COVID: Australia had more excess deaths than Sweden
www-theaustralian-com-au.cdn.ampproject.org/c...
www-theaustralian-com-au.cdn.ampproject.orgPosted Mar 23, 2023, 6:51 AM UTC
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www-theaustralian-com-au.cdn.ampproject.orgNow lets compare Sweden to its neighbouring countries?
A quick search shows me Sweden has had ×4 the deaths of Norway. Or are we doing the whole that doesnt count thing?
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Now let's compare the Swedish culture/mindset and why were able to take a more relaxed approach in the first place?
This is just typical cherry picking from the usual crowd. Even the experts quoted in the article were co-authors of the GBD, backed by a libertarian think-tank.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/95601
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I’d rather look at the raw numbers rather than behaviours.
But ultimately yes it does play a part. Eg Victorians would get 24-48 hours notice of going into lockdown and instead of people bunkering down every cafe and restaurant would be booked out. This idea that we could have kept everything open is absurd.
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I think it's silly not to look at both. I replied quite extensively to OP, however I'm sure it's not the first time they've heard (and ignored) it.
They want all the perks with no trade-offs. You wonder why they resonate with those preaching radical Individualism in the states. It's like believing a toddler when they say they'll eat their vegetables if they can have dessert first.
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What is a neighbour?
Denmark is separated by sea, albeit a short distance. So is the UK and Germany.
You are cherry picking. Sweden outperformed all of Europe, including western Europe.
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Well they didnt outperform Australia which is all that really matters.
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They did outperform Australia according to this story.
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They have more deaths with 16 million less people
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oz managed amongst the world's best death rate bc of its strict border controls during the wuhan and delta strains. it was blessed to kick them off during almost covid-zero phase.
europe got hit with those deadlier strains before they could achieve anything close to covid-zero. once out, the virus cant be stopped from spreading.
so comparing death rates due to the deadlier strains to the wimpy omicron strain (which is what most of oz got exposed to) is a bollocks comparison.
and anyhow, the thing that 'really matters' is excess deaths ... and they outperformed us.
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Victoria was getting 700 cases in the winter 2020 and got cases back to 0 within 3 months. We showed it can be done.
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I lived in Norway throughout the pandemic, while restrictions were somewhat stricter than Sweden, they were no where near as strict as the restrictions in Australia.
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From the article. "After three years, Sweden has experienced 23,777 deaths from or with Covid-19, compared with Australia’s 19,477, according to the World Health Organisation."
Sweden has just 2/5ths the population of Australia.
We did bloody well in comparison.
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Also, Sweden only counted a death as a covid death if they died in hospital within 30 days of admission. If they died from diseases caused by a weakned immune system caused by covid, it doesn't count.
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OP title extremely misleading.
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Two US public health experts who in 2020 recommended the Swedish approach – Stanford University’s Jay Bhattacharya and Harvard’s Martin Kulldorff – said they felt vindicated but despaired at the lack of appreciation of the findings and feared the same policies would be followed again.
Ah yes, co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration. If they feel any form of vindication, it's confirmation bias and delusion at play.
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/09/13/covid-19-and-the-new-merchants-of-doubt/
If you find yourself praised by, or aligned with DeSantis, you really should question your position.
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Play the ball not the man, is there anything factual you can argue with in the article?
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Typical. Do you understand that conflicts of interest play a part in whether such claims are credible?
Let's start with, is there anything 'factual' in this article? I see opinions from extremely biased individuals. That is fact.
Your post history shows you love anything that allows you to claim vindication, just like those GBD co-authors previously mentioned.
I have no idea why your crowd continues to place Sweden on a pedistool - either dishonesty, delusion or desperation.
Ultimately, Sweden is a different country with different circumstances and variables. They have a higher number of people living alone. They social distance by default. They still had restrictions, and most voluntarily took steps to reduce risk (like working from home). You also seem to mistake their Egalitarianism for Libertarianism, which is laughable if you knew about Jantelagen.
You want the 'perks' of Sweden, but would accept none of the compromises, changes in community mindset, or modifications in behaviour.
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Do you understand that conflicts of interest play a part in whether such claims are credible?
yes i do .. and you don't understand that precisely this conflict is what has led to withholding information by governments that has worked against the public interest.
Sweden correctly predicted that just about everyone would catch it, and that subsequent waves would be less serious. They made a point that it was futile to try to stop the spread. What they got wrong was to not go to greater lengths to protect the elderly.
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What the fuck are you on about...
What they got wrong was to not go to greater lengths to protect the elderly.
On that point we can agree. Unless you believe administering morphine instead of oxygen is protecting them.
Edit: Cute block babe. Indicative of how you process new information that doesn't match your views.
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The history of Sweden in this sub is the important part . Sweden was lambasted for its approach and put up almost daily as the example of why we must lockdown because they had the highest death rate in the OECD for quite some time.
You can still see the last vestiges of the attacks on Sweden’s approach with the demand that we compare Sweden only to its nearest neighbours, as if the genetics are something at play.
