Remember back in 2020 when Sweden was the bad boy of the Covid world? Placed firmly on the naughty step by the WHO, the EU and many national leaders, the Swedes bravely, or stubbornly, ploughed their own furrow. However, by the end of 2020, with the excess death rate in Sweden at 758 per million compared to the minuscule or negative rates in the ‘pin-up’ Nordic countries of Finland, Denmark and Norway (each of which followed WHO and EU orthodoxy) Sweden, and their Chief Epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, were firmly on the defensive.
How times change! Here we are in 2023, the pandemic rapidly disappearing in the rear-view mirror. But what’s this? The excess date rate in 2022 in both Finland and Norway was higher than Sweden’s in 2020. How can that be, isn’t the pandemic over?
Remind me. Wasn’t 2020 the once-in-a-century pandemic that ravaged the world? When a never-before-seen virus encountered a naïve population, sweeping through country after country. When Sweden, due to the gross pig-headedness of Tegnell and a few colleagues, refused to follow WHO guidance, putting its population at unimagined risk?
Let’s just look at the excess death rate per million for 2020 and 2022 (the data come from Our World in Data):
I’m not trying to necessarily pin the blame on vaccines, I’m just looking at the data. If vaccines were the main culprit of excess deaths in 2022 in Finland, Norway and Denmark, then why aren’t excess deaths in Sweden higher? In fact, as you can see from Figure 1, vaccine uptake is pretty similar in each of these countries. Maybe it’s just Sweden and its people doing their own thing again. Draw your own conclusions about the cause.
No, my point is that no one knows what they’re doing. Don’t trust the experts, they’re as clueless as you and me.
Sweden’s high rate of Covid deaths was certainly, in part, down to some spectacular own goals. In 2020 the Swedes, like the U.K., emptied its hospitals. In the U.K. we sent home tens of thousands of bedridden hospital patients. Many went back to care homes where many staff promptly went off sick. Those left to deal with the deluge were hamstrung by PPE shortages and the necessity to follow PPE protocols. These issues in U.K. care homes exacerbated Covid and all-cause deaths due to conditions such as urinary infections, as can be seen in figure 2. The charts come from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. From interviews and reports I’ve read a similar situation developed in Sweden, contributing to its relatively high Covid fatality rate in 2020, with many of the deaths occurring in care homes (something Tegnell later apologised for).
The charts in figure 3, below, show annual cumulative all-cause excess deaths for each of the four Nordic countries. The top chart covers 2020, while the lower one shows all-cause deaths in 2022.
All-cause cumulative deaths in Sweden in 2020 were 757.99 per million people. In 2022 this had dropped to 286.72. In 2022, the other countries had rates two to almost four times higher than Sweden’s, with Finland and Norway having rates higher than Sweden’s rate in 2020.
Just for a bit of context, let’s throw the U.K. into the mix. Figure 4 shows that in 2022 U.K. all-cause excess deaths are mid table vis-à-vis the Nordic countries. Currently, the 12 month cumulative excess death rate in the U.K. is about 60% lower than in Finland in 2022, and about 25% lower than in Norway.
But I thought the U.K.’s terrible level of excess deaths in 2022 was down to not spending enough on health, isn’t that what the BBC and the rest of the mainstream media tell us? Maybe, but Figure 5 shows OECD data on health expenditure as a percentage of GDP from 2010 to 2021. There are many ways of looking at health expenditure, and I don’t claim this one chart is definitive, but the U.K. looks to have been spending as much as any of these countries, and has also been keeping up with increases in expenditure. Interestingly, Germany comes out as the top dog in terms of expenditure as a percentage of GDP. Figure 6 will show you how well that’s going.
I included Germany in Figure 5 because its current excess all-cause mortality rate is, according to EuroMOMO, higher than at any time over the past three years. Make of that what you will.
