Dumbledore’s Army was speaking about excess deaths. The article to which you link is about COVID mortality.
In addition, it says “Either way, the per capita death toll in blue America and red America was similar by the final weeks of 2020.” That suggests that the lockdowns didn’t cause a difference in COVID-19 mortality but the vaccines actually did. Sweden is also an example of no lockdown but decent vaccine uptake.
In one thread someone wrote about one rationalist dying to sepsis because they locked down to the extent that they didn’t go to the hospital. I have one friend who said that three acquaintances of hers committed suicide during the lockdowns.
Looking at excess deaths makes a lot more sense because the additional deaths caused by the lockdown matter.
Yeah, I agree that excess death data is preferable when available. For some reason Dumbledore’s Army’s original link isn’t working for me (“page not found”). So I haven’t yet seen state by state excess mortality data. But if it actually doesn’t find any difference between the red/blue states that would undermine the argument from the NYT article above.
Looking at Our World in Data’s limited cumulative excess mortality data Sweden has 2-8X higher excess mortality during the pandemic compared to other Scandinavian countries (with similar vaccination rates). That undermines any simple arguments based on Sweden (other than ones with weaker conclusions—such as that avoiding lockdowns don’t 10X+ net covid mortality).
Ofc there could be some other explanation for excess Swedish mortality. But an argument against lockdowns based on Sweden as a datapoint would need a pretty solid explanation of this.
Fixed the link, thanks for letting me know it wasn’t working. If For whatever reason that link doesn’t work, it’s called The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Policy Responses on Excess Mortality andthe authors are Agrawal, Cantor, Sood and Whaley.
Looking at Our World in Data’s limited cumulative excess mortality data Sweden has 2-8X higher excess mortality during the pandemic compared to other Scandinavian countries
“The cumulative difference between the reported number of deaths since 1 January 2020 and the projected number of deaths for the same period based on previous years.”
Sweden 883 Finland 411 Denmark 154 Norway 110 Iceland 92
Ah, that data isn’t cumulative. It is just looking at current excess mortality. A lot of Sweden’s excess mortality happened early on (I believe, while the other Scandinavian countries were locking down more). So the cumulative number is higher, but not the current number.
Dumbledore’s Army was speaking about excess deaths. The article to which you link is about COVID mortality.
In addition, it says “Either way, the per capita death toll in blue America and red America was similar by the final weeks of 2020.” That suggests that the lockdowns didn’t cause a difference in COVID-19 mortality but the vaccines actually did. Sweden is also an example of no lockdown but decent vaccine uptake.
In one thread someone wrote about one rationalist dying to sepsis because they locked down to the extent that they didn’t go to the hospital. I have one friend who said that three acquaintances of hers committed suicide during the lockdowns.
Looking at excess deaths makes a lot more sense because the additional deaths caused by the lockdown matter.
Yeah, I agree that excess death data is preferable when available. For some reason Dumbledore’s Army’s original link isn’t working for me (“page not found”). So I haven’t yet seen state by state excess mortality data. But if it actually doesn’t find any difference between the red/blue states that would undermine the argument from the NYT article above.
Looking at Our World in Data’s limited cumulative excess mortality data Sweden has 2-8X higher excess mortality during the pandemic compared to other Scandinavian countries (with similar vaccination rates). That undermines any simple arguments based on Sweden (other than ones with weaker conclusions—such as that avoiding lockdowns don’t 10X+ net covid mortality).
Ofc there could be some other explanation for excess Swedish mortality. But an argument against lockdowns based on Sweden as a datapoint would need a pretty solid explanation of this.
Fixed the link, thanks for letting me know it wasn’t working. If For whatever reason that link doesn’t work, it’s called The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Policy Responses on Excess Mortality and the authors are Agrawal, Cantor, Sood and Whaley.
No. https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid is the page for excess mortality.
Finland has +19 pp absolute change and +165% relative change while Sweden only has +8 pp and +125%. Norway even has +24 pp and +355%.
Sweden has lower excess mortality than Finland and Norway.
Yeah, precisely that page. Scroll down to the graph:
”Excess mortality: Cumulative number of deaths from all causes compared to projection based on
previous years, per million people, Dec 19, 2021
“The cumulative difference between the reported number of deaths since 1 January 2020 and the projected number of deaths for the same period based on previous years.”
Sweden 883
Finland 411
Denmark 154
Norway 110
Iceland 92
Proportions are similar if you check out the economist’s data below: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-per-100k-economist?country=OWID_WRL~CHN~IND~USA~IDN~BRA
Where are you getting your numbers?
I’m referencing the numbers on https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-projected-baseline?tab=table&country=MEX~RUS~ZAF
Sweden has a higher population than the other countries listed so total numbers are not comparable. That alone doesn’t explain all the difference.
It’s unclear to me why https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-projected-baseline?tab=map&country=MEX~RUS~ZAF and https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-deaths-per-million-covid come to such different conclusions.
“Sweden has a higher population than the other countries listed so total numbers are not comparable. That alone doesn’t explain all the difference.”
The numbers I’m citing above are population normalized. They are total excess deaths per million (and per 100k in the economist link).
”It’s unclear to me why https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-projected-baseline?tab=map&country=MEX~RUS~ZAF and https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-deaths-per-million-covid come to such different conclusions.”
Ah, that data isn’t cumulative. It is just looking at current excess mortality. A lot of Sweden’s excess mortality happened early on (I believe, while the other Scandinavian countries were locking down more). So the cumulative number is higher, but not the current number.