It’s become a play thing of the politics - now as an i gold you so for the anti lockdowners who advocated for trusting the population and operating under advisory actions rather than the authoritarian take of using police, law and fines to demand compliance
This opposing forces are still here
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Nothing I have said here is Incorrect.
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Ah yes, co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration
Oh shit - that was announced with such grandiose fanfare and then quickly fell flat on its arse.
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And yet the grift continues - https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-spiritual-child-of-the-great-barrington-declaration-promotes-antivaccine-misinformation/
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That was a great read.
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According to the Economist’s tracker, Sweden has around 2.5x the excess deaths of Australia per 100k population over the pandemic period: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
Sweden: 185 per 100k pop Australia: 75 per 100k pop
Further, Swedens covid deaths exceeded excess deaths by a full 20% over that period, so Sweden excess deaths would otherwise have actually been significantly negative.
Virtually all of Australia’s excess deaths have occurred post lockdowns.
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Are you suggesting The Australian would post something inaccurate, biased or misleading? No way!
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Yeah.. posting this crap and then asking you to fact check it is just trolling. Separately, the logic of including all Australian excess deaths, given they are virtually all post lockdowns, in an article arguing against lockdowns, is bizarre.
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Oh, the Australian. This should be impartial…
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This excess death BS is being repeated by grifters and mindless conspiracy zombies all over the internet at the moment. They think normal people will be just blown away by this groundbreaking revelation. We don't actually care lol
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Not just conspiracy theorists, it’s become a hot topic amongst many people, including those who practice medicine such as general practitioners.
One general practitioner who’s bringing this to light is Dr Campbell; he has a YouTube platform that assesses the data on the pandemic and asks questions and gives some answers, and is completely non-bias.
It’s not good to just brush off excess deaths. It’s important to investigate and understand why we have a high amount of excess deaths in the interest of the human race and our health as a society. Excess deaths could be caused from a great variety of things, but we need to find out and not be scared of it.
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Oh, Dr John Campbell
Initially, the videos received praise, but they later veered into misinformation.[2] He has been criticised for suggesting COVID-19 deaths have been over-counted, repeating false claims about the use of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, and providing misleading commentary about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
Oh wait, he is a doctor!
and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Bolton
We know what caused the excess deaths, Covid and related matters, not vaccines and unrelated matters.
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“Misinformation”, which is a fashionably used socialist term for, “the government doesn’t agree with it”. Also used by those who are quick to get very cranky very rapidly when someone makes a statement or comment that doesn’t align with one’s belief or idea.
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Campbell is pushing ivermectin which study after study proved that it doesn't help deal with covid. Why are you listening to people who push misinformation.
Then there are those that push their snake-oil and sell it on their website. Why are people so gullible?
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general practitioner
lol, righto. His nurse training provides some of the basic medical knowledge, his PhD was on teaching material for nurses.
Not really the same as 10 plus years to become a GP
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So absolutely anything he says we should just slam as false? Lol, righto.
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You should take what he says on a similar basis to what any nurse, junior doctor or science undergrad says, with the knowledge that he is making a lot of money on pushing a particular agenda.
Basically an MD (Bachelor of Medicine) should have far superior medical knowledge to old John, yet an MD is only about 40% of the way towards becoming a GP.
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The first sentence of this article is factually incorrect.
Australia did not record relatively more "excess deaths" during the pandemic.
Or absolute deaths for that matter.
Absolute numbers: Australia: 19,690 Sweden: 23,823
Relative numbers (per million) Australia: 755 Sweden: 2,331
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The Press Council of Australia requires publishers to present accurate and factual information.
https://presscouncil.org.au/standards/statement-of-principles
If they don't, a complaint can be submitted here:
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The first sentence of this article is factually incorrect.
Exactly why I snapped at OP. The premise and claim is faulty. The burden doesn't sit with us to 'disprove' a claim they never proved in the first place.
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What Sweden did right was encourage outdoor activity. I think if we had allowed more outdoor socialising & exercise people wouldn’t have felt then need to cheat as much and sneak people into their homes. Plus outdoor transmission is rare and being outdoors is good for physical and mental health. I do wonder how much healthier Sweden’s population is over all too.
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When people in the UK started using 'lockdown files' as a way to invoke Sweden again, public health experts rightly pointed out the many differences. For obesity, it's 1 in 10 for Sweden, 1 in 4 for the UK. Sweden has 25-35% more doctors and nurses per head. Sweden had 80% of their salary paid to self-isolate, compared to fixed payments for low income earners.
But the people who cry about lack of interventions for diet/obesity, would also complain about how 'government daddy' telling them what to eat is an overreach. They ignored it for the last 10 years, and blame the government.
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In which year? 2020/2021/2022?
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If Sweden's chief epidemiologist can eventually come to the conclusion that “striving for herd immunity is neither ethical nor otherwise justifiable”, then why can't everybody else?
He screwed up.
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COVID narratives over time
March 2020: Sweden will have by far the highest death rate in the world.
