[Yver]

> The per capita rate is far lower than nearby Denmark or the Netherlands (if higher than the negligible rates in Norway and Finland).

According to this article, Sweden's per capita infection rate is far lower than Denmark and the Netherlands, and slightly higher than Norway and Finland. Compare that to population density: (numbers from Wikipedia)

    Netherlands: 521/km²
    Denmark:     137/km²
    Sweden:       25/km²
    Finland:      16/km²
    Norway:       14/km²

Not so coincidentally in my opinion, Sweden has a far lower population density than Denmark and the Netherlands, and slightly higher than Norway and Finland.

[emtel]

This comparison is too simplistic to be useful. Sweden and Norway have a couple of large cities, and then endless swaths of nearly-uninhabited tundra.

If you count Greenland as part of Denmark, its density probably drops to below that of Norway or Sweden, but it's easy to see why that wouldn't tell you anything useful about covid.

It's much better to compare metro regions (e.g. stockholm metro vs copenhagen metro) against each other, if you can find the appropriate case data.

[mcguire]

Let's see, Sweden has about 10,000,000 people, a population density of 25/km^2. Arizona has a population of about 7,300,000 and a density of 23/km^2. Minnesota has a population of 5,600,000 and a density of 26/km^2.

                Cases Deaths  D/M
    Sweden     92,000   5900  583
    Arizona   220,000   5600  776
    Minnesota  99,000   2100  370
    NJ        209,000 16,000 1829
    Calif.    820,000 16,000  401
    NM         30,000    875  417

The only thing I see eyeballing it is that Sweden is probably under counting cases.

[rightbyte]

You should compare persons/km2 for each person really. E.g. median amount of people in a 10 km circle around each person or w/e. Having a lot of empty forest doesn't help much.

I can't find any such data though.

[samatman]

y'know that's too bad, isn't it.

As soon as you described that statistic I realized that normalized population density is a really interesting fact about countries and states, and it isn't one I've seen laid out that way.

[dawidw]

Density in Swedish cities is similar to density in cities in other European countries.