In a recent post on Lockdown Sceptics, I argued that the case for lockdown basically collapsed in May of 2020, when Sweden’s epidemic began to retreat. Sweden was the only major Western country that didn’t lockdown in 2020, yet it saw age-adjusted excess mortality up to week 51 of just 1.7% – below the European average.
A common reply is that, although Sweden did better than the European average, it did worse than its neighbours. Here its neighbours are taken to be the other Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland. Looking at age-adjusted excess mortality, it’s true that the other Nordics did better than Sweden. All four saw negative excess mortality up to week 51.
Does this mean lockdown sceptics are wrong to cite Sweden as evidence that the benefits of lockdowns are vastly overstated? No, I don’t believe it does.
First, the economist Daniel Klein and his colleagues have identified 15 different factors that may account for the higher death toll in Sweden as compared to the other Nordics. These include the greater number of frail elderly people alive at the start of 2020 (the ‘dry tinder’ effect); the larger immigrant population; and the lack of adequate protection for care home residents in the early weeks of the pandemic.
Second, as the researcher Philippe Lemoine has pointed out, the epidemic was already more advanced in Sweden by the time most European countries introduced lockdowns and social distancing. The other Nordic countries therefore had a head start in responding to the deadly first wave. This is particularly important because, when the first wave struck, the best ways of treating COVID-19 were not yet well understood.
I would add that, with the exception of Denmark (which saw a moderate second wave), the other Nordics are small, geographically peripheral countries for which a containment strategy was actually workable. As I’ve noted in Quillette, all the Western countries that have managed to keep their COVID-19 death rates low (Norway, Cyprus, Australia, etc.) benefited from pre-existing geographical advantages. And all imposed strict border controls at the start (something the UK Government’s scientific advisers cautioned against).
Third, as the legal scholar Paul Yowell has argued, the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) are similar to the Nordics in terms of climate and population density, and once you include them in the comparison, Sweden no longer stands out. Lithuania actually had higher age-adjusted excess mortality than Sweden last year, despite imposing a strict winter lockdown.
Finally, as Yowell also points out, the ratio of Sweden’s COVID-19 death rate to Denmark’s isn’t that much higher than the ratio of Denmark’s to Finland’s. And this is despite the fact that Denmark has taken a more restrictive approach than Finland. One could therefore take the comparison between those two countries as evidence against the efficacy of lockdowns.
What’s more, this exercise could be repeated with other pairs or trios. For example, despite taking a slightly less restrictive approach than Spain and Italy, France has reported fewer deaths from COVID-19 (as well as lower excess mortality). Of course, these kinds of comparisons don’t tell us very much. But that’s the point. We shouldn’t only compare a country to its immediate neighbours.
And when researchers have analysed European countries and US states in a systematic way, they haven’t found evidence that lockdowns substantially reduce deaths from COVID-19.
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It’s difficult to compare between countries
Sweden is a liberal democracy which places a strong emphasis on individual freedom, personal dignity and respect for human rights. It is unfair to compare it with a medical-fascist terror state that imprisons without trial its entire citizenry such as the UK.
That said – if you do compare there’s no difference anyway. Makes you wonder if it was worth it
Hmm…
Inter-country comparisons are fraught with impossibilities, as you say.
But the massive weight of evidence is that lockdowns are totally useless on the benefit side, but have massive downsides.
The only thing that keeps the argument going is the universal arse-covering exercise from those who decided to make patently wrong, insupportable decisions.
This is an important graph. But in fairness it has to be said that Sweden took more measures than just handwashing. I spent a week in Stockholm last October, and there were other measures such as social distancing (lots of queues outside banks etc) and restrictions on attendance at live performances. But the most significant difference over UK was that there were no masks and absolutely nothing was done to instil terror in the population. In fact quite the reverse. People were treated as adults, informed and confident. I suspect the real value of the Swedish policy will only become clear in the next year or two.
Good summary of the main differentiating points.
But the key for suppression was not just closing the borders early and the geographic possibility to do so, but to keep them closed.
And that now likely for good.
Poland and the Czech Republic also closed early and had a benign 1st wave, but once they reopened, the second wave hit them even harder.