Indeed, across Europe we’ve seen higher excess deaths in 2022 than in 2020 or 2021. The charts in Figure 7 come again from EuroMOMO. Across all ages, excess deaths in 2022 were the highest of any of the past three years. Except for the 15-64 age range, when 2022 saw fewer deaths than 2021, though higher than in 2020, in the other age ranges, 2022 was the year with the highest count of excess deaths, with that trend seeming to be accelerating. In Figure 7 I’ve itemised in red which year 2022 was first or second in the league table of highest excess deaths by age cohort.
While I’m looking at some international comparisons, I can’t resist the temptation to include Japan. Not only does Japan have one of the highest vaccine rates in the world, and ubiquitous mask wearing, but it also currently has one of the highest Covid fatality rates in the world. It’s all very odd.
Experts told us Sweden got it wrong. It didn’t.
Experts told us that wearing masks would stop infections. They didn’t.
Experts told us the vaccines would end infections, hospitalisations and deaths. They didn’t.
Supposed experts continue to tell us that U.K. excess deaths are down to the U.K. not spending enough on health care. It isn’t.
Finally, just a thought about Sweden and Anders Tegnell. Back in 2020 there was genuine fury whipped up against him. Calls for him to resign, terrible accusations against him personally. But now, as all-cause deaths in Finland in 2022 reached 30% higher than all-cause deaths in Sweden in 2020, where’s the outrage against the Finnish Health Minister? As each successive Covid wave in Japan has killed more people than the last, where are the calls for Japan’s Health Minister to go? The same is true in Germany, the U.K. and all across Europe.
The blind truly are leading the blind.
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And Germany. What the heck is happening there??
“German excess mortality has increased further from 26% in week 49 to 33% in the last week of 2022.
There were 6832 excess deaths in week 52, up from 3676 excess deaths in week 49, which is an increase of 86% within 3 weeks.”
https://vigilance.pervaers.com/p/german-excess-mortality-part-1
Part 2 is here. A summary;
“During 2021 and 2022 the Pearson correlation coefficient between weekly excess deaths and booster rates across German federal lands ranged from -0.858 to 0.807.
The correlation is strongest during times of low COVID-19 mortality. A high number of weekly COVID-19 deaths weakens the correlation, presumably due to – please don’t stop reading here – the protective effects of the modRNA products against severe disease and death.
Vaccine efficacy has been decreasing continuously since early 2021, hence the correlation between excess deaths and booster rates has grown stronger.
The net impact of vaccinations on mortality was negative in 2021 (they prevented more deaths then they caused deaths), but positive in 2022 (they caused more deaths then they prevented deaths).
Acute vaccine toxicity could entirely explain non-COVID excess mortality of 2021 and January 2022, but we lack conclusive evidence. The high excess mortality rates of 2022 can not be explained by acute toxicity of COVID-19 immunization products.”
https://vigilance.pervaers.com/p/german-excess-mortality-part-2?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Japan?
Hmmmm…..its like deja vu all over again:
‘Another element behind Japan’s apparently rising death toll comes down to statistics and the “misclassification of causes of death”.
“Most of these [deaths] are of people who are elderly or who have other medical complaints,” said Dr Tateda.“They just happen to get infected and Covid is often the second or even third cause of their death.”
Experts have also pointed out that the overall case-load has become murkier, making it harder to trust the rising case fatality rate – a measure of how many infected people die.’
But:
‘While Japan has seen around 62,000 deaths in total, the UK – a country half the size – has reported roughly 215,000, while Germany has seen 160,000 the United States 1.1m.’
Experts in Japan appears to have got the hang of the whole thing:
‘For young people, the virus is just a mild cold and people have to be able to go back to work and return to a normal life after three years.
“But at the same time, we need to have measures in place to protect those who are most at risk – primarily the elderly.’
Dr Kazuhiro Tateda, President of Japan’s Association of Infectious Diseases. Daily Telegraph 19 Jan 23
Some experts earn their pay………but not, apparently, if they work for the government in ‘democratic’ socialist fascist Britain.
Oh, and by the way, Japan still has mandatory BCG vaccination using their own very effective Tokyo-172 BCG vaccine, which may very well have a protective effect against Covid 19 and other respiratory viruses. Just saying…..
“‘For young people, the virus is just a mild cold and people have to be able to go back to work and return to a normal life after three years.
“But at the same time, we need to have measures in place to protect those who are most at risk – primarily the elderly.’ “
I am, however, curious what “measures” he still wants to have in place after three years of utter failure though. Clearly the jabs have failed, and true herd immunity remains elusive as a result. And lockdowns, masks and NPIs and antisocial distancing are also clearly worse than useless. But there is nonetheless enough natural immunity in the population that the virus is essentially endemic now, albeit at a high level thanks to the utterly backfiring jabs.
If they don’t return 100% to 2019 normal yesterday, they never will.
Surprise, surprise again:
‘Public pressure propelled reform and Japan came up with a public, mandatory long-term care insurance system in 2000. The universal elder program is funded half by general tax revenues and half by a combination of payroll taxes and additional insurance premiums paid by everyone 40+.
The family remains the key source of caregiving, but the system supports the adult children with subsidized services whose fees and co-pays are relatively moderate. Among the most popular services: adult day care, home help, respite care and visiting nurses.
The emphasis is on home and community-based services. Families choose the services and providers they want, introducing a measure of competition into the market.’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2015/08/24/what-japan-can-teach-us-about-long-term-care/?sh=27bed75b705d
‘Japan has recorded 1,225 deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, compared with about 180,000 in the United States. In Japan, 14 percent of the deaths have been in elder-care facilities. That is compared with more than 40 percent in the United States, despite a lower proportion of U.S. seniors living in nursing homes.
‘Experts point to a higher priority given to elderly care within society, stronger measures already in place at care homes to prevent infections and high standards of hygiene. “Japan’s elderly care facilities have taken great care in protecting the elderly, not just from this virus but from norovirus, influenza and other germs,” said Kayoko Hayakawa, an infectious-disease specialist at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM). “Day-to-day precautions were already in place.”
‘Furusawa says he owes a huge debt of gratitude to staff members who have basically put their own lives on hold so they don’t bring the virus in.
“They have hardly been anywhere else except here, and just commute between their homes and work,” he said. “They have taken their responsibility very seriously. That’s humbling to me.”
‘Better protections for the elderly helped, but one key reason is that Japanese people have significantly lower rates of obesity than Westerners, according to a study by NCGM.
“We tend to have less diabetes, less obesity, and these kind of risk factors seem to be heavily related to the severity of the disease,” Hayakawa said.’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/japan-coronavirus-elderly-death-rate/2020/08/29/f30f3ca8-e2da-11ea-82d8-5e55d47e90ca_story.html
So, pretty much the Great Barrington Declaration, implemented.
However, there is a cost in that isolation exacerbates dementia.
The really disappointing thing about the NHS and the rest of the socialist fascist healthcare system response to the emergence of another endemic common cold coronavirus in Britain is that we have known that the common cold is more lethal than influenza to old people for years.
‘Rhinovirus infection in the adults was associated with significantly higher mortality and longer hospitalization when compared with influenza virus infection. Institutionalized older adults were particularly at risk. More stringent infection control among health care workers in elderly homes could lower the infection rate before an effective vaccine and antiviral become available.’
‘Unexpectedly Higher Morbidity and Mortality of Hospitalized Elderly Patients Associated with Rhinovirus Compared with Influenza Virus Respiratory Tract Infection’ International Journal of Molecular Sciences’ 26 Jan 17
Well-said. As for the fact that the common cold is deadlier than the flu for that age group, the reason it is such a “secret” is that those deaths all get indiscriminately lumped in together as “influenza and pneumonia” in many countries, which then gets colloquially labeled as “flu”, regardless of which virus and/or bacterium is the true causative agent. And of course there is no vaccine for those non-influenza cold viruses, so no money to be made in that. Thus, the MO is to conflate them all with influenza, exaggerate the influenza death rate, and sell more flu shots….and the rest is history….
