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Comment by dkjaudyeqooe | Hacker News Reader

Depending on the level or lockdowns, that can be due to things like less traffic and people staying home, thus less deaths associated with activities forgone.

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Until COVID took hold at the beginning of 2022 Australia saw a reduction in deaths due to the above factors, which more than countered deaths due to COVID, leading to the death rate being lower than normal.

Another significant factor was the complete elimination of flu as a byproduct of COVID countermeasures (zero recorded flu cases or deaths for about a year). Flu came back in from overseas (with a vengeance) when the restrictions lifted.

It looks like there was minimal to no lockdown in Sweden: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-covid-and-lockdow...

It's a misconception that life went on as normal in Sweden. Plenty of activities were reduced or curtailed and business and personal travel from surrounding countries was dramatically reduced.

Even so, it saw much higher mortality rates than its neighbours.

> Even so, it saw much higher mortality rates than its neighbours.

Did they?

https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1596815870676041729

That's a very poor source to be relying on.

Actual studies of the COVID death rate in the Nordics all show Sweden having a much worse mortality rate.

[0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14034948211047...

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/140349482098026...

[2] https://jogh.org/2022/jogh-12-05017

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coron...

As bad as the US is (and getting worse) many places in the world have really horrific traffic deaths, so reduced activity on roads can be a big factor.

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