So what's the deal with Sweden? By all accounts, the shit should've hit the fan by now, but that doesn't seem to be happening. In terms of overall infection and death rate, they are doing worse than some (their immediate neighbors), much better than others (Italy, Spain, France, NY), and about as well as Ireland, which has been praised for its active measures to suppress the epidemic, while Sweden has done almost nothing. Its elderly have been hit hard, but that is also happening elsewhere. On the other hand its health system hasn't been overwhelmed. — SophistiCat
Also, I don't think Sweden has done as well as Ireland. Ireland has had half the number of deaths over the same period (March 12 - May 2). They have about the same confirmed cases count but that's because Ireland have done more testing than Sweden. — Andrew M
So, comparing like with like, it makes more sense to put Sweden up against other Nordic countries. They've got ten times as many deaths as Norway, for example, with just under twice the population. — Baden
I think population density is an important factor where the rate of infection is concerned. — Benkei
'm hypothesizing that if they had had better behaviour pre-lockdown they'd be more like Norway now. I'm also hypothesizing that if Sweden had locked down after (having had good pre-lockdown behaviour), they'd be more like with Norway now. — Baden
UK population density 274/km2.
Netherlands population density 419/km2.
France 123/km2. — Isaac
It's crude measure. Consider that the highlands of Scotland Mid Wales, and the Pennine hills have a density of maybe 1/km2. And France has the Alps, the MassifCentral and the Pyrenees. What one wants is a sort of mean distance between habitations — unenlightened
They're not comparable due to different moments of starting measures and different types of measures. — Benkei
The conversion to deaths per capita is meaningless. — Benkei
Population density has an obvious effect on R0 because it increases the number of contacts an average person is likely to have, which creates an opportunity for the virus to infect another. — Benkei
The average number of voronoi cells per 1000km2 would probably track the amount of unpopulated/uninhabited/unconnected areas too. Those areas would have huge cells in them, that would massively pull down the average over the landmass area compared to what it would be if constrained to population centers. — fdrake
As I can imagine you've been on the edge of your seat waiting for the actual data... — Isaac
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