COVID-19 by the Numbers: Lockdown vs Herd-Immunity - What's Better? Round 2

Two weeks ago I calculated some numbers on Sweden vs. the US relating to COVID-19. In terms of the 'official' data we have for the number of infected (which is in reality higher since they can't test everyone), Sweden was doing worse. But in terms of the total population, Sweden and the US were about the same.


Source

Previous numbers (April 20):

Coronavirus death rates per population:
The death rate for the US population is: 0.0129%.
The death rate for the Swedish population is: 0.0154%.

With respect to the flu in the US in two previous years, it was about the same. Here are those numbers:

Past two years of flu deaths rates in the US population:
Population death rate 2018-2019: 0.0104%
Population death rate 2017-2018: 0.0186%

Sweden and the elderly, 95% of COVID-19 attributed deaths

Sweden had admitted they failed to protect the elderly in nursing homes (elderly care homes) properly. I find that bizarre, as those were recognized as the most vulnerable (but New York did the same or worse by forcing homes to take COVID infected elderly). I haven't looked into what measures they even tried to take, but about half of the total COVID calculated deaths come from there. That means of the current 2,669, roughly 1,334 come from elderly care homes.

The total number of "COVID-19 deaths" from the elderly 70+ years is 2,262, out of the statista.com total of 2,586 deaths from April 30. If you include elderly 60+ years, it's 2,459 of the total. This means COVID deaths from everyone 0-60 is 127 people, and those 0-70 is 324 people. Those under 50 years amount to 36 people, and under 40 years is 16 people.

Given the total from April 30, the elderly 70+ years account for 87% of reported COVID deaths, and the elderly 60+ years account for 95% of reported COVID deaths.

Sweden's elderly 65+ make up 25.3% of the population in 2019. Totals deaths in 2019 was 2,616, of which 1,625 were from those aged 65+. Those aged 0-64 amounted to 991 deaths.

Sweden's elderly make up 25% of the population, which is 2,557,500 people. In 2019, that means the elderly (65+ years) deaths make up 0.0635% of the elderly population, and 0.0159% of the total population.

Assuming the same population in 2020, that means the elderly 60+ years deaths attributed to COVID amount to 0.024% of the population, and elderly 70+ deaths at is 0.021% of the population.

2019 elderly (65+) deaths: 0.0159%
2020 elderly (70+) "COVID-19 deaths": 0.021%
2020 elderly (60+) "COVID-19 deaths": 0.024%

It's an increase of 1.5 times for those aged 60+, and 1.3 times for those aged 70+.

It's a tragedy that Sweden didn't put better measures for the elderly to be protected, as those were the most vulnerable.

Sweden and the non-elderly

Those who were younger than 70 years recorded as a "COVID-19 death" account for 0.00316% of the total population, and those under 60 years account for 0.00124%.

Note, that "COVID-19 deaths" just means they had COVID-19. The reason for death, what failed in their bodies, isn't specified. COVID-19 likely exacerbated a pre-existing condition in most of the dead, as is the recognized situation for most of all COVID-related deaths.

The 2019 deaths of those aged 0-64 accounted for 0.00968% of the total population.

2019 non-elderly (0-64) deaths: 0.00968%
2020 non-elderly (0-59) "COVID-19 deaths": 0.00124%
2020 non-elderly (0-69) "COVID-19 deaths": 0.00316%

As you can see, a lot more younger people die in regular years than the "COVID year" of 2020. An order of 3 to 7.8 times more younger dead in a regular year than this "COVID year" so far.

At worst COVID is producing 3x less deaths than normal non-elderly deaths, and at best is producing nearly 8x less deaths than normal non-elderly deaths. In the elderly, COVID produced between 1.3 to 1.5 times (30-50%) more dead than normal years.

Obviously, