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Comment by graeme | Hacker News Reader

> There is nothing that suggests that the outcome in Sweden would have been that of Norway, if the policies had been more similar.

All the other scandinavian countries had policies and outcomes like norway.

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Denmark has more than twice the cumulative deaths per million people of Norway, are you saying that is still to be considered the same outcome?

2x seems like a much closer ballpark than 10x, especially with Denmark being part of mainland europe and significantly denser? (Denmark has a higher population than Norway on 1/10th the surface, excluding greenland).

Density may play a role, but Norway, Denmark and Finland have urbanization rates of 83% to 88%. E.g. a fifth of Norway's entire population resides within the Oslo metropolitan area and a fifth of Sweden's population resides within the Stockholm metropolitan area.

Denmark is a lot closer to Norway than Sweden. Denmark has a third of the COVID-related deaths of Sweden. I think the actual numbers are more illustrative here than fractions:

    - Sweden: ~1450 deaths per million
      Population: ~10.2 million
      Density: ~25 people/km^2
      Urbanization: 88%
      Rates compared: 10x Norway, 8x Finland, 3x Denmark

    - Denmark: ~450 deaths per million
      Population: ~5.8 million
      Density: ~137 people/km^2
      Urbanization: 88%
      Rates compared: 3x Norway, 2.5x Finland

    - Finland: ~190 deaths per million
      Population: ~5.5 million
      Density: ~18 people/km^2
      Urbanization: 86%
      Rates compared: 1.2x Norway

    - Norway: ~150 deaths per million
      Population: ~5.3 million
      Density: ~15 people/km^2
      Urbanization: 83%

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