[ayberkt]

I was living in Sweden at the beginning of the pandemic. I suspected that I had COVID multiple times and tried to get a test. The response I got from the Swedish healthcare system was: “it doesn't matter what you are infected with, just stay home”.

Even though the author does have a point, they overlook the fact that it's been much harder to get COVID tests in Sweden than the countries it is compared to in the blog post. Are these numbers normalised with respect to the number of tests performed? What about the number of tests on symptomatic vs. asymptomatic people?

Sweden's lack of action against the pandemic was not limited to just the lack of closure and mask mandates and so on. As far as I know, they never set up a proper test and trace system (please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not sure about this) as they did in Israel or the UK. Of course their case numbers will be smaller.

[xivzgrev]

Agreed, there are a number of counterpoints never considered.

Another one: Israel population is 20x more dense than Sweden, which naturally would lead to more spread https://versus.com/en/israel-vs-sweden

[UrsaMedius]

Why do you think population density matters? Does it matter that Swedish forests are large than Israeli deserts?

What might/probably matter(s) is the degree of urbanisation.

[Someone1234]

> Why do you think population density matters? What might/probably matter(s) is the degree of urbanisation.

Population density is a measure of urbanization. I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make?

[alkonaut]

> Population density is a measure of urbanization

Population density is not a measure of urbanization.

A country with a single city of 1M and outside it a desert of 1M sq km has a population density of around 1 person per square kilometer.

A country with a single city of 1M and outside it a desert of 10M sq/km has a density of around 0.1 person per square km.

A 1sq km city state with 1M people have 1M people per sq km!

All 3 these countries are 100% urbanized (no one lives in the countryside) and have the same population yet population density varies by four orders of magnitude.

Sweden has a high level of urbanization and a low population density. Or put another way: most people live in few places BUT the areas where people don’t live are large.

[nzealand]

It's not just that Israel is one of the most dense countries in the world.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...

Tel Aviv is one of the most dense cities in the world.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/07/11/the-50-...

[throwawayay02]

He's saying that Sweden is larger but that you can expect the same population density in places where people live, i.e. cities, so just raw national population density is not a good metric.

I don't know if it's true, mind you.

[jeltz]

No. The urbanization of Sweden is 90 percent compared 93 percent in Israel. Definitely no 20 times density.

[UrsaMedius]

No, population density is how many people live in a certain area. They can live spread out over the entire area (rural) or concentrated in cities and similar (urban).

[alkonaut]

Yes. So it's a measure that makes sense for a small region (e.g. a city). A very dense city with lots of people on commiuter trains (Tokyo) vs. a very sprawled city with lots of people in Cars (Houston) will behave very differently in a pandemic.

But in both those cases, it doesn't matter how much unpopulated land there is outside the cities! That is - the population density of a whole country is a completely useless and irrelevant measure when it comes to the pandemic. Urbanization is also a blunt measurement, but at least it's better than density.

In the end, it's all about human contact and movement patterns. Here you can compare a city like Stockholm which has a very large service economy with people working from home during the pandemic (good) with a city of the same size and density in a poorer country with a larger part of the economy depending on manufacturing or services direct human interaction. It's going to fare worse than Stockholm.

The problem with Stockholm was put very simply that there is a large chunk of the population that lives in cramped working conditions, doesn't have private cars and that's immigrants in a few suburbs. They drive taxis, buses or work in other areas with human contacts. They also have disproportionately more comorbidites. Sadly, they are also overrepresented in elderly care work, so the grooup most severely affected also works closely with the most at-risk group. Finally, to add insult to injury the elderly care system has been progressively dismantled, leading to staff shortages and poor working conditions.

So the picture of the early stage of the pandemic in stockholm is basically this: An elderly care worker lives with a large extended family in cramped conditions. He or she has to take public transport to several different care homes, sometimes within a single day to work, despite the fact that there are active Covid outbreaks in some of the care homes and not in others. When there are outbreaks in the care homes, there is no possibility to isolate the sick from the other residents.

[hanoz]

The distinction is one of granularity.

[godelski]

What matters is how many people you can transmit the disease to. If population density is high then you are crossing paths with a larger number of people every day then compared to a more population density.

What matters is the interaction cross section.

[ajsnigrutin]

Population density is meaningful only locally... so a country such as australia can have very low population density nationally, but a high one in one of the large cities.

Population densities of both Jerusalem and Stockholm are high enough for covid to spread fast, and forrests and deserts are empty enough to make it hard for covid to spread. Averageas are meaningless here, because even statisticians can drown in a river with average depth of 0.5m.

[godelski]

Welcome to Simpson's Paradox

[armcat]

At the start of the pandemic there was little-to-no testing in Sweden, but since autumn 2020 it has expanded and scaled significantly. We have drive-thru tests as well as home-delivered tests, free of charge. I used them a number of times, and I could usually book a test 30 mins prior. For non PCR tests, i.e. antigen tests, they are available in all pharmacies, and most people have stocked up on those as well.

Regarding contact tracing - I'm not aware of anything, but Telia does check aggregate people movement across different regions, and report findings to the health authorities, see https://business.teliacompany.com/crowd-insights

[dudul]

And? I get the test argument when you look at number of cases, government policies vary so much on that topic that it's useless to compare countries, but the article brings up number of deaths a lot.

Why does it matter if tests are readily available or not when you compare death rates? At the end of the day, if the policy is to say "assume that everybody is sick and just be careful/sensible" I don't see how more tests would change anything.

[FiggyPudding]

I guess it helps to know where/when you can stop assuming everyone else is a seething virus cauldron.

Or from more testing... Peace of mind for the testee, social liability coverage for self or employer, knowing if infections are increasing or not, vaccines blocking transmission or not, death rate lags by a few weeks for anyone hoping to see a quick change from a new/killed policy.

[podd]

When did you try to get tested? I booked a test in June 2020 and got it done the same day. Same thing this spring, I started feeling symptoms around lunch and had no problem getting a test done in the afternoon.