No mortality difference between Sweden and Norway, but Norway result came at huge cost

[Wandering Eyes]

An important study (preprint at time of this post) shows similar mortality rates in Sweden and Norway despite different national responses to the Covid19 virus. But critically, Sweden’s mortality outcome came at a much cheaper economic cost.

Despite an order of magnitude difference in case-fatality rates in Sweden (higher) compared to Norway, the two countries had very similar overall mortality profiles.

There was a big difference though in national costs. Norway’s more restrictive policies resulting in public spending 2.6-fold more than Sweden (Norway: 4,176 Euros per person & Sweden 1,580 per person) during the epidemic.

It also reveals that the spike in mortality in Sweden which had caused consternation, and some unfortunate glee among pro-lockdown observers, was most likely due to ‘displaced mortality’ from low mortality in earlier seasons. Norway had no overall mortality spike.

https://www.medrxiv.org/…/2020.11.11.20229708v1.full.pdf

View the full article

[mardigras]

I guess it all depends on how much trust you put in PlanB's analysis - especially in light of previous reports suggesting NZ could do better by following the likes of Switzerland and Slovenia. Maybe next time some better thought out examples would be an idea.

I haven't got the numbers at hand, but can you give me some death numbers/GDP etc for those countries?

As for Norway and Sweden, I'm inclined to believe what they themselves say. 

Sweden has reported a GDP second quarter contraction year on year of -7.5%. Norway - 4.0%

Government debt from April to July for Sweden - up by 30,000 million SEK, Norway down by 80,000 million NOK.

Looking at this certainly makes me question the supposed advantages of not locking down - irrespective of any deaths etc.

[mardigras]

And Sweden has reported a GDP third quarter contraction year on year of -2.5%. Norway - 0.2%

These huge costs to Norway. I don't think so.

Edited December 10, 2020 by mardigras

[Chief Stipe]

10 hours ago, mardigras said:

And Sweden has reported a GDP third quarter contraction year on year of -2.5%. Norway - 0.2%

These huge costs to Norway. I don't think so.

You should really stick to topics you vaguely know something about.

Very easy to prop up GDP figures when you borrow or print money aka NZ.

Suggest you go have a squizz at the comparative debt per capita.  

[mardigras]

2 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

You should really stick to topics you vaguely know something about.

Very easy to prop up GDP figures when you borrow or print money aka NZ.

Suggest you go have a squizz at the comparative debt per capita.  

I think I know a fair bit about economic performance. 

As I mentioned above, why aren't they now suggesting we could have at least done what Slovenia did - who they claimed had things better, were opening up borders etc. I see you haven't put anything up about them.

Here's some info for you.

Slovenia GDP contracted by 13% year on year in the second quarter, and 2.6% in the 3rd quarter. Slovenia government debt went up 2,700 million Euros from April to July (nearly a 10% increase). Although not really interested in Covid related deaths, Slovenia have been reported as having 937 deaths per million people. Pretty good effort. Maybe you want to look at Slovenia's excess death numbers.

Funny, how they claim Norway had to spend so much compared to Sweden, but factually according to the Swedish and Norwegian governments, Norway's government debt actually reduced from April to July and Sweden's went up.

Now, on to your comparitive debt per capita. I don't see the respective governments having reported that, but I doubt the changes between the two countries are significant. Norway's government debt to GDP has been higher than Sweden's for the last two years anyway. But given as I reported above, Norway's government debt has been going down this year, and Sweden's has been going up. I expect you've been sold another lemon.

Pre any of this lockdown scenario playing out, odd how I stated that the economic benefits to Sweden compared to Norway and Finland wouldn't happen. Who knew, not Sweden, not you and not PlanB. And you think I know nothing about this stuff. My career has been in business intelligence.

You should stick to running a forum on the internet.

 

[Chief Stipe]

As the renowned Business Intelligence Analyst (self-proclaimed) that you are I was very surprised when you used GDP growth as a comparative measure of Covid-19 pandemic management.

Anyone with any degree of analytical skill would know that that metric in itself is flawed and certainly more so when used the way you did.

Monetary Tools such as the increased use of the new fad of Quantitative Easing has made GDP a poor comparative metric.

 

 

[mardigras]

Just now, Chief Stipe said:

As the renowned Business Intelligence Analyst (self-proclaimed) that you are I was very surprised when you used GDP growth as a comparative measure of Covid-19 pandemic management.

