Re:L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Elim...
by CydeWeys on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @09:33AM
(#22877478)
You've gotta compare deaths, not confirmed cases, because cases are being so severely under-tested right now (especially in Sweden, which has a nearly 10% case fatality rate, indicating that they're probably only catching 1 case out of every 50, or more). Deaths are the most reliable statistic we have right now because they're the least likely to be under-reported (though they still suffer from that). Once this is all over and we can do population studies based on widespread blood antibody testing then we'll have better stats, but that's years out.
So, comparing the deaths per 10M population, Sweden is currently at 1,014, whereas North Carolina is at 114. So Sweden is suffering roughly one order of magnitude worse from the pandemic than North Carolina is at the moment. And keep in mind that North Carolina went into a shelter in place order over two weeks ago while Sweden hasn't yet, so there's a loooot more pending cases in Sweden's pipeline than NC's.
I wonder if it's better to compare Swedens overall per-capita infection rates with other states in the US where there is a lockdown but whose capitals/major cities are more secondary cities from the perspective of international travel. Let's try North Carolina (picked for being closest in population to SE and also being not a top airport hub or travel destination compared to its neighbors) though it does have significant business and educational centers, it's probably a fair comparison to Sweden wrt population density.
NC total population: 10.5 million NC confirmed cases: 7,285
SE total population: 10.2 million SE confirmed cases: 11,445
So anyway, there are other states and countries that are doing better and worse than Sweden, but I don't think that Sweden is in any way demonstrating that it is doing better by trying to ignore the problem and possibly to blame the lack of strict enough sanitation ("lack of supplies and poor routines"), it's just coming later than to higher-volume travel centers like WA, NYC, the UK, France, Italy, etc.
In any case, the idea of doing better or worse will, in the end, be measured in per capita deaths at the end of this disaster, and we haven't gotten there yet. I truly hope that Sweden finds its way through with as few deaths as possible, but I don't think that's what they've done.