Having recently looked at Danish Covid era mortality in response to an article in the Daily Sceptic by Tracy Beth Høeg, I decided to also look at the Swedish data, because Sweden is often cited as a reason why the mRNA vaccines are not responsible for excess deaths.
This is because Sweden is reputed to have not had a lot of excess deaths during the vaccination period, which ran from 2021 through to 2023, despite having had similar vaccination levels to many other affluent Western countries.
That Sweden had fewer excess deaths is of course a reason to celebrate, because its comparatively mild Covid restrictions have failed to show any worse mortality outcomes overall when measured over the four Covid years.
The argument from critics of the vaccines-are-behind-excess-deaths narrative is that Sweden is the exception proving the rule that vaccines cannot be responsible for causing the excess deaths seen in many countries around the world after mRNA vaccination campaigns. But it is in fact a myth that there were no excess deaths in Sweden between 2021-2023.
It should first of all be noted that Sweden did have a lot of excess deaths in 2020 when the first two waves of Covid struck in April and December of that year. The Swedes were widely criticised for this in the politically-correct media at the time, no doubt mostly due to their lax policy on NPIs.
On closer inspection though, it turns out that a high number of these excess deaths occurred in care homes, killing mostly the elderly. As one research paper noted: “There is a concentration of mortality to vulnerable groups: 91% of deaths occurred among those aged 70-plus.”
I remember at that time State Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell was pressed on TV to explain how this had happened, and he replied that amongst other factors there is an unusually high number of very large care home facilities in Sweden in comparison to other countries. This meant that once an infectious disease reached such a facility, there was a bigger spread amongst the residents.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that when comparing to other Nordic countries with similar levels of healthcare and mortality rates, Sweden had a much greater ‘front-loading’ of excess deaths at the beginning of the Covid era, which you can see in this chart:
What this means in practice, therefore, is that Sweden had a much higher rate of mortality displacement (MD) – deaths brought forward – weighing down on the rise in excess deaths that began after the vaccination campaigns began. The consequence of this is that although the Swedish excess death curves mirror the shape of those of Denmark and Finland, they lag behind in terms of total numbers, and are only now reaching similar levels.
In fact, at the beginning of 2020 Sweden already had an excess death deficit due to mortality displacement from the previous year which was still being worked off in its mortality statistics, which only adds a further drag to the apparent dearth of excess deaths during 2021-2023. To illustrate this you can see how the very stable death rate jumps up in 2017 and 2018, only to fall significantly again in 2019 when the mortality displacement effect began to bite. The horizontal axis is set at 90,674 which is the 12 year average for 2008 through 2019.
Here are the actual numbers of reported total ACM deaths in Sweden, together with the figure for percentage difference to the 12-year average baseline:
Raw data on all-cause mortality (ACM) for 2023 are unfortunately not available from the Swedish official statistics website.
However there is an excellent EU website, Eurostat, where you can see the excess mortality in all the EU countries directly. It uses a 2016-2019 pre-Covid average baseline to calculate it, so there is none of the usual obfuscation with ASMR (age-standardised mortality rate) or other such models. Such models are now completely out of kilter with reality as a result of the loss of many elderly during the Covid years.
Here the excess mortality is expressed as a percentage difference from the 2016-2019 baseline, which can serve as a crude proxy for the raw data. At the time of writing the latest month reported is November 2023, where Swedish deaths are running 16.5% above baseline. You can infer from this that 2023 is going to be very similar in overall excess death percentage terms in Sweden as occurred in 2022, i.e., a few percent above baseline (when mortality displacement should mean it is below baseline).
In the recent debate in Westminster Hall, MP Andrew Bridgen said this: “If someone is under 50 and lives in Sweden, his or her chances of dying from heart disease were already half that of a resident of the U.K. of the same age.”
This has relevance because if there is a causal link between Covid vaccinations and excess death then it would likely be a cumulative and relatively slow-moving phenomenon. There are some short-term deaths from vaccination which do get picked up by reporting systems like VAERS, but the bulk of deaths may only emerge over time, far removed from linkage possibilities to VAERS, and only gradually pushing the already most compromised individuals over the edge.
