Norwegian Crown Study: Sweden has lost 43,073 years of life

Norwegian researchers have calculated the death rate in Norway and Sweden during the corona pandemic. They leave no doubt that the lack of strict measures in Sweden has come at great human cost.

– In Sweden, excess mortality is significant. It has no explanation other than crown-related deaths, math professor Martin Rypdal tells Dagbladet.

The debate on what is the optimal strategy to reduce the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic continues around the world.

In Europe, most countries introduced strict measures in March 2020 to combat the explosive spread of the coronavirus, and by early summer the pandemic was reasonably under control in many places, before it erupted again this fall.

Cool study

Among Western European countries, Sweden has been an exception, with its more relaxed approach to the pandemic with mainly voluntary measures.

The Swedish strategy has received a lot of international attention, because despite the country not shutting down, Sweden has managed to be usable during the coronavirus pandemic, compared to most European countries.

Compared to Norway and other Nordic countries, such as Sweden being more similar in terms of population density and a number of other parameters, the country, however, has had significantly more deaths from covid-19.

In a recent study by the University of Tromsø – University of the Norwegian Arctic (UiT), a research group, led by Professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Martin Rypdal, calculated Norwegian and Swedish mortality during the corona pandemic. , between March 11 and November 11.

The study has just been submitted to a medical journal and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Grim findings

For Norway, researchers have not found any significant excess mortality as a result of the pandemic. As of November 11, Norway had 285 confirmed deaths from covid-19.

This corresponds to 53 deaths per million inhabitants.

For Sweden, the situation is very different. The researchers note that the Swedish krona’s strategy caused a broad wave of mortality in Sweden that lasted from March to July. Then the country entered a quiet period from August to October, when a new wave accelerated.

As of November 11, Sweden had 6,247 confirmed deaths from covid-19. This corresponds to 611 deaths per million inhabitants.

In their work, the researchers have performed statistical analyzes of mortality in Norway and Sweden since 2000.

Years of life lost

They have also investigated the theory that much of the high death rate in Sweden can be explained by so-called mortality changes.

Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has repeatedly argued that a mild flu season the year before the pandemic, with few deaths in Sweden, has led to higher death toll during the corona pandemic.

However, Norwegian researchers find this effect to be very weak.

In their calculations of how many years of life lost during the pandemic can be attributed to Sweden’s relaxed crown strategy, it doesn’t make much difference if the researchers adjust for the effect of this death shift.

Without adjusting for change in mortality, the researchers found 45,850 years of life lost in Sweden between July 2019 and July 2020, divided into different age groups.

Adjusted for a possible change of this type, the researchers found 43,073 years of life lost.

Dagbladet has given state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell and the Swedish Public Health Agency the opportunity to comment on the Norwegian study and the researchers’ critical attitude towards the country’s crown strategy.

In an email to Dagbladet, the Public Health Authority writes that they unfortunately do not have the opportunity to comment on the study.

– Prefer

– Our study shows that the Norwegian krone strategy is preferable to the Swedish one. It’s starting to become very clear what has happened, Martin Rypdal tells Dagbladet.

The professor emphasizes that the Swedish excess mortality during the corona pandemic was something they expected to find.

– Our results are not controversial. For Sweden, we get the results we expected, and the findings are in line with what other researchers have previously found about Swedish death rates, Rypdal says.

The researchers found that mortality in Norway has been near normal during the pandemic. They do not find a significant excess mortality. However, they are a bit surprised by Norway’s results.

– We could expect a fairly high mortality rate in Norway as a result of the strict measures. We haven’t seen that, says Rypdal.

Contradictory

On November 23, Dagbladet reported on a study conducted by researchers at the Oslo University Hospital and the University of Oslo, among others, with the following conclusion about mortality in the two countries:

“We don’t find much of the big difference between Norway and Sweden in the early phase of the pandemic when we compare all causes of death over a five-year period. It is questionable whether big gains can be expected from Norway’s strict measures in relation with less severe in Sweden during the pandemic. “

These researchers thus arrive at a completely different result than the Tromsø researchers.

– Why should we believe in the results of the Tromsø study?

– We have used more information and analyzed the data since 2000. It gives a better picture of what is normal, what we call the baseline. Furthermore, previous studies that have speculated on a displacement effect on mortality have not counted on it. We did real calculations and found the effect to be very small, explains Rypdal.

– Without cover

Sweden is once again hit hard by the corona pandemic. Recently, there was a call for help from the Stockholm region, where intensive care units are close to being overloaded.

The Tromsø study ended its calculations on November 11. All new deaths from corona in Sweden after that will lead to an increase in years of life lost.

– Our figures for years of life lost do not take into account that Sweden will have many deaths from corona this winter, so in the future this will only intensify, says Rypdal.

Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has previously stated that an effect of Norway’s closure and the low death toll could mean that Norway could be hit harder at a later date.

– We see no evidence of such an effect, says the math teacher.