Swedish Update

A useful update.  From Sweden saw lower 2020 death spike than much of Europe data by Johan Ahlander.

I maintain that we still don't know what is going on.  Operation Warp Speed was a surprisingly successful strategic move.  Measurement of Covid-19 deaths is still wretchedly bad in the sense that we do not have data distinguishing those who died from Covid-19 from those who died of co-morbidities with Covid-19.   

A large number of other demographic and contextual data is also either not well-defined or poorly measured if at.  Natural lung diseases (pneumonia, flu, etc.) are known to vary by year, with a bad year often followed by a relatively low lung disease mortality year.  When comparing countries' performance in this first year, we need to know what the prior lung disease mortality rates were in prior years and this is virtually never discussed.  

The centralized control model with coercive lockdowns seems reasonably discredited at this point though the MSM and Mandarin Class are still avid apologists.  They almost have to be given the near universal failure of their predictions.

Sweden, which has shunned the strict lockdowns that have choked much of the global economy, emerged from 2020 with a smaller increase in its overall mortality rate than most European countries, an analysis of official data sources showed.

Infectious disease experts cautioned that the results could not be interpreted as evidence that lockdowns were unnecessary but acknowledged they may indicate Sweden’s overall stance on fighting the pandemic had merits worth studying.

In the past week, Germany and France have extended lockdowns amid rising coronavirus cases and high death tolls, moves that economists say will further delay economic recovery.

While many Europeans have accepted lockdowns as a last resort given the failure to get the pandemic under control with other methods, the moves have in recent months prompted street protests in London, Amsterdam and elsewhere.

Sweden, meanwhile, has mostly relied on voluntary measures focused on social distancing, good hygiene and targeted rules that have kept schools, restaurants and shops largely open - an approach that has sharply polarised Swedes but spared the economy from much of the hit suffered elsewhere in Europe.

Preliminary data from EU statistics agency Eurostat compiled by Reuters showed Sweden had 7.7% more deaths in 2020 than its average for the preceding four years. Countries that opted for several periods of strict lockdowns, such as Spain and Belgium, had so-called excess mortality of 18.1% and 16.2% respectively.

Twenty-one of the 30 countries with available statistics had higher excess mortality than Sweden. 

Once we begin getting consistent and usefully measured data over the next three to five years, we will have a better read on the judgment of which policies worked and which did not.  For the time being, the returns are that you are better off sharing the data which is known, making recommendations and asking citizens to make their decisions.  Centralization and coercion are not particularly successful.