Most of the excess deaths in the U.K. since 2021 have been of a cardiovascular nature, so it stands to reason that the better a nation’s cardiovascular health at the start of any intervention with negative outcomes in cardiovascular health, the longer it takes for mortality statistics to show up an increase in deaths and the lower the impact of the intervention. Nations with better cardiovascular health at the outset therefore lag behind those with poorer cardiovascular health in terms of excess deaths.
In summary then, there has in fact been significant excess death in Sweden between 2021-2023, but much of it lies ‘submerged’ behind the deficits built up during the initial Covid waves, and even prior to that. Only now as this effect wanes are Swedish excess deaths playing ‘catch-up’. For instance you can see this tweet on the Eurostat website:
In November 2023, excess mortality continued to vary across the EU. Romania, Malta, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovakia recorded no excess deaths. The highest excess deaths rates were observed in Finland (40.5%), Austria (20.2%), the Netherlands (18.7%) and Sweden (16.5%).
The similar temporal pattern of excess death in Sweden as elsewhere points to the same factors being in play as has affected the rest of the EU, albeit with slightly different timings and perhaps levels for some of the events. Sweden had lower excess death than the average for the EU during 2021-2023 partly on account of its mortality deficit after the initial Covid waves and its better than average initial cardiovascular health status. But Sweden is now showing signs of moving in the other direction with respect to excess deaths.
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Of course there were excess deaths – but not from Rona.
1-Murdering older, vulnerable (DNR) people in the National Death Care system, and Old Age Homes as the article states.
2-Stabbinations.
No country had a problem with ‘Rona’ until the first LD and the murdering of old people, ascribed to Rona using fake tests, hand-waving. They were murdered with midazolam or an equivalent and morphine. Very, very, very, painful way to die (akin to being asphyxiated or crucified). Every death paid for of course (gee I wonder what the incentive might be?).
No country had a problem with ‘Rona’ until the Stabs appeared.
The above have been fact checked and approved – by those of us who don’t have our heads shoved firmly up our arseholes.
The fact that one has to go surgically looking through data to discover whether covid jabs have caused a significant uptick in deaths shows that the number can’t be very high.
This is not to say it wasn’t a crime to roll these shots out like they did. It just shows how easily the state can get away with killing people if it as long as it’s not too many.
The bigger damage I think ilthey may have caused is to the long term health of people. As far as I see, the jabbed seemed to get sick more often than they used to. That’s my anecdotal evidence, anyway.
I agree on all counts
Let’s hope the numbers don’t go up- which they may well do
Stewart,
I think your first paragraph is poorly thought through. What level of increased deaths do you envisage start to show something is amiss?
Thank goodness for the few but interested and skilled persons carrying out these analyses, Fenton, Kirsch and Bowler et al. Much is hidden within plain sight.
There is something going on that has caused the elevated excess deaths when there currently should be a deficit!
If we don’t surgical analyse the numbers we probably will never see the increasing ill health that you allude to and I agree with.
Julian
A level that I notice myself without having to analyse data.
It was the same “smell test” that I applied to gauge the danger posed by covid.
That said it depends what you mean by “amiss”.
I already think something is amiss. Just not huge amounts of death. But plenty of damage. I see that myself without need for stats.
A level that I notice myself without having to analyse data
This does not feel a very mathematically sound test. It’s great to be sceptical but an anecdotely approach does not seem very robust. I’m not sure what your regular human contact exposure is but it would need to be quite high to notice a 1:1000 event.
Excess deaths are really quite noticeable if running at 10% because they should be running at minus 10% with the deficit effect.
There is really something going on at 10% that cannot be ignored. I think understanding these discrepancies mathematically is probably more effective than just relying on individual’s ‘smell test’
Not everyone’s ‘smell test’ is going to acute enough to rely on enough people to desheeple.
Great comment, JO.
I tend to agree with stewart though I think there’s arguably a distinction to be drawn- “Covid” was claimed to be such a serious problem that enormous disruption to billions of people over an extended period was required. If that’s the claim it needs to pass an anecdotal smell test. I think we should be wary of making similar claims about “vaccine” harms – though of course we don’t know what is going to happen in the future.