Bravo. And Dr Malhotra tells it as it is. He and Prof. Heneghan are the kind of guys that the new King, PM, should be listening to (if they wish to survive) and recognising for their stand out efforts in a sea of ‘yes man’ mediocrity.
I seem to remember if you looked at “excess deaths” combining 2019 and 2020, Sweden was much more on a par with their neighbours as they had lower mortality in 2019 –> dry tinder effect.
Indeed
Yes it’s quite something when the commenters have more detailed thinking than the journalists. But that’s the way it has been throughout this whole affair.
So when he says “If vaccines were the main culprit of excess deaths in 2022 in Finland, Norway and Denmark, then why aren’t excess deaths in Sweden higher?” He is failing to take into account excess deaths is a relative figure. Excess death may have been, indeed probably would have been negative for Sweden over 2022 if it were not for the vaccines. Because of the reverse side of the coin to the “dry tinder” effect. The “dry tinder” burned in 2020, 2021 so, given there was no enforced lockdown 2022 would probably have seen negative excess death but thanks to the vaccines that was not evident. To get a better idea of if this is the case there would need to be a breakdown of Swedish deaths in 2022 by category and see if there is a relative increase in vaccine related conditions as compared with kinds of death not thought to be affected by the vaccines.
That’s a very good point
We really need to see all-mortality by vaccination status and age band, with ideally some control for underlying health condition in case that differs significantly with vaccination status
Indeed. That, and most people catching the virus before getting the jab (as in Sweded) seems to result in better immunity and fewer all-cause deaths, compared to the other way around (Denmark, Norway, and Finland).
Not statistics and studies….
Just my common sense tells me that the natural way we all managed colds and flu’s prior to the great ‘unproven, un-scientific, unnatural, bonkers and mental’ experiment was the best way. Those who are likely to die from flu and respiratory viruses will die, whether vaccinated or not….they always have….they always will…and they did…
This was obvious from the beginning when we knew early on that the average age of death for Convid was 80+.
Throughout human history younger fitter people and children have caught colds, flu etc, forcing the ‘virus’ to mutate to the lesser variants which can then be handled by most people and which builds up a wall of immunity for everyone…this has always been so….we live and always have lived in a state of symbiosis with these viruses….
Might just straying away from this very normal way of living have ongoing disastrous effects..?
Maybe because Sweden followed the ideas in the GBD to a certain extent and eschewed masks in general, and locking children out of school, and had no long enforced separations…..and let people use their common sense….has had a greater effect that we know.
For sure, in countries, predominantly in Africa, where vaccination was very low, and after Omicron appeared, it has been all over for many months….as it probably would have been everywhere..without the ‘interventions’…?
What will happen with ‘vaccine’ deaths and injuries remains to be seen, and is, I would say, the man-made ‘unnatural’, unknown, part of the ‘Great Experiment’ ….
Indeed. Covid was unexceptional by any reasonable measure. Other than advising people of the realistic risks, and investigating treatment protocols, we would have been better off doing nothing, and the unprecedented experiments cannot be justified on any rational basis.
Yes…I don’t want to come over all Mother Earth and Gaia, but I think we overlook natural immunity, and how we have lived with virus’s, and our natural way of living with them, at our peril….
I was listening to a programme, I think it was Del Bigtree, about how childhood diseases like measles, mumps etc, if caught naturally can actually protect you from other, more serious diseases later life….(childhood vaccines stop that natural effect)…
In the same programme they had done a FOI to ask the CDC for the studies around which flu vaccination in pregnancy was based….
It took months and a court appearance for them to get the studies!…and you’ve guessed it…not one study showed any of efficacy or safety for the flu vax in pregnancy.
One of the things that has really been highlighted over the ‘scam’ is how little actual evidence there is for the vast majority of vaccines..and how few studies are actually done after a vaccine is ‘accepted’ as being ‘safe and effective’….
