Would someone tldr it?
They then thought their approach would avoid a second wave. They were wrong about that as well.
They're now pinning their hats on being 'not the worst off'.
A lot of people are dead. Others are angry.
Total deaths pM Sweden: 1,399
Similar country size, but BE has had full lockdown, curfew, police fining.
Belgium seems pretty small and crowded when compared to Sweden.
Healthcare access out of densely populated areas involves delays, transportation, sometimes airlifts or is just simply sub-par. Also densely populated areas tend to have younger population which is overall less likely to die. All of which shifts a significant part of the death rate towards sparsely populated areas.
Death rate by population density is basically a shapeless scatterplot [0]. Even superdense micronations (Monaco, Singapore, Liechtenstein, etc) don't seem to have significantly high rates, with the notable exception of San Marino, which is still "just" at the level of Czechia.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-po...
Actually that's why I mention Singapore, Monaco or Liechtenstein, all of their surface is inhabited, or their population concentrated around a single city, but their death rates aren't dissimilar from those of their surrounding countries.
...
Total deaths pM Norway: 123
Total deaths pM Finland: 148
Total deaths pM Germany: 915
...
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...
I'm not sure why you consider Belgium cherry-picking but not Norway, Germany, and Finland.
You could make an argument for Finland and Norway as more culturally similar (even if personally I find this logic suspect for explaining Covid outcomes), but I don't see how, between Germany and Belgium, one is obviously better than the other for comparison. It appears you chose a country that fits your narrative, and them, theirs.
> You could make an argument for Finland and Norway as more culturally similar
Exactly that. Germany I simply chose because that's where I'm from originally. The data couldn't be more clear that's why I thought it wouldn't be necessary to list many more countries with a stricter Covid19 policy and a considerably lower death rate.
> The data couldn't be more clear
I don't mean to be rude, so please take this as an honest, albeit blunt, response. No one who is honestly analyzing this situation is making such a strong statement. Be them epidemiologists, statisticians, or independent analysts. The only ones saying this are politicians whose job depend on proving that their strategy works.
I would really encourage you to have a bit more humility at the complexity of this problem and the variables (and messy data) involved and the fact that we're still actively learning more every day about the effectiveness of different policy strategies.
https://www.institutmolinari.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/17...
Total deaths pM Denmark: 414.88
Total deaths pM Sweden: 1,399
Similar cultures, but Denmark and Norway implemented more strict lockdown measures.
Two can play this game
Belgium considered anyone that died with something that might be COVID-19, that death is in their stats. Meanwhile, other countries are saying anyone who has not been positively tested as having died with COVID-19 in their system did not die from the pandemic. But tests are fallible, and many people die of the after effects of COVID-19, after the virus has ravaged them but been dealt with.
The true measure is going to be the death rate compared to the previous ten years. And even that has to be considered by numerous conflating variables.
> Tegnell, who is sixty-four and tall, with round glasses, has often said that lockdowns are not supported by science and that the evidence for mask-wearing is “weak.” His stance is a startling departure from the scientific consensus, but he maintains that if other countries were led by experts rather than politicians, more nations would have policies like Sweden’s. The world has been left gawking. American liberals were shocked that the country of Greta Thunberg could seem so scientifically backward. Right-wing activists in Minnesota held up signs during anti-lockdown protests reading “Be Like Sweden.” Within the country, Tegnell has become an icon of Swedish exceptionalism, believed to be excessively reasonable, levelheaded, and rational.
The entire pandemic has been politicized, science be damned when it doesn't conform to a political narrative.
Roughly 10% of those infected require hospitalization, and you can't just put anywhere close to 10%, or even 1%, of the population in the hospital at any given time. Those resources simply don't exist. It also affects IFR of anything else that requires a hospital.
If I get severely sick with COVID-19 (or literally anything else) where I live at the moment, I won't get a normal healthcare access. I'll need to get airlifted elsewhere. We're at 120% ICU occupation rate. Most of the deaths here are happening during transfers to other areas.
It's seriously concerning that we have to repeat this after a year.
Absent evidence that a new respiratory virus that spreads through droplets is in some way different from all those past ones in a way that would make already known ways of dealing with them not applicable, you shouldn't really need to stop and do randomized trials on those past methods applied to the new virus before you put them into effect.