I’m not saying you should ignore anecdotal smell tests rather these are not all the detection we have and when looking for small changes you are most likely to miss an event or at the very least not detect it in a timely manner.
We know mathematically from the ship the Diamond Princess lab event the IFR rates for Covid told to us by our governments were significantly in error.
Please don’t overlook the fact that more people are dying ie excess deaths are being registered across most western countries for the last 3 years. This is fact, you can’t hide the dead too easily. Something has changed even if you think it is not vaccine related.
Also don’t forget the ‘safe and effective’ government mantra has now moved on and it is acknowledged that for some it was terminal ie vaccines DID cause harms for some/too many. Why play a game of Russian Roulette unless there was a real upside. Maybe for an elderly ill person but certainly not for a sub 50 year old healthy person. So yes the vaccines did kill significant numbers of people.
I’m certainly not ignoring “vaccine” harms which I am sure are real. The “vaccine” episode is one of the most wicked and shameful part of the “covid”’scam.
I wouldn’t dismiss anecdotal evidence quite as easily as you might.
Let’s use low ball figures. Let’s suppose I know 50 people. And they in turn know 50 people. That’s 2,500 people. I would definitely know someone or someone who knows someone who died from a covid jab. But I don’t. I have a few cases of someone I know who has heard from someone they know who says THEY know someone. So 3rd order. A few out of 50 x 50 x 50 = 125,000 people.
I realise this is far from scientific. But in this case Inwould say it’s fairly reliable. On the one hand a death from a jab is something you would definitely find out if it happened to someone you know or to someone known to them. Beyond that it gets a bit Chinese whispery,.
On the other hand I know first and second hand quite a few people injured by the jabs.
And I definitely know and associate with more than 50 people. So I think for certain carefully considered things, my anecdotal evidence is a good “smell test”.
stewart, of all the people you know who have died since December 2020, how would you know if they died from a Covid jab?
A potential snag may be that confidence in other types of ‘vaccination’ has gone down, resulting in less uptake in general with any concurrent health problems. E.g. the usual suspects have been campaigning (via the MSM) to increase the use of MMR in young age groups.
I must say (having listened to people like RFK Jr and Bret Weinstein over the last few years) that I now have major doubts about the health benefits of virtually all vaccines. Even in “traditional” vaccines, the widespread use of adjuvants (supposedly to enhance the immune response) seems highly dubious on health grounds.
À little dump:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-real-purpose-of-net-zero-impoverishment-enslavement-and-depopulation/
Paul Homewood with a short review of a new book on the climate scam.
“Green in Tooth and Claw: the Misanthropic Mission Climate Alarm is not another treatise filled with graphs and tables of scientific data to refute the notion of anthropogenic global warming. Instead, the author analyses the dogma through a cultural lens, with some harrowing conclusions for humanity if it does not wake up in time to resist.”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/mmr-vaccine-debate-heats-up-as-media-claim-vaccine-hesitancy-to-blame-for-recent-outbreaks/
Measles vaccines – a massive and not fully tapped reservoir of the gullible.
“England’s National Health Service is launching an MMR vaccination campaign, the BBC reported, contacting 4million parents via text, email or letter to inform them their child has not had one or two doses of the vaccine.”
Contacting 4 million parents? How much is this going to cost? And its our money. More waste for an illness that is not a problem and vaccines that nobody needs.
Great work Fishy.
Yet when people want to make an actual Drs appointment, they have to wait weeks in many cases. Jab rollout at £17 per shot and they will almost harass you!
Exactly.
Couldn’t agree more except I’d take out the “almost”. I got texted several times and asked about whether I had taken it on one of my rare GP visits.
https://miri.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-national-newspaper
I think the Independent article appeared ATL some days ago although maybe I read it elsewhere. Miriaf.co.uk rips the author a new one in this first rate take-down of a push for mandated “vaccines.”
Thanks to Dr Mike Yeadon for the link.