Oops! Swedish head epidemiologist "admits mistakes"

Thanks to a non-blogging friend, I found this article from Bloomberg (my quote is from the Bloomberg headline) about Anders Tegnell, the epidemiologist directing Sweden's coronavirus strategy, which has been widely praised by conservatives. The policies followed by the government were much less strict than those of neighboring countries, allowing restaurants and schools to stay open, among other things.

Unfortunately, as I've reported here, this has had the effect that Sweden has one of the highest death rates per capita in the world, at 465 deaths per million (DPM) as of its June 8th reporting. This is an increase of 29 DPM in just the last week which, as I predicted on June 2, let it pass France for the world's fifth deadliest outbreak. By way of comparison, only five countries in all of Asia have a higher death rate over the entire COVID-19 outbreak than Sweden has had in a week. The highest death rate among Sweden's Nordic neighbors is 102 DPM in Denmark. The lowest Nordic death rate is Iceland's 29 DPM. Finland and Norway fall in between at 58 DPM and 44 DPM, respectively.

Now, per the Bloomberg article, Tegnell says Sweden's approach for a future pandemic should "land somewhere between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done." The lack of specificity did not go unnoticed by Lena Hallengren, minister for health and social affairs. She complained that Tegnell had not said what else the country should have done.

Meanwhile, in the United States, all the states are relaxing their previous restrictions, though some much more rapidly than others. While the country has now had several days in a row with fewer than 1,000 deaths, it still has about 20,000 new cases daily. Between states' rush to open up and the massive Black Lives Matter protests, I think we will see a spike in new cases shortly.

Back in Sweden, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has promised a full investigation into the Tegnell-designed pandemic response and resulting death toll. Stay tuned.

40,000+ US COVID-19 deaths in May; Swedish model looking ever worse

May brought no solace to the world, or to conservative claims about COVID-19. Another 40,000 deaths in the United States put the lie to Trump's claim that the country is doing great, while he simultaneously takes no responsibility for his weeks and weeks of denial and downplaying the pandemic. The U.S. death toll now stands at over 106,000. Sweden, for the first time in its modern history the darling of conservatives, shot up the chart in terms of its death rate. Conservative-run United Kingdom did almost as badly as Sweden in May.

Country	DPM May 1	DPM June 1	DPM Increase
Belgium	665	819	+ 154
Spain	531	580	+   49
United Kingdom	405	575	+ 170
Italy	467	554	+   87
France	377	442	+   65
Sweden	263	436	+ 173
Netherlands	286	348	+   62
Ireland	256	334	+   78
United States	199	323	+ 124
Switzerland	203	222	+   19
DPM = deaths per million
Worldometers.info

The 10* worst-performing countries by deaths per million have remained the same over the last month, but their ranking has changed. As noted in an update to my last post on the pandemic, the United States passed Switzerland on May 3. At current rates, it will pass Ireland and the Netherlands in coming weeks, and Ireland will also pass the Netherlands. Over the course of May, Sweden quickly passed the Netherlands and left it in the dust. It will pass France soon. The United Kingdom leapfrogged Italy and is set to take the #2 spot from Spain within a week.

As I mentioned last time (link above), while conservatives have lauded Sweden's refusal to go for a hard lockdown, we can see that Sweden had the highest increase in deaths per million people over the last month. Now, instead of having 64 more deaths per million than the United States, the gap has grown to 113 per million. That would equate to an extra 37,380 deaths if the United States were doing as poorly as Sweden.

The global toll is worse still. Not only are there now 377,000 deaths worldwide, but the number of new daily infections shows a fairly steady increase since April 1, rising from about 75,000 new cases globally per day then to about 100,000 new cases per day on June 1. In the same period, daily deaths have fallen from about 5,000 to 3,000. Unfortunately, deaths are a lagging indicator, and the epidemic is now revving up in developing countries such as Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador. The latter has already risen to #12 with 194 deaths per million officially, and a New York Times analysis on April 23 suggested that the true death toll was 15 times higher as hospitals had been overwhelmed and the dead were overflowing the country's emergency rooms and morgues.

