Current Events > Sweden's death toll unnerves its Nordic neighbours

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.ft.com/content/46733256-5a84-4429-89e0-8cce9d4095e4

Denmark, Finland and Norway are debating whether to maintain travel restrictions on Sweden but ease them for other countries as they nervously eye their Nordic neighbours higher coronavirus death toll. Sweden has the highest mortality rate per capita at this stage of the epidemic, according to a Financial Times tracker that uses a seven-day rolling average of new deaths. It has overtaken the UK, Italy and Belgium in recent days.

Frode Forland, specialist director in infectious diseases at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, told the Financial Times keeping borders closed had a certain infectious-disease logic while a big difference in infection rates remained between countries. The situation is quite different now between Norway and Sweden, he said. Last week, the Baltic states joined forces to create a travel bubble allowing for free movement between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. But Maria Ohisalo, Finlands interior minister, said a similar Nordic bubble would be tricky because of Swedens higher infection rate.

Norway, Denmark and Iceland have managed to stabilise their situation, but in Sweden the situation is more alarming, she said last week.

Swedens no-lockdown approach to the virus has attracted international scrutiny and some criticism but it still enjoys significant public support at home. But in recent weeks, as the death toll has fallen significantly in other European countries such as Spain, Italy, France and the UK, Swedens has remained stubbornly high. As of Wednesday, 3,831 people had died from Covid-19 in Sweden, a country with a population of 10m. Denmark, Finland and Norway which each have about 5m inhabitants have recorded death tolls of 551, 301 and 233, respectively. Swedish authorities argued that a lockdown and closed borders would bring relatively few benefits at a high cost to public health and the economy. The FT tracker shows that Sweden had 6.4 deaths per million people 61 days after its death rate first climbed above 0.1 deaths per million. That contrasts with the UKs 6.2 deaths per million at the same stage, Italys 5.5, and Spains 4.

Sara Byfors, a leading specialist at Swedens public health agency, said she was not aware of the trackers numbers. She added: We are concerned about people dying from the disease. Its not something we take lightly . . . We keep on working on our strategy. And also in Sweden we see that the epidemic is slowing down.

Denmark is weighing whether to open its borders with Germany and Norway but not to Sweden. Several opposition parties, which have a majority in Denmarks parliament, have said the borders need to be opened to help the countrys tourism industry but that the high death rate in Sweden was worrying.

I dont believe that Denmark should open its border to Sweden already because the Covid-19 situation is still out of control in Sweden. Denmark has to await a normalisation in Sweden. So this is a rational decision based only on the number of Covid-19 deaths, Peter Skaarup, parliamentary head of the populist Danish Peoples party, told the FT.

---

thanks necrobumper

---

NinjaBreakfast posted...

thanks necrobumper

lol

---

Worrying
---

You see this shit and people here still clowning on me for having been pro-mask use since the beginning of this pandemic

And, you know, when you say per capita, theres many per capitas. Its, like, per capita relative to what?

---

shockthemonkey posted...

Still not going to stop psychos from pretending that Sweden did everything right

to add to that, there's not one country that did everything right

---

Skyrim belongs to the Nords

---

Parappa09 posted...

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

to add to that, there's not one country that did everything right

---

teepan95 posted...

lol i'm not giving germany a big head

---

Are people actually surprised Sweden has a higher death rate than most countries?

A higher death rate was an accepted byproduct of not closing down the country. Its not like they didnt know it was going to happen.

gamer167 posted...

Are people actually surprised Sweden has a higher death rate than most countries?

A higher death rate was an accepted byproduct of not closing down the country. Its not like they didnt know it was going to happen.

yes, but how much higher? the justification is that the difference is "small enough" to justify doing it for the $$$. if it's too much, you look like greedy assholes rather than smart (see:US when a second spike hits and kills tens of thousands)