[ArkanExplorer]

Deaths in Sweden are only 6% higher in 2020 than in 2018:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-...

It would seem unlikely that the population would notice a 6% increase against the base annual death rate. We previously tolerated hospital overcrowding and death spikes from influenza waves.

Most other countries around the world are showing a 4-6% increase. There seems to be a correlation to severity of lockdown and increased number of deaths, presumably due to factors like interruptions to regular medical treatments, and individual health deteriorating during lockdown.

[randomopining]

How do you factor in the projection of infections/deaths without any enforced lockdowns?

Aka everybody gets it very fast and in a short time period, hospitals are easily overwhelmed and lead to even more deaths.

[loveistheanswer]

An alternate scenario could also be the most at risk populations (elderly, obese, etc.) lockdown, while the young, healthy, low risk populations gain quick herd immunity

[jleyank]

For this to work, (a) the young would actually have to be very low risk and (b) they could NEVER contact those in the sheltering groups. Which would be a problem with families with older children or multi-generational households. And schools would have difficulty remaining open due to teachers and staff being isolated in some degree. And the variants that develop in this regime might have been hard on the young - in Canada, much of the current ICU crowd is young, lower-risk individuals.

[Izkata]

> Deaths in Sweden are only 6% higher in 2020 than in 2018

More interestingly, there was a dip in 2019, so 2020 was expected to be a bit high even before the pandemic.

[hire_charts]

See my edit above. Looking at a country's overall death rates is not how you should compare virulence.