The Swedish mirage: the verdict is already written

What's happening in Sweden?

As shown in the above chart from OurWorldinData, a second wave has not spared Sweden, the country that is famous for pursuing "herd immunity through community spread."

Despite the complete lack of confirming data, the idea that Sweden's strategy may work refuses to die. The talk is that "in time" we will see the wisdom of the Swedish way.

But we don't need more time. The strategy has already failed. There is almost nothing that could happen in the future that could rescue it.

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Look at the trend of Covid-19 deaths in Sweden compared to its Scandinavian neighbors:

(This chart was adapted from one first published by ArsTechnica, which I discussed on Junk Charts last week.)

The death rate per capita in Sweden from the start of the pandemic is 10 times worse than in Norway and Finland, and 5 times worse than in Denmark.

If the "herd community through community spread" strategy works, the Swedish outcome must improve over time relative to Norway and Finland. But as the chart above shows, counting only the last four months, we find Sweden doing even worse - the fatalities per capita is now more than 10 times higher than all three neighbors.

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In spite of those numbers, some commentators say we've got to wait. What might happen in the future that would rescue this policy?

A devastating second wave would have to hit Norway and Finland while sparing Sweden, inflicting deaths per capita 10 times higher than in Sweden. The data from OurWorldinData tell us this isn't happening at all:

Finland and Norway have kept infections down while Sweden has not. Denmark has also suffered a spike but one that is not as bad as Sweden's.

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Let's suspend our disbelief, and assume that somehow in the next six months, Finland and Norway would suffer 10 times the deaths per capita as Sweden, thus evening out the cumulative outcome. Does that constitute a validation of the "herd immunity" strategy?

Absolutely not!

All that show is that Sweden's policy accelerated the deaths of a lot of people. A proportionate number of Finns and Norwegians eventually also died but they lived longer, and during those extra months, there was a chance that an effective treatment or vaccine might arrive and save them.

***

When people say they need more time to evaluate the Swedish way, what they are waiting for is the extremely unlikely scenario that Finland and Norway would suffer substantially more than 10 times more deaths than Sweden in the next six months. There is zero indication that this "miracle" will materialize. Not only are recent fatality rates moving in the wrong direction but the case rates are also running away from this scenario.

I'm imagining a football (soccer) match in which one team falls behind 10-0 in the first 10 minutes, and the other team's coach is asking supporters to be patient and wait for the comeback.

Comments

[Sam]

People keep talking about trust and "strict measures".

What exactly are you guys sacrificing? The argument that only old people die. Incorrect. If your health system is overwhelmed, all those ICU beds that go to patients with other diseases are snatched away.

The effects and cost of your citizens getting long covid, the emotional trauma of their loved ones passing away.

[Kari]

Actually swedish have counted that they will reach herd immunity by the end of june 2020. (AB 9.5.2020 Anders Björkman, Tom Britton, Tengel).

[Some other datapoints]

https://voxeu.org/article/sweden-s-constitution-decides-its-exceptional-covid-19-policy

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/comparisonsofallcausemortalitybetweeneuropeancountriesandregions/januarytojune2020

[Kaiser]

I see and welcome the discussion on policies and intentions. I do want to draw attention back to the original purpose of this post, which is how we look at data. These lessons can be applied beyond this example:
1. Find the most relevant statistic: in this case, it is the cumulative death rate per million,
2. Find something to compare to, and here it should be other Scandinavian countries that have taken a different approach
3. Success or failure of an intervention should be evaluated cumulatively: take the US election as another example, the candidate that wins the latest batch of votes isn't going to win the election if s/he is behind by a lot in already-counted votes.

[drill down]

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/22268/