Sweden’s Mortality Rate Last Year Was Lower Than in 2015

As I’ve mentioned several times, when you calculate mortality the correct way – as the age-standardised mortality rate, or as life expectancy – the year 2020 in England doesn’t look that unusual. Last year’s rate was a fair bit higher than 2019’s, but that was a year of unusually low mortality. 

Plotting the age-standardised mortality rate over time (as the ONS has been doing each month since July of 2020) shows that mortality last year rose to a level last seen in 2008. So while the year-on-year change was large, the level wasn’t particularly high – at least by historical standards. 

Interestingly, this point even found its way into a BBC article last September. The author noted:

And if you look at the age-adjusted mortality rates, which take into account the size and age of the population, you can see that while 2020 has undoubtedly been a bad year compared to recent years, what has been seen in terms of people dying is not completely out of sync with recent history. It is actually comparable with what happened in the 2000s.

Given that 2008 – which, to repeat, saw a higher level of morality than last year – wasn’t that long ago, one might argue the pandemic’s lethality has been overhyped. Of course, others would contend that, if we hadn’t taken the drastic measures we did take, mortality would have risen to a far higher level.

But I’m not convinced the UK’s lockdowns did do much to curb mortality, over and above the effect of restrictions on large gatherings and voluntary social distancing. And I’d argue that we could have saved more lives with a well-executed focused protection strategy.

However, many people continue to insist that mortality would have been far higher in the absence of lockdowns. It’s therefore worth looking once again at Sweden – the only major European country that didn’t lock down.

We already know that Sweden’s age-adjusted excess mortality up to week 51 was only 1.7% – below the European average. But when was the last time its mortality rate was as high as last year?

Going up to the end of week 52, the rate for 2020 – based on the European Standard Population – comes out as 16.4 per 100,000 (which is actually lower than in Denmark). And the last time Sweden saw this level of morality was in 2015 – just five years ago.

So despite taking the least restrictive approach of any major Western country, Sweden’s mortality rate only returned to the level of 2015. This casts doubt on the claim that mortality in the UK would have been much higher in the absence of lockdowns.

Subscribe
Notify of

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

21 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Norman
4 years ago

My contention throughout has been that the first lockdown was responsible for the second wave simply by delaying reaching the herd immunity level.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Norman

What ‘second wave’? What I see is a fairly normal seasonal rise, probably enhanced at its peak by further dry tinder deaths caused by the vaccine.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  Norman

And how many deaths were caused by the lockdowns themselves?

Nessimmersion
4 years ago
Reply to  Rowan

The major were caused by the correct medical care not being available, either through ignorance, political evil or bedwetting.
The CQC has asked to investigate the number of involuntary DNRs signed on behalf of the disabled in OURNHS.
https://dailyexpose.co.uk/2021/04/01/do-not-resuscitate-scandal-led-to-disabled-people-accounting-for-3-in-5-covid-deaths-according-to-ons-figures/

The Dogman
The Dogman
4 years ago

Other factors to consider are that we know that lockdowns, not the virus, added to mortality in several ways. It is well-documented that there were more deaths due to untreated cardiac disease and cancers. If you add these back into the data, I suspect that age-adjusted mortality would not have been very different from the last few years.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

Hole digging exercise for the world

Bella Donna
4 years ago

This makes perfect sense to me – its the vaccinated who are creating the variants!!

https://www.bitchute.com/video/h467LeHsPNDF/

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  Bella Donna

The variants of concern are almost certainly vaccine driven variants.

It’s a bit long and technical but there’s a fantastic presentation by Paul Bieniasz (pronounced Bin-osh) which uses in vitro experiments to infect spike protein antibody cells with SARS-CoV-2, The evolutionary cycle is effectively speeded up.

Eventually, a cluster of cells became infected. The infected cells included common mutations, e.g. E484K.

The E484K mutation is present in the UK, South African and Brazilian variants. .

Bella Donna
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

It will be a never ending merry-go-round of jabbing. However its even more important for non vaxxers, myself included to keep our bodies healthy and our vitamin intake to a maximum, particularly in the coming autumn and winter months. I pray this government and its psychopathic advisers will feature in the Nuremburg II trials very soon.

Mike Yeadon
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Those variants are completely within the T-cell repertoire of every person immune through infection or vaccination.

JayBee
4 years ago

https://www.rnd.de/politik/corona-schwedens-sonderweg-in-der-pandemie-eine-bilanz-P5OUJ6FLFZFCFBARECIA5UAVUA.html
There was a very objective and fair article mentioning this and other advantages of the Swedish approach in the German MSM (RND is a left German feeder service then used by many large newspapers) yesterday.
First time ever, maybe the blame game and CYA is about to start there too.

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

I will be dead and gone

However I suspect my grandchildren in their dotage will give talks to schoolchildren about the British Holocaust

They will tell how scientists and doctors were central to the poisoning of millions

The children will gasp as they hear that anyone could be arrested for sitting on a park bench

My grandchildren will tell how they saw men, women and children beaten to death in the streets for refusing the poison

There will be exhibits, the propaganda posters, camouflage cool bags, fake vaccine passports etc

The schoolchildren will agree this must never happen again, however a new Pig Dictator will emerge in due course

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

British Holocaust”

Cecil – hyperbole doesn’t really help. Hard, cold facts are enough.

RickH
4 years ago

“when you calculate mortality the correct way – as the age-standardised mortality rate”

The ‘age standardized mortality rate’ is not the ‘correct’ method of calculation. It is one way of looking at mortality. It is useful for some purposes. It does, for instance, give some indication of the ‘dry tinder’ effect in a year like 2020. The problem is that its general use introduces theoretical assumptions about the age profile in a population’s mortality figures. It conflates basic description with projection.

Think about it.

Simple size adjustment is clearer in that it avoids such theoretical modelling.

Similarly, we have our old friend ‘excess mortality’ : another shaky notion that pretends to authority – but is actually a flexible variable arrived at by chance and habit

In the end, the underpinning of ‘exceptional’ mortality in 2020 is a fiction that has been known as such for over a year, and can be seen in simple population adjusted figures.

Mayo
Mayo
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

For purposes of comparison, ASMR is the most reliable way to calculate mortality. It adjusts for the age profile of a country so comparisons can be made with previous years and/or with other countries.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

I’ve already answered that notion. You’re just asserting the convention.

It is useful to note that the popularity of age-correction suddenly emerged when the Covid zealots thought it might work in their favour. I remember it being used to suggest that this was, indeed a 100 year event – the worst since the Spanish Flu. Previously, they were happy to quote raw numbers.

Thus my favouring, on balance, simple transparency.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

P.S. A useful article, taking apart the ‘excess mortality’ stuff is found in today’s Round Up :

https://shahar-26393.medium.com/not-a-shred-of-doubt-sweden-was-right-32e6dab1f47a

rockoman
rockoman
4 years ago

Can anyone point me please to the source for age-adjusted Swedish mortality data from 2015 to 2020?

Thanks in advance.

jsampson45
jsampson45
4 years ago

well-executed focussed protection strategy.” Exactly how?

Occams Pangolin Pie
4 years ago

A clear statement of the facts. Thank you!

We are living way beyond facts now, however. Listening to any minister, like Jenrick for instance, or Zahawi or Shapps, let alone Gove and Johnson, is proof of that they have eaten of the insane root.

I begin to suspect that some of them actually believe what they are saying.

imp66
imp66
4 years ago

…move along, nothing to see here…LOOK, A WEDDING!!