Ten year ONS death rates

Here are Swedens yearly death rates.

That's total yearly deaths. The data from 2010-2019 is from January 1st until December 31st whereas the 2020 data runs from January 1st until November 13th. Your data is missing the last 7 weeks of this year.

In fact if we use the rough average of ~91,000 deaths a year giving us ~250 deaths a day with the 49 days left in the year from that date Sweden would expect to see another ~12.5k deaths between Nov 13th and Dec 31st which would leave them with 5k more deaths than 2019, the highest death toll of the past 11 years.

This is also if you assume Sweden has an exact average death rate across the year and their deaths don't see a slight increase in winter months which happens across most of Europe.

In this scenario Sweden sees an estimated 5% increase in deaths from the year before. I think the UK is looking at an estimated 15-20% increase.

Sweden will also have protected those suffering from other illnesses, maintained the mental wellbeing of their population, as well as having a stronger economy than neighbouring countries. In terms of the bigger picture, I prefer their approach personally.

The UK annually has roughly 600k deaths when you look at previous years so a 15-20 percent increase would be well over 700k which is way higher than any predictions I've seen. I know the past few weeks and months excess deaths are hovering around 5% higher than expected but some weeks it's dipped into negative figures.

As for protecting those suffering from other illnesses I don't know what Sweden's medical system is like but ours has been strained for months. People are already complaining on here that lockdown is stopping people get their medical treatment but if we take the conservative estimates that a Sweden style approach would mean ~4x as many cases our medical systems would not be able to cope.

As for mental health I agree that Sweden will no doubt fare better. I also think that's a criminally overlooked and underfunded aspect of medicine in this country, pandemic or not, and I have no confidence in the current government doing much to combat any mental health issues in the coming years.

Here are Swedens yearly death rates.

That's total yearly deaths. The data from 2010-2019 is from January 1st until December 31st whereas the 2020 data runs from January 1st until November 13th. Your data is missing the last 7 weeks of this year.

In fact if we use the rough average of ~91,000 deaths a year giving us ~250 deaths a day with the 49 days left in the year from that date Sweden would expect to see another ~12.5k deaths between Nov 13th and Dec 31st which would leave them with 5k more deaths than 2019, the highest death toll of the past 11 years.

This is also if you assume Sweden has an exact average death rate across the year and their deaths don't see a slight increase in winter months which happens across most of Europe.

In this scenario Sweden sees an estimated 5% increase in deaths from the year before. I think the UK is looking at an estimated 15-20% increase.

Sweden will also have protected those suffering from other illnesses, maintained the mental wellbeing of their population, as well as having a stronger economy than neighbouring countries. In terms of the bigger picture, I prefer their approach personally.

The UK annually has roughly 600k deaths when you look at previous years so a 15-20 percent increase would be well over 700k which is way higher than any predictions I've seen. I know the past few weeks and months excess deaths are hovering around 5% higher than expected but some weeks it's dipped into negative figures.

As for protecting those suffering from other illnesses I don't know what Sweden's medical system is like but ours has been strained for months. People are already complaining on here that lockdown is stopping people get their medical treatment but if we take the conservative estimates that a Sweden style approach would mean ~4x as many cases our medical systems would not be able to cope.

As for mental health I agree that Sweden will no doubt fare better. I also think that's a criminally overlooked and underfunded aspect of medicine in this country, pandemic or not, and I have no confidence in the current government doing much to combat any mental health issues in the coming years.

We currently have 60k + more deaths than we had this time last year, this data is taken from the office of national statistics. There were roughly 530k deaths last year - this was the comparison I was drawing too, rather than an average (Im not sure of those numbers).

Apologies, as I had posted this on another thread meaning to post it here.

A new American study, which was published and then removed from the John Hopkins website, suggests that there has been no change in the amount of deaths in the US, in comparison to previous years. What they found was that the decrease in deaths from other causes, equally matches the increase in deaths from Covid. They used data pulled from the CDC website.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201126223 ... o-covid-19

You are trying to say a bad flu year is comparable to this virus, and of course, you are talking nonsense!

I have trivialised my reply, because it's not comparable!

But he's not and that is the whole point your missing here I'm afraid.

He is comparing the influenza pandemic of 1967/68 which killed a million people when the world had a population of about 3 and a half billion people (so 0.03% of the population) to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 which has killed 1.4 million people when the world has a population of about 7 and a half billion people (so 0.02% of the population)

1967 wasn't a bad flu year for seasonal flu, it was an influenza pandemic - the result of the emergence of a different strain of influenza. Just like COVID19 is a different strain of coronavirus to the common cold.

The comparison is 100% valid.

You are arguing that an influenza pandemic (of which there have been 5 in the last 140 odd years) is the same as seasonal flu because they are both influenza viruses.

The logic of that argument, that you keep sticking to, is that COVID19 is the same as the common cold because they are both coronaviruses.

Just take a moment to read about influenza pandemics here (from a website called the history of vaccines so I'm sure you'll like it )

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/conte ... -pandemics

This will give you a better understanding of what Skidemin (and me) are trying to explain.

Good reply as ever

Skideman has previously said it's no worse than flu, so there is an ongoing difference of opinion, so I didn't really read his post.

With regards 1968 flu pandemic, assuming your info is accurate and not from an anti measures propaganda site, it still shows that with no measures at all, miners all together eating their sandwiches in the mine, then all in the pub after work, then all in and out of each other's houses, and through the whole pandemic, many fewer deaths, and a slight increase in the overall population percentage. Hospitals wouldn't have been able to save as many people, don't forget we have had the extra 52 years of medical advancement.

Compare that to Covid -19 where the whole world has been locked down, people aren't mixing, social distancing, hand washing, hand sanitisers everywhere, people wearing masks, flights, cinemas, theatres, sporting events (for fans) cancelled and every other change in our lives possible.

Only 10% of the population have had it due to all these measures, so I conclude that if we had ignored it, as we did in 1968, as stated by Skideman, we would have had 7 or 8 times the death toll probably more because the health service would not have had enough beds.

So even in a terrible year like 1968, it bears no comparison.

Bear in mind you are factoring in the impact of lockdowns, which is fair enough, I did the same in my post as well.

However, you are not factoring in the impact of the fact that in 2020 global travel is far, far more common than it was in 1968 and that would have equally have been a massive factor in the transmission of the virus in the early phase of the pandemic, when it was at its most virulent before we locked down borders.

As I said before, impossible to tell which how much each would swing the impact, but both have to be considered and the effect of one is likely to mitigate the impact of the other, whichever way round, so we can't ignore one and acknowledge the other.

Yes, of course, I took that into account, Skidemans view is that because the World didn't need to take any measures in 1968 when he was a kid, why are we taking measures now, which I've said is nonsense, because this virus is so virial and worldwide travel and many other factors you can't compare the two, and to suggest we could have just cracked on and let the health services of the world collapse are nonsense, and you know that too