The Swedish Meme Re-Surfaces -- June 21, 2020

From Breitbart today (link: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/21/former-nyt-reporter-alex-berenson-there-is-marginal-evidence-that-lockdowns-work/):

“You can’t just look at the U.S.. The U.S. is just one country. It’s impossible to get around the fact. If you look at countries that didn’t lock down at all — Japan, Sweden, and Bellarus — you really can’t distinguish the course of the epidemic from countries that locked down and countries that didn’t,” he continued.

So, let's look at Sweden ("no lock down") and Norway ("with lock down"):

From the data:

A screen shot of the full table is impossible. Go to the link to see the full table.

If you remove the top three countries, which are clearly outliers, then Sweden is ranked #4 in deaths per million people, at 500.

At the other end of the spectrum, the number of deaths per million, worldwide is 60.

Norway, pretty similar to Sweden in many respects is ranked 50th, with  a rate of 45 deaths per million people.

Now, look at the graphs of new deaths daily. Note the y axis on each graph:

Not only is Sweden's death rate 10x that of Norway, there are indications that Sweden's death rate is increasing once again. Norway's death rate is almost back to zero, although some recent increase in the number of deaths is concerning.

Sweden:

Norway:

Something tells me that the "Swedish meme" that Sweden's strategy was the best strategy will never go away.