As predicted by proper epidimiologists like Gupta.
Sweden’s second wave of deaths since the summer is now smaller than formerly feted Germany’s.
Going for suppression after the virus has become endemic is just ridiculous, destructive and nihilistic torture, a fight against windmills, Mrs Sturgeon et.al..
As I understand it, in the middle of March 2020 when the first Covid death happened in a Nordic country (can’t remember which one it was, but I don’t think it was Sweden) all the Nordic countries scrambled to test: in most of them the numbers were low enough to make contact tracing a realistic possibility, but Sweden wasn’t so lucky.
Sequencing analysis later showed what went wrong with Sweden: while all the Nordic countries had done a half-decent job containing introductions of the virus from Italy and Austria (the initial concern countries in Europe), Stockholm’s unusually late school half-term break had resulted in it being massively seeded from the UK and New York City (which weren’t then considered to be dangerous areas).
Note that Sweden’s first wave was far more concentrated on Stockholm than its second wave was.
“… when researchers have analysed European countries and US states in a systematic way, they haven’t found evidence that lockdowns substantially reduce deaths from COVID-19.”
It’s worse than that – the correlation actually appears to be negative in certain analyses.
If and when true data in the significant spikes in non-Covid deaths are ever prominently published, many more world inhabitants may (belatedly) realize how many “excess” deaths the lockdown policies caused (or at least significantly contributed to). These statistics could/would/might flip the narrative on who actually has “blood on their hands” … as plenty of experts predicted this spike in preventable deaths, or deaths that would have been much less likely to occur absent the lockdowns.
I did a mortality comparison by age and race in America (as of November 2020 statistics). I mentioned Sweden’s example. I sent my analysis to many news organizations but none published it. Here’s what I wrote then. In this excerpt, I simply pinpoint WHO is/was dying in Sweden:
Sweden has become famous (or infamous) for taking the road less travelled with its contrarian COVID policies. A common critique of Sweden’s non-lockdown and non-mask approach is that Sweden’s death rates (on a per capita basis) are much higher than its neighbors of Denmark, Norway and Finland. This is true.
However, if one simply looks at Swedish mortality rates by age cohorts, the criticism appears to be agenda-driven.
Through November 3rd, Sweden had recorded 5,997 COVID deaths. Of this number, 89 percent had occurred among those 70 and over … and 38.7 percent (nearly 40 percent) had occurred among residents aged 90 or older!
In Sweden, the majority of COVID deaths have occurred among the segment of the population that has already reached or exceeded the country’s life expectancy of 82.3 years. As has been the case in many countries, in Sweden half of all deaths have occurred among residents who were living in a “care” home (nursing home).
Through Nov. 3rd, Sweden (which has a population of 10.23 million) had recorded only two COVID deaths of citizens under the age of 20. Of Sweden’s 5,997 COVID deaths, only 76 (1.27 percent) had occurred in the population under the age of 50.
“ contrarian COVID policies” Well, contrary to the CCP-inspired lunacy adopted in 2020, but in line with established pandemic wisdom followed by most countries since more or less forever.
Also consider that the elderly in Sweden can, if necessary, get up to eight visits a day by a carer in their own homes. So by the time they move to a care home they are likely to be very vulnerable.
IIRC almost all the excess deaths among over-70s in Sweden were among people who either lived in nursing homes or were dependent on home carers (and presumably were infected by said carers).
This makes sense, as people who are old enough to be retired but who are still able to live independently probably find it easier to self-isolate than other members of the population.
Regardless of whether or not Sweden’s lack of lockdown caused those extra deaths, no country would have locked down to prevent that number of deaths. The predictions for the non-lockdown case, which were used to bounce countries into lockdown, were an order of magnitude too high.
Just look at Sweden’s economy! It has not been decimated
Agreed. Nor have their elderly been left to die frightened and alone. children haven’t been traumatised because they, unlike ours, were at school throughout. No doctors there talking about a crisis in psychological disorders because of lockdown either.
family and friends have been able to meet, have coffee, meals etc and do what people do, support and love each other.