December 2020 (Sweden at this time had more deaths than its neighbors, but less than the rest of Europe): Sweden can only be compared to its neighbors. There's some genetic thing in Scandinavians that makes their death rate low. Plus Scandinavia has a low population density. But Sweden has a higher death rate than its neighbors, you see.
And look at Australia, with the world's lowest death rate. Surely the whole world is comparable to an island nation that can close itself off to the rest of the world.
March 2023: You say that Sweden had the world's lowest death rate? Well, that's because everybody in Sweden voluntarily locked themselves down, even though the government didn't force them to.
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We are a much bigger country... of course we are going to have a higher excess rate.
Now measure that in per capita.
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Paywall link - https://archive.is/OsSTV
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“The thing to emphasise is that Sweden has had one of the lowest excess mortalities in all Europe during the pandemic no matter how you cut the data,” Professor Bhattacharya said.
“If lockdowns were necessary to prevent death it should have had one of the worst. Sweden served as a control group for the world in ethical pandemic management and it was a rousing success.”
He said the success Australia had in having “little Covid on the island for a full year came at tremendously high cost: 270 days of lockdown in Melbourne, essential imprisonment of the population”.
Former US president Donald Trump in April 2020 said Sweden was “suffering badly” from its decision to follow its pandemic plan, but the US, where lockdowns pushed the jobless rate above 15 per cent in 2020, ended up with five times as many excess deaths as Sweden and the sixth worst outcome, according to the OECD data.
“Extended quarantining of healthy populations, the closing of schools, and massive violation of civil rights: these were never part of any pandemic plan that I’m aware of for respiratory viruses,” Professor Bhattacharya said.
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Lockdowns and a higher vaccination rate may not have been the answer for Australia.
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Yeh leave everything open and have 40% vaccinated. What a glorious result that would have given us.
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Worked in many other countries
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And was a disaster in many more.
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Seemed to work for Sweden
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Ok and we are going to ignore the rest of the let it rip countries that it didnt work for?
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Yes
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It didn't though, if you bother to look at the numbers, it didn't, but that's not what you're being told or want to believe so what's the point?
You'll be living in a van down by the river before you know it...
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Ffs you people are thick
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Yes, it was a massive failure in policy by the Coalition government.
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It's odd that people claim that Sweden did not have Covid restrictions. While it didn't bring in lockdowns, it had a range of quite strong legally enforced social distancing measures during 2020 and early 2021: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_government_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic
The Swedish government also noted that a range of quirks of Sweden's demographics also influenced their decision-making. For instance, an usually high proportion of Swedes live in single person households, and this made social distancing restrictions and recommendations more effective.
The Swedish experience during Covid is certainly an interesting one, but it's complex and difficult to generalise to other countries.
They also take days off work and stay home with their sick kid and make sure they don't spread it at their work or school.
Ah, so they behaved intelligently while we bitched and moaned like a pack of cunts?
Bingo. They didn't need to be told what to do.
The joys of living in a more egalitarian society, compared to those who invoke 'equality' and 'discrimination' to hide their radical individualism.
VAB is not a covid thing.
As a swede with a lot of family and friends over there, this feels a bit misleading.
They were allowed to go to restaurants in groups of 8 people from different households while we were allowed outside for 1h per day. Their restrictions were also mostly recommendations and not legally enforceable requirements. I know people over there who felt they were doing SO MUCH for covid when they chose to not go to the gym because of the recomendaciones, but then they went against the recommendations and went clubbing and got sick.
They only counted covid deaths if the person died within 30 days of hospitalisation with covid. The stat's don't include those who died of other diseases because they got covid first (lung disease caused by covid ect).
Also, swedes naturally socially distance as part of the culture, and they don't often visit each other's homes. Most people have less space at home as home ownership often means small appartments and they are more likely to meet friends outside. In AU people are more likely to drive and live in a house, and have more kids that are more frequently socialising with grandparents. The culture is more southern European with more intergenerational childcare obligations and social structures.
Thanks, that's really interesting.
I personally think that Sweden got it wrong in 2020, but we should have followed Sweden's settings in the second half of 2021 rather than have instituted really strict lockdowns when the vaccination campaign was underway.
This is outright misinformarion. Sweden counted everyone that had a positive test within 30 days no matter what they actually died from. Even if they died in a car crash. This is more than most countries. Also the whole point of this post is the excess deaths, that means all deaths in the country. That include those tou think Sweden swept under the rug 30 days after their covid infection.
All countries overcounted COVID deaths. But Sweden actually overcounted COVID deaths even more than most countries did. That's part of why Sweden was the only country in the world to have more COVID deaths than excess deaths. (In addition to the fact that Sweden didn't have lockdown-related deaths.)
So you think that Sweden's excess deaths early in the pandemic were caused by car accidents. Cool.
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yet they go clubbing. I don't get it
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Ah see there is a difference there. You are only allowed to be socially undistant if there is alcohol involved.
Swedish government response to the COVID-19 pandemic
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