Sweden's number of deaths per capita related to COVID are also a lot higher than those of Denmark and Finland.

Why compare those against each other? Because these four nations are close to each other geographically[0] and when it comes to the climate[1], rather similar culturally[2], and economically similar too in that the populations are by and large comparatively "well off".

All other things equal (or rather similar at least), the differences in COVID deaths are likely in a larger part due to differences in public policy regarding the direct COVID response in particular and/or health care more generally.

This is just guess work (a lot of people did), of course, but I've yet to read any other plausible explanations for these major differences.

[0] Neighboring each other, with Norway (~150 deaths/million) west, Finland (~190) east and Denmark (~450) south of Sweden (~1450). Schleswig-Holstein, the German Federal State bordering Denmark to the South with a sizable Danish minority living there also has a similar rate (~580) to Denmark. (German rate is ~1110).

[1] Weather and temperature have been identified as correlating strongly with COVID spread, not just because of how well the virus can survive in different temperatures, but also because of how humans will behave in different weather conditions (stay inside or go out).

[2] These nations historically developed close to each other, and occupied each other a lot of times. E.g. Norway only became fully independent from Sweden in 1905. These nations have a lot of shared cultural heritage which still informs a lot of the culture today.

These numbers are to some extent distortions brought about by Sweden having different ways of associating deaths with COVID-19. If you look at overall numbers the Netherlands has similar accounting and similar results. It is also true that if you look along borders such as between Sweden and Norway there is little difference along them. The bulk of cases in Sweden were in very specific communities, in particular immigrants in urban areas and old people in care homes, so the result of this focus on averages per nation ends up being distorted.

> These numbers are to some extent distortions brought about by Sweden having different ways of associating deaths with COVID-19.

This is why anyone should be extremely wary of comparing "deaths per million" statistics across nations, since the statistic is 1) not standardized and 2) not always trustworthy.

Counting excess mortality isn't as good, but at least it's normalized across the board, so you can make some kind of meaningful comparison.

If the Swedish approach was indeed especially hazardous to sensitive populations. Then that’s exactly not OK.

And compare with France which had one the strictest locked down policy, hard restrictions, covid pass, etc. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

They have the same numbers...

Fun fact: Norway was one of the only country in Europe to have strict closed border. https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/stricter-border-contro...

Because both Norway and Denmark closed their borders, Sweden was as a result also closed. A key point when the danish side reopened was that the Sweden city Malmö on the Swedish side had lower infection rates than Copenhagen on the Danish side.

Both Denmark and Norway later issued rules that allowed Swedes to cross between the nations if they lived in low infection rate parts of Sweden. It was mostly people from Stockholm that could not pass.

But it's still only half of the number of deaths in my country (Czech Republic) with mask and testing mandates, closed schools and most events cancelled.

I’m from CZ but live in Sweden. I don’t think there is any magic (no gene difference as someone here suggested..)

Here’s the things I noticed that were clearly different between the two countries:

1. The rules were clear from the start and didn’t change much. FHM said from the beginning that the virus is here to stay and set the rules so that they are sustainable (most importantly: schools were never closed). There was no screw-unscrew-screw-… loop

2. Many more people worked from home here than in CZ. I don’t know what to attribute this to, it can be because Swedes are generally better acquainted with technology or that there are more jobs that can be done from home in Sweden.

3. People actually follow the rules (for the most part..there still were student parties and such). This can be an effect of people trusting their politicians and the government agencies but maybe just a different mentality. I still remember that during my visit to Prague people at the Billa supermarket at the Prague train station were absolutely not keeping distance and were touching bagels (rohlíky :-)) without any gloves. Masks and lockdowns won’t save you then…

4. People are generally much fitter here. You won’t see the typical Czech beer belly, in general everyone keeps themselves in shape and eats quite well.

Contrary to what many might think the level of healthcare is about the same in my experience.