Anyone with any degree of analytical skill would know that that metric in itself is flawed and certainly more so when used the way you did.

Monetary Tools such as the increased use of the new fad of Quantitative Easing has made GDP a poor comparative metric.

 

 

Stay surprised then. 

[Chief Stipe]

3 hours ago, mardigras said:

Norway's government debt actually reduced from April to July

Overall for the YTD it is up substantially on last year.  The highest it has been in 10 years.

[mardigras]

3 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Overall for the YTD it is up substantially on last year.  The highest it has been in 10 years.

What's your point. I don't see April to July figures there. Give us the same chart for Sweden.

[Chief Stipe]

1 minute ago, mardigras said:

What's your point. I don't see April to July figures there. Give us the same chart for Sweden.

Of course you don't see the point as you are a Business Intelligence expert who like many such types don't understand time and variation.  That graph shows the level of debt as of the end of the September Quarter 2020.  It comes from the official stats of the Bank of Norway.

Sweden has also increased their debt but not at the same rate as Norway.  The per capita debt for Sweden is considerably less than Norway. 

You posted a comparison between Norway and Sweden increases in debt showing a single figure amount to infer that Sweden was doing worse.  A brilliant business insight that didn't take into consideration the differences in population nor nominal GDP.  Misleading at the least.  

[Chief Stipe]

Just reviewed the data from the Swedish National Debt Office - Government debt in Sweden has declined in the last month with revenues 100% more than budgeted.

[mardigras]

15 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Of course you don't see the point as you are a Business Intelligence expert who like many such types don't understand time and variation.  That graph shows the level of debt as of the end of the September Quarter 2020.  It comes from the official stats of the Bank of Norway.

Sweden has also increased their debt but not at the same rate as Norway.  The per capita debt for Sweden is considerably less than Norway. 

You posted a comparison between Norway and Sweden increases in debt showing a single figure amount to infer that Sweden was doing worse.  A brilliant business insight that didn't take into consideration the differences in population nor nominal GDP.  Misleading at the least.  

I don't see the point because you quoted my post about government debt between two periods within the year. Are you surprised that government debt overall has gone up this year. 

Government debt per capita in Norway has been higher than Sweden's before the pandemic. That it still is, is hardly a surprise.

Why don't you present the % change in per capita government debt from 31 December 2019 to end of Q3.

Show us the starting government debt and then ending for both countries, and the populations. I don't have Q3 numbers, but I'm very confident that the % change from the start of the year to the end of Q2 is worse per capita % wise for Sweden than it is for Norway. Since that is all the information I have.

So please share the actual numbers up to Q3 for us to review. I hope they are a damn site better as well, given the claims made about the massive costs to Norway in the title of this thread.

 

Edited December 10, 2020 by mardigras

[Chief Stipe]

1 minute ago, mardigras said:

Show us the starting government debt and then ending for both countries, and the populations. I don't have Q3 numbers, but I'm very confident that the % change from the start of the year to the end of Q2 is worse per capita % wise for Sweden than it is for Norway. Since that is all the information I have.

I wouldn't be so sure of that.  I've just reviewed the last three months - September, October and November.  Sept and Oct had considerably lower deficits than forecast and the surplus in November as I said was up by a significant amount.

Now you are searching for data to support your hypothesis (bias?) that Sweden is doing much worse than Norway in overall pandemic management.

I'm not even sure you read the paper that PlanB posted which demonstrated that a substantial amount of the Covid-19 mortality in Sweden was in fact displaced mortality from the previous period of negative excess mortality.  Their data was comparing June years i.e. the first peak of the pandemic however the ensuing months have continued to supported their conclusion with no increase in excess mortality.

[mardigras]

1 minute ago, Chief Stipe said:

I wouldn't be so sure of that.  I've just reviewed the last three months - September, October and November.  Sept and Oct had considerably lower deficits than forecast and the surplus in November as I said was up by a significant amount.

Now you are searching for data to support your hypothesis (bias?) that Sweden is doing much worse than Norway in overall pandemic management.

I'm not even sure you read the paper that PlanB posted which demonstrated that a substantial amount of the Covid-19 mortality in Sweden was in fact displaced mortality from the previous period of negative excess mortality.  Their data was comparing June years i.e. the first peak of the pandemic however the ensuing months have continued to supported their conclusion with no increase in excess mortality.

