"And let's not forget the lazy 5800 deaths , eh ?"
Nothing like the statistically illiterate taking an isolated figure and quoting it without any qualifying context, ostensibly for the histrionics. We see journalists and politicians doing it all the time.
Year-to-Date, Sweden's number of deaths - 59,000 - is of the same order of magnitude as any other year, exceeding prior years as follows:
So in the first 182 days of the year, Sweden's death rate was running at an average of 3,386 higher than previous years.
That works out to an elevated death rate in the first 6 months - which coincided with the Covid onslaught in Sweden - of 18.6 per day compared to prior years.
But here's the very interesting and noteworthy thing (which the statistical illiterate overlook):
Since the middle of the year - so less than 2 months - Sweden's death rate is already 884 deaths LESS than the average for same period in prior years.
July 1 to August 14 [vs 2020]:
2015: 10.084 [+907]
2016: 10,232 [+1,055]
2017: 9,853 [+676]
2018: 10,372 [+1,195]
2019: 9,761 [+584] [*]
2020: 9,177
Viewed on a daily basis, the 884 fewer deaths since the end of June translates into 19.6 FEWER deaths per day compared to the same periods in previous years.
Clearly, there has been an element of "front-loading" of deaths which would have occurred during the current six months into the previous 6 months.
(This is not unexpected because remember that the median age of those dying with Covid is in excess of average life expectancy)
And every day from now until the end of the year that the daily death rate is lower than the same time in prior years, makes the Covid impact increasingly diminished.
In fact, if the trends in lower deaths in recent months compared to previous years continues until the end of the year, 2020 could be a year in which Sweden records total death figures which are statistically not significantly different than previous years!
In fact, if current trends continue for a few more months, Sweden could record fewer total deaths in 2020 than in 2015, 2017 and 2018!
[*] 2019 was an abnormal year, with very low deaths, the lowest number of deaths in 44 years (1975) when Sweden's population was only 8.1m (more than 20% smaller than 2019)
