I’ll be curious to see where Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc. are a year from now. I suspect the death totals won’t be that different by then. This whole lockdown was sold as a way to avoid having the healthcare system overwhelmed and it makes sense that you don’t want people who could live instead dying because there’s no room in the hospital or not the right equipment or medicines for them.
But I haven’t heard anything about Sweden’s healthcare system being overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases, so I’m going to guess that the people who have died were going to die either way. It’s unfortunate, but the reality is some people will definitely die of this thing no matter what. Even in full lockdown mode, the US has seen upwards of 80,000 people die. I think Sweden may have found a better balance between keeping the economy moving and keeping the healthcare system able to function effectively, but only time will tell if that’s actually true.
I can agree with everything you said. I’m not on the Sweden bandwagon though.
Have you seen the provisional death stats on teh CDC site?
Covid only deaths are running less than pneumonia only deaths since Feb 1.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
And many more won't. The best stat to look at IMO is deaths versus cases. We don't know about all the cases until we get antibody tests, but for now we have to use what we got:
Spain 591 / 5,940: 9.9%
Italy 528 / 3,728: 14%
UK 511 / 3,592: 14%
France 431 / 2,752: 16%
Sweden 365 / 2,987: 12%
USA 275 / 4,615: 6%
Norway 43 / 1,522: 2.8%
Like you said we have to wait a year to see how this works out but the early numbers show that Norway has done the best keeping the deaths down from the inevitable cases. Cases are inevitable, especially if you buy into Sweden's theory. Deaths are not as inevitable. Some are and some are not.