control using that natural experiment, Sweden comes out much worse.

As a Swede I'm astounded by how Sweden have become a pawn in other people's politics just because we had the "arrogance" of doing something they did not, but here we are. This entire article is false, especially the headline.

Anyway, regarding this point; there's wildly different infection-rates etc in different big cities in Sweden as well.

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