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Comment by nickloewen | Hacker News Reader

The article provides evidence to support the claim made in the headline, but there are important caveats included at the end:

> The death rate was between three and four times that of Denmark, and nearly 10 times those of Finland and Norway - suggesting Swedes died that didn’t need to.

> And Dr Bhatt does not think another, non-Nordic country such as Britain could have copied Sweden’s policies and got the same results.

> With about 23 people per square kilometre, Sweden has about a tenth of the population density of the UK, while about half of Swedish households comprise just one person - a major factor in local transmission.

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If you're going to quote that, you should add the directly relevant information from the other side:

* "But that death rate is lower than the average for the European Union as a whole (1,684), and well below those of France, Spain, Italy and the UK"

* Dr Bhatt concedes "it worked for Sweden"

* Dr Bhatt is "one of the team at Imperial College who pushed the UK's lockdown strategy"

That last detail is important. Of course he has to say it couldn't have worked in the UK. If he said anything else, that would become the story. What's remarkable is that someone in his position is conceding as much as he has.

>But that death rate is lower than the average for the European Union as a whole (1,684), and well below those of France, Spain, Italy and the UK

I mean one reason why you might want to compare Sweden to other Nordic countries is because you might assume that Nordic countries are more similar to each other than they are to Italy etc.

While that is very true. One thing to note is that we are also very different countries. One of my main gripes during the last almost 2 years now is the implication that Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are basically the same. Which is far from true.

I agree that there are differences but from outside (at least where Norway, Sweden and Denmark are concerned) a lot of these differences might seem very 'Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.' especially when comparing any of these countries against a southern European, Latin language family one.

Edit: I am wrong. The population density of the Stockholm urban area is 4200 (2019), not 400 as I originally said. That number is for the county, not the municipal area. Leaving the rest of the comment so others can learn. Clearly the population density of Stockholm, which holds about 10% of the Swedish population, is not the relevant factor.

> Of course he has to say it couldn't have worked in the UK.

I'm guessing he didn't say it because he didn't think it was true.

In Stockholm there are ~400 people per square km.

In Milan there are 2000, in Madrid there are 5400, in London there are 5700, and in Paris there are 20,000. This detail alone -- ignoring other cultural and demographic differences between northern and southern Europe -- could be enough on its own to soften the blow.

That’s the population density of Stockholm county. The population density of the city of Stockholm is 5200 per square km.

You are right. I am wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_urban_area

I find ~4200 on Wikipedia but your point stands.

FWIW, the main Wikipedia page on Stockholm lists a “Density” of ~5200, an “Urban Density” of ~4200 and a “Metro Density” of ~400. I admittedly don’t know which is the most useful one here. Population density metrics are tricky.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm

And not to be too scold-y, but 400 people per sq km is the population density of small middle-American towns. I know Stockholm isn’t the biggest city by any means, but it’s still a national capital and a cosmopolitan old-world city; a moment of reflection tells you it’s gotta be denser than, like, Little Falls, Minnesota.

Definitely a learning moment for me. Means that the question of Sweden may not be so simple.

That said, most of the population doesn’t live in Stockholm, so that probably was not the right idea to start to begin with.

As another commenter pointed out, Sweden did worse than its neighbors who have a similar population distribution, and I think that's the more interesting take.

As someone who lives in Stockholm and who has visited Milan multiple times I would say both cities have a pretty similar population density and any difference you might see will be due to how the city borders are selected. Neither city is particularly dense or particularly sparse.

Population density is meaningless for countries as a whole. Most of Sweden is wilderness where hardly anyone lives. Swedes mostly live in cities, just like Brits.

Swedes mostly live in low population density cities

Population density in the inhabited parts of Sweden is similar to the Netherlands, only slightly less than Denmark. Norway and Finland are much lower.

It is no Hong Kong for sure, but not quite as sparse as it is often made out to be.

We were not able to explain the variation of deaths/million in different regions in the world by social isolation

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84092-1

A dozen other papers in reputable journals have come to the same conclusion.

I've become increasingly aware of news articles spending many paragraphs advancing a particular thesis only to apply significant caveats to that thesis in the closing paragraphs.

I assume this is done with the full knowledge that the final paragraphs are the least read in any article.

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