I’m really no Tegnell fanboy, many things about him irk me a lot (his constant picking on other countries the most) and I wish the Swedish government took a more active role sooner rather than let FHM steer everything for about 9 months, but in general I think the Swedish strategy was good.

The Czech Republic was often held up as a big success during the first few months of the pandemic, and had much lower deaths than Sweden for a while. Then last fall, things quickly changed.

A good reminder that people need to be patient and stop prematurely declaring victory or defeat.

This is actually interesting because it was not that strict in Norway as it was in ČR.

On the other hand there is also different level of trust between citizens and the government. But there are probably more variables.

Susceptibility to Covid will likely be an interesting topic for PhDs for years to come.

We might have a slightly higher prevalence of some random genetic feature in Czechia that makes our death rate higher.

Overall on the map of Europe, it seems that death rates varied wildly and not according to usual patterns. For example, you would expect higher death rate in less developed southern Italy than in Lombardy.

I suspect most differences will be explained by what counts as a COVID death.

A valid point but Sweden used a very inclusive criteria. The only ones more inclusive I know of are Belgium and Peru.

You can always find a comparison that is extreme in either direction. There is nothing that suggests that the outcome in Sweden would have been that of Norway, if the policies had been more similar. It’s possible, but far from certain.

Also, given how many deaths are of extremely vulnerable elderly (many of which would have died from any cold, or within a year regardless), “total deaths” are perhaps not the best measure of success. It will show how well the disease was kept out of living facilities for the very old, mostly (which in Sweden was “not very well”). The difference in how elderly care is operated in Sweden and Norway is pretty big, and that I think is a policy failure that should be looked at.

> There is nothing that suggests that the outcome in Sweden would have been that of Norway, if the policies had been more similar.

All the other scandinavian countries had policies and outcomes like norway.

Denmark has more than twice the cumulative deaths per million people of Norway, are you saying that is still to be considered the same outcome?

Denmark is a lot closer to Norway than Sweden. Denmark has a third of the COVID-related deaths of Sweden. I think the actual numbers are more illustrative here than fractions:

    - Sweden: ~1450 deaths per million
      Population: ~10.2 million
      Density: ~25 people/km^2
      Urbanization: 88%
      Rates compared: 10x Norway, 8x Finland, 3x Denmark

    - Denmark: ~450 deaths per million
      Population: ~5.8 million
      Density: ~137 people/km^2
      Urbanization: 88%
      Rates compared: 3x Norway, 2.5x Finland

    - Finland: ~190 deaths per million
      Population: ~5.5 million
      Density: ~18 people/km^2
      Urbanization: 86%
      Rates compared: 1.2x Norway

    - Norway: ~150 deaths per million
      Population: ~5.3 million
      Density: ~15 people/km^2
      Urbanization: 83%

2x seems like a much closer ballpark than 10x, especially with Denmark being part of mainland europe and significantly denser? (Denmark has a higher population than Norway on 1/10th the surface, excluding greenland).

Density may play a role, but Norway, Denmark and Finland have urbanization rates of 83% to 88%. E.g. a fifth of Norway's entire population resides within the Oslo metropolitan area and a fifth of Sweden's population resides within the Stockholm metropolitan area.

> given how many deaths are of extremely vulnerable elderly (many of which would have died from any cold, or within a year regardless),

I though we had really gotten over this?

Then again, I thought we had gotten over the idea of Sweden’s tenfold death rate being good in any sense, as well…

Not great, not terrible…

The same number of people have died in Sweden and Norway over the last four years [0].

For some reason more people died in Norway than in Sweden in the couple years before the pandemic, then Sweden caught up during the pandemic. They are tied over the last four years.

More people may have died of covid in Sweden because there were more old vulnerable people in Sweden.

[0] https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201116/Study-compares-de...

If you add South Africa who had draconian rules you might see it diffently.

>Compared to Norway the number of covid deaths so far is about tenfold higher. How that counts as success is beyond me.

How is 19 million dead soldiers from Allied forces counted as success and win in WW2 is also beyond me.