Indeed. Of course the history of our species has been one of us trying to exert more and more control over our environment. Other animals would do more of this, if they were smart enough. But we also need to recognise our limitations, and be careful what we meddle with. It’s not at all clear that trying to eliminate all “illness” is desirable, even if it were possible. Delicate mechanisms that we understand very little of. What was done with covid was utter folly on a scale never seen.
As an aside…..I don’t know how ‘vaccine effectiveness’ will ever be known…as a lot of the data is ‘rigged’…or ‘not available’ and therefore unchallenged by independent analysis….I notice you use Our World In Data, but are they correct?
We know that people like Norman Fenton in the UK have questioned the ‘stats’ of various bodied who have been very wrong.
I follow a statistician in the USA, who’s latest tweet about vaccine effectiveness in the US, and shown in Our World in Data, (showing, of course that deaths are far higher in the unquacksinated)…says this….
“This chart is unscientific Pharma propaganda. There’s no underlying source that describes what the methodology was, and how this data is calculated.
I’ve personally asked the Texas chief epidemiologist to make the calculations and data public, they refused”….
Until all of the ‘source material’ is allowed for independent analysis I don’t think it’s any more trustworthy than the usual propaganda…
Our World in Data receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, so data is of questionable reliability. (See page 6 of hyperlinked document: “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: An initial grant provided unrestricted funding for general operations and data infrastructure development during the period 2020-2021. Upon successful completion of this initial grant, restricted funding was additionally provided for core project activities over the period 2021 – 2024.”)
My feeling is that Sweden got a good dose of natural immunity in 2020, when they didn’t lock down, and the vast majority of the population was exposed to the virus then. The vaccines would therefore have had less negative impact on Swedish immunity, and so now they have decent overall immunity, and probably a genuine herd immunity too. Hence the flat line of cases in Sweden since a spike last winter.
I suspect the ideal covid strategy was the Barrington Declaration, plus vaccination for the elderly. Let the young and fit get natural immunity as soon as possible, shelter the elderly and infirm, who you then vaccinate when a vaccine was available (once shot only, no boosters). Yes there are issues with the vaccines, but my feeling is they did have a positive impact in reducing deaths in the elderly. You would then arrive at a situation where the majority have a layered natural immunity to covid (some getting the Wuhan strain, some Delta, then everyone getting Omicron), which would produce a herd immunity that would then help protect the elderly going forward. Sweden nearly did it perfectly, they just fell at the universal vaccination hurdle. But even so they probably got closest to the ideal covid response.
Vaccine benefit seems unclear even for the frail. They were designed for Wuhan strain which had all but disappeared by the time they were available
Those age ranges do their best to conceal vax damage. I would like to see 12-17, 18-24.
When experts said that the epidemic was growing exponentially what they really meant was that any idiot can fit a straight line to a log plot.
When ‘experts’ say that an epidemic is growing exponentially it’s time to find less foolish experts. Epidemics do not grow exponentially.
Indeed, they always follow a Gompertz curve.
What is it for 2021?
Notice the increased booster rate in Sweden compared to their neighbors beginning in late 2022. And how excess deaths have once again made a comeback in Sweden after being below normal just before that. Coincidence?
With regard to the EuroMOMO figures as of today, the number of deaths reported for the peak weeks of 2020, 2021 and 2022 were broadly similar: –
2020 109,604 (week 14)
2021 102,189 (week 3)
2022 102,658 (week 51)
In the UK temporary morgues are back in use.
Dr John Campbell with another source of information regarding excess deaths of younger people during 2022.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD0na_NZaLM
See also the Faeroe Islands versus Iceland as well. The former had a Covid policy quite similar to Sweden (if not even more lenient), while the latter was more similar to Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Cumulative excess deaths ended up being fairly similar for both in the long run, with the Faeroese doing somewhat better. And yes, Iceland did impose at least some flavor of rolling lockdown on and off, their government gaslighting the people about it afterwards notwithstanding.
https://www.hughwillbourn.com/post/37-in-the-country-of-the-blind-the-one-eyed-man-is-weeping