I'm not even largely interested in deaths or mortality. I tend to be more focused on economics. And I am yet to see any evidence of Sweden's approach being an advantage to the economy. I'm not searching for anything. I've said, put up the numbers  for Q3- where are they?

I have it that the increase in government debt between end of 2019 and end of Q2 has been greater per capita in Sweden than Norway. Let's see if that is still the case in Q3. That's what you are claiming.

[Chief Stipe]

Norway and Sweden's Q3 GDP figures are surprisingly similar being 4.6% vs 4.3% respectively.

Of course Sweden was impacted more than Norway in Q2 but that would have been worse if Sweden had implemented draconian lockdown measures.  Sweden relies more on open borders than Norway.

[Chief Stipe]

3 minutes ago, mardigras said:

I'm not even largely interested in deaths or mortality. I tend to be more focused on economics. And I am yet to see any evidence of Sweden's approach being an advantage to the economy. I'm not searching for anything. I've said, put up the numbers  for Q3- where are they?

I have it that the increase in government debt between end of 2019 and end of Q2 has been greater per capita in Sweden than Norway. Let's see if that is still the case in Q3. That's what you are claiming.

Again you are letting your bias affect your analysis - not good for looking for "insights".

Your hypothesis that the RATE in increase in Government debt per capita is greater for Sweden than Norway may well be correct.  However that doesn't provide conclusive evidence that Sweden's approach hasn't been the right course for their economy.  On its own your chosen metric means nothing.

You aren't really all that good at this are you?

[mardigras]

Just now, Chief Stipe said:

Of course Sweden was impacted more than Norway in Q2 but that would have been worse if Sweden had implemented draconian lockdown measures.  Sweden relies more on open borders than Norway.

Sweden contribution from tourism and travel to GDP is a whole 1% higher than it is for Norway. 

Your statement is subjective.

And why was Sweden impacted more than Norway in Q2 given Sweden was largely free to conduct whatever business they could, and Norway was under some draconian lockdown measure? In fact, Sweden is in more of a lockdown now that it was during Q2.

[mardigras]

2 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Again you are letting your bias affect your analysis - not good for looking for "insights".

Your hypothesis that the RATE in increase in Government debt per capita is greater for Sweden than Norway may well be correct.  However that doesn't provide conclusive evidence that Sweden's approach hasn't been the right course for their economy.  On its own your chosen metric means nothing.

You aren't really all that good at this are you?

I didn't claim it did provide proof - yet you are supporting PlanB as if their analysis does support their ideas. On their metric alone, it means nothing. yet you seemed happy to put it up (and not question it).

How many topics in this particular forum. All with such quality analysis. 

And you think I'm not much good at this. 

If you take all the information in relation to Sweden and Norway, there is little that supports the notion that their approach worked better than Norway's. Two similar nations with similar GDP contributing factors. Similar cultures, and neighbours. You can look at all the government efforts, all the outcomes. And you will be cherry picking to find things that appear better for Sweden than Norway.

End of story.

 

[Chief Stipe]

7 minutes ago, mardigras said:

If you take all the information in relation to Sweden and Norway, there is little that supports the notion that their approach worked better than Norway's. Two similar nations with similar GDP contributing factors. Similar cultures, and neighbours. You can look at all the government efforts, all the outcomes. And you will be cherry picking to find things that appear better for Sweden than Norway.

You are completely wrong in saying Norway and Sweden are similar!  FFS do some analysis beyond your predetermined bias!

Sweden - twice the population of Norway.

Sweden - oil importer - Norway oil exporter.

Sweden - large tourism sector - ski resorts reliant on external and internal tourism.

Sweden relies on other countries more than Norway for its economy.

Sweden - has a comparatively larger immigrant population and more recently this has grown with Sweden's comparatively more open immigration policy - the largest grouping is in Stockholm which drove the first Covid-19 peak.

Sweden of all the Nordic nations has the largest nursing home population and one that is considerably older.

Although Sweden didn't lockdown its messaging to its population resulted in a drop in public and private consumption.  Plus the big whammy was the decline of 18% in the export of goods and services.

Norway is much more insular than Sweden.

Culturally Norwegians are different to the Swedish.  This can be partly explained by the differences in geography - Norway is a land of Fjords and mountains.  

