The epidemiologist behind Sweden’s controversial coronavirus strategy

Re:The epidemiologist behind Sweden’s controversial coronavi... by Ozzie_osman on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @04:27PM (#22949819)

The opposite. Sweden has counted 50 or 60 extra cases as COVID than can be accounted for simply by excess mortality. That sounds impossible, but the difference can come from a few places:

1) Excess mortality is only an estimate. There could be other reasons why non-covid mortality is lower/higher than previous years (e.g. less serious flu season)

2) The tests can have some false positives.

3) If the way you count deaths is "anyone who died and tested positive for Covid", it's possible that the people you're counting didn't die from Covid but happened to have the virus in their system (or would've died even if they didn't catch Covid).

All this is saying is: in past years, X people died in Sweden during this period on average. This year, Y people died. (Y - X) are the "extra deaths", so to speak, and so this is comparing extra deaths to reported Covid-19 deaths.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The epidemiologist behind Sweden’s controversial coronavi... by kenneth on Thursday April 23, 2020 @12:04AM (#22952692)

I think Covid is causing other causes of deaths to be reduced (less car accidents, flu etc. than usual), so the -50 on the chart implies that (1) all Covid deaths are being accurately counted) and (2) non-Covid mortality is slightly down.

[ Parent | on HN ]