As if all this isn't bad enough, Trump fiddles pours on the gasoline as the U.S. burns, in an attempt to consolidate his dictatorship now, before elections interfere with his project. I'll be writing about this very soon.


* Excluding microstates (San Marino, Andorra) and dependencies (Sint Maarten, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Montserrat).

US has 9th* worst COVID-19 death rate in the world: WTH is Trump thinking? UPDATED

In a press conference on Thursday, April 30, the head of the illegitimate Trump regime said, "Our death totals, our numbers, per million people, are really very, very strong. We're very proud of the job we've done." Okay, we know he lies all the time, but this is ridiculous.

The United States has the 9th* worst COVID-19 death rate in the world! At 199 per million population as of 8:00pm EDT May 1, it is exceeded by only Belgium (665**), Spain (531), Italy (467), the United Kingdom (405), France (377), the Netherlands (286), Sweden (263), Ireland (256), and Switzerland (203). At recent rates, the United States will pass Switzerland to take the 9th worst spot within a week. How is this a record to be proud of?

Meanwhile, conservative darling Sweden (the first time Sweden has been a conservative darling!) is zooming up the list, and is doing far worse than its Nordic neighbors Denmark (79), Norway (39), Finland (39), and Iceland (29).

The global average death rate is 30.7 per million; the U.S. figure is more than six times that. Even if you doubt China's numbers (only 4,633 deaths, 3 per million), the figure when you remove China is still only 37, leaving the United States at more than five times the world average.

With such a wide divergence between the U.S. and world averages, it is not surprising that there are many countries with much lower death rates than the United States. Notable are Canada (90), Brazil (30), Mexico (14), Japan (4), Australia (4), India (0.9), and Taiwan (0.3). Moreover, Vietnam, with a population of 95 million, has had zero deaths. And we're supposed to think the United States is doing well?

Why is Sweden suddenly a conservative darling? Because it has not locked itself down like most of the rest of the world. As shown above, however, not only does it have a substantially worse death rate than the United States (its extra 64 deaths per million would translate to another 21,056 U.S. deaths), but it doing drastically worse than its most similar neighbors. Why Sweden is considered a success by conservatives is beyond me.

Georgia's reopening of the state beginning April 24 has generated substantial controversy. One reason this is surprising is that Georgia has a death rate of 113 per million, sixteenth highest in the country, three times the world average. One leading theory for the end of Georgia's lockdown is that it will force workers to go back to work or lose their unemployment benefits. It is certainly not a medical decision, given the state's low level of testing and inconsistent case decline (click on "daily cases" in the right bottom corner).

Don't be fooled by the goalpost moving, which we're going to see over and over as the death rate rises. The U.S. response to the coronavirus isn't "very, very strong" just because it isn't the worst in the world. No, this is just one more aspect of "winning" to get tired of.

P.S. While I was writing this, Rachel Maddow did a great segment on the sidelining of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is definitely a worrisome development to keep our eyes on.



* Excluding microstates (San Marino, Andorra) and dependencies (Sint Maarten, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Montserrat).
** Unlike other countries, Belgium likely overcounts deaths rather than undercounting them. As The Independent notes:

According to Belgium’s Federal Public Service for Health, just 46 per cent of the country’s total official deaths were in hospitals where coronavirus cases were confirmed. But 53 per cent of the Belgian tally, or 4,100 people, were from care homes, and of these, 84 per cent are suspected but unconfirmed coronavirus deaths.

A University of Ghent virologist, Steven van Gucht, therefore says that to compare Belgium with other countries, one should "divide by two." Of course, even a 332 per million death rate is a very poor outcome. Moreover, the better other countries do at incorporating non-hospital deaths into their data, the less Belgium's death rate should be cut to be comparable.

UPDATE: On May 3, the United States passed Switzerland to move into the 9th-worst spot.