And so on and so on.

 

[mardigras]

1 minute ago, Chief Stipe said:

You are completely wrong in saying Norway and Sweden are similar!  FFS do some analysis beyond your predetermined bias!

Sweden - twice the population of Norway.

Sweden - oil importer - Norway oil exporter.

Sweden - large tourism sector - ski resorts reliant on external and internal tourism.

Sweden relies on other countries more than Norway for its economy.

Sweden - has a comparatively larger immigrant population and more recently this has grown with Sweden's comparatively more open immigration policy - the largest grouping is in Stockholm which drove the first Covid-19 peak.

Sweden of all the Nordic nations has the largest nursing home population and one that is considerably older.

Although Sweden didn't lockdown its messaging to its population resulted in a drop in public and private consumption.  Plus the big whammy was the decline of 18% in the export of goods and services.

Norway is much more insular than Sweden.

Culturally Norwegians are different to the Swedish.  This can be partly explained by the differences in geography - Norway is a land of Fjords and mountains.  

And so on and so on.

 

Nice. We're talking about the effects of a lockdown - which mainly effects things like tourism and the like. Of which there is minimal difference between Norway and Sweden as I said, around 1% as far a GDP contribution.

I prefer to rely on my own finding in regards the people. Having been to both countries, I would say they are very similar culturally - especially in the urban areas where the majority of people live. And certainly no more insular in Norway than they are in Sweden.

You're a clown. Fixated. Not happy that indeed I do write on stuff I know about. Whilst you are just a website owner with a keyboard. Clueless and think you can write whatever you like about people. 

You've been found out - you're a hypocrite, you don't even know the difference between a DBA and a BIA, and you call yourself knowledgeable about IT. Give it a rest.

The collection of economic factors between Norway and Sweden are clearly in Norway's favour this year. Get over it.

I really loved that one minute you were going on about government debt - and then once it didn't work out so well, you then decided it wasn't a metric that meant anything. That's about the level of your analytic capability. 

[mardigras]

29 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

FFS do some analysis beyond your predetermined bias!

 

Do you mean like your bias in support of PlanB and what they write. The analysis that you don't ever question. Like the 130+ threads in this particular forum. Is that what you mean by bias? 

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, mardigras said:

You're a clown. Fixated. Not happy that indeed I do write on stuff I know about. Whilst you are just a website owner with a keyboard. Clueless and think you can write whatever you like about people. 

But what you write indicates that you don't really know what you are talking about. 

1 hour ago, mardigras said:

You've been found out - you're a hypocrite, you don't even know the difference between a DBA and a BIA, and you call yourself knowledgeable about IT. Give it a rest.

Big deal.  You are not even trained to be a good Business Intelligence Analyst.  Quite frankly I've yet to meet a good one!  A three year degree in Computer Science (did you finish it?) falls well short in training for it.  Certainly your inability to understand evidence based research (and no training in it) and to isolate your biased thinking to enable the clear determination of "insights" makes you a crap BIA.  You should have stuck to selling and designing MS SQL systems - a bit of bullshit goes a long way in that game!

1 hour ago, mardigras said:

The collection of economic factors between Norway and Sweden are clearly in Norway's favour this year. Get over it.

Which have nothing to do with differences in their respective pandemic management approaches.  However you are unable to distil those factors and find the key relationships.  You only present macro indicators without adjusting for the unique characteristics of the respective economies which are significantly different.

1 hour ago, mardigras said:

I really loved that one minute you were going on about government debt - and then once it didn't work out so well, you then decided it wasn't a metric that meant anything. That's about the level of your analytic capability. 

You first raised the relative increases/decreases in Government debt not I.  Then the moment I pointed out that metric was useless as a measure you went on another tangent.  Quite frankly I won't be giving any credence to any business intelligence "insights" you may give on the comparative economic performances of Nordic countries.

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, mardigras said:

Do you mean like your bias in support of PlanB and what they write. The analysis that you don't ever question. Like the 130+ threads in this particular forum. Is that what you mean by bias? 

I think PlanB and their group of scientists along with their colleagues in other parts of the world provide a balanced view of the pandemic based on good evidence based research.  Unlike the celebrity styled scientists of dubious backgrounds that advise our NZ Government.

However I understand that I have an advantage having been formally trained in the scientific method and evidence based research.