By: Jan Kjetil Andersen
Sweden has some good stuff. One of them is SCB, Statistics Central Bureau, a jewel for statistic geeks.
Sweden has also made headlines because of their alternative non-lockdown policy during the pandemic, so let’s take a look on some numbers.
A table of special interest in these pandemic times is the weekly mortality rate, and even more interesting is it when we compare that with the Worldometer Covid statistics.
I base the statistics on reports from December 5th but make a cutoff on November 15th to avoid errors because of late reported deaths. According to the information from SCB, no significant changes occur on data more two to three weeks old. We can therefore trust the data up to November 15 as accurate.
According to Worldometer, seen in figure 1, Sweden had 6405 Corona deaths up to November 15. That is about 600 deaths per million citizens, which place Sweden among the hard-hit countries such as UK, France, and US.
As we see in figure 2, the excess deaths from Covid is clearly visible from mid-March to June, and we also see a start of a second wave from mid-October.
However, here comes the interesting part, the excess death rate for 2020 compared to the average for 2015 -2019, is only 3570. That is only 56% of the Covid deaths reported by Worldometer over the same period.
The reason for this is that the death rate for 2020 is lower than average both before the first wave and in the time between the two Covid waves. The actual numbers from SCB before, under and after the first Covid wave is shown in the table below
| Total reported Deaths in Sweden 2020 | Anomaly compared 2015 -2019 average | Covid Deaths | Death Anomaly Covid extracted | |
| Jan 1st – March 14th | 19063 | -1411 | 4 | -1415 |
| March 15- June 30th | 31110 | 5521 | 5479 | 42 |
| July 1st – November 15th | 30956 | -540 | 518 | -1171 |
Parts of this anomaly may be purely coincidental. For instance, was the 2019 –2020 influenza season especially mild in Sweden.
One can speculate whether the disturbing pandemic reports early this year may have influenced enough people to be extra cautious about infections and therefore also caused less influenza spread, but that may be a stretch.
Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, Ander Tegnell, as suggested that the mild influenza season is partly to blame for the relatively high Covid death rate early in the pandemic. More of the most vulnerable survived the weak influenza season which means that Sweden entered the Covid pandemic with a higher number of vulnerable people than normal.
He may have a point, but still, the excess deaths in 2020 is projected to be large enough to bring down the life expectancy by 0.3 years in the whole country. In Stockholm County, life expectancy is estimated to decline by 1.2 years, from 83.7 years to 82.5 years.
Misleading Worldometer statistics
Another interesting aspect here is that the Worldometer statistics always shows a dip for the most recent days for Sweden. The reason for this is that there is a delay in the reporting so the reported numbers for the most recent days are far to low. This is illustrated in the two figures below.
It is too early to tell whether the rate has continued upwards after November 24th.
These two graphs illustrate how easy we can be fooled by statistics and that can be dangerous because we depend on good statistics to make the right decisions.
For example, the authorities use the figures for the number of new infected as a tool to either tighten or ease the restrictions that will reduce the reproduction rate R. The goal is to keep R below 1.0. I am quite sure the decision makers in the government knows about this lag, but the public may not, and that influences how serious we take the situation.
Worldometer is a universally used site, and many laymen look it up for their countries. When the statistics shows a dip for the most recent days many will think, “Thank God, it is over, we can ease up now.”
That may not be the case.
References:
SCB: https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/sverige-i-siffror/manniskorna-i-sverige/doda-i-sverige/
Worldometer
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
I wonder if anyone could find similar data on Italy. It’s not easy to search.
Considering covid deaths are back to spring levels. How unusual are such death level spikes there, given that this is where the panic started!?
Hello D. Carrol,
You can find some data for Italy on euromomo.eu,
https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
/Jan
In Germany, some people have published a table comparing a real pandemic to a staged pandemic, which has run viral. There came a prompt reaction from many media sites putting it all down as fake news…
Here is the translation of it in English:
Real pandemic Staged pandemic
Everyone knows severely ill people from Disease cases are only known from the
their immediate environment/family. media and stories.
Doctors’ offices and hospitals in the Short-time work and vacancies in hospitals.
whole country are overcrowded. Increased anxiety patients in practices.
There are very very many dead. Unchanged mortality rates based on
year-to-year comparisons.
Politicians and doctors do everything to Politicians are doing everything they can to
calm people down. spread panic and intimidate people.
Politicians are doing everything The economy is being deliberately stifled.
to keep the economy going. Whole industries are being destroyed.
Facts are sought and any help Renowned scientists are ignored
in the emergency is accepted. and even publicly ridiculed by the media.
There are no organized profiteers. Billions in profits through prepared
arrangements and deals.
A quick end and a timely, appropriate Changing findings, constantly adjusted
all-clear according to clear benchmarks and new regulations which
specifications/guidelines is sought. prolong the pandemic over and over again.
People are afraid to die and People have more fear of
try everything to protect themselves, punishment. Measures are
where politicians inform in case of through social pressure, police violence
unnecessary overreactions. and enormous fines
People are struggling with a People fight over
humanitarian catastrophe. toilet paper.
Think! Wake up!
I don’t see any real problems with this table, and I think that’s what’s driving the MSM crazy… lol!
I in my admittedly suspicious mind if all of this Corona Virus is the as yet revealed (and if so never be revealed hidden agenda in places of real power, belong governments that we see? Horrors if this is true!
Wow. Ad hominem heaven right here. Covid, although a’real thing’, is a huge pile of bull.
The Spanish flu, now there’s your pandemic.
Politicians, NWO jerks and big tech are having a blast by panicking the entire world.
Did anyone notice that the Worldometer “New Cases” graph for Sweden now has a totally different character this week than the past weeks? It appears that the New Cases daily data has been repopulated going back as far as I cared to look. The most obvious changes from the previous data is that (1) each week now has 3 consecutive days with zero “0” new cases (2) followed by a huge spike in new case number (presumably to make up for the prior null days) and then (3) finishing the week off with 3 days of new case data much lower than the initial spike. I figured it was probably just a new way of presenting weekly data but I’m not getting the same weekly averages for new cases and the new case trend line looks more aggressive too. I’ve looked to see if there was some explanation for the wholescale renovation to Sweden’s Worldometer New Cases data but haven’t found one. Has anyone else have any insight in that regard? Given the timing of the data update and the previous trend I was following (which looked somewhat flat if not starting to decline) this seemed worth mentioning.
Hi Jan: thank-you for your reply. I really hope that you may follow up with the statistics you have been presenting as time goes on, say over the next several weeks to months if necessary. Thank-you for your post, overall it is a good one, Rod.
Thanks for the kind words Ron.
Yes, I will probably come with a follow -up in a month or two, unless the topic have already been extensively covered by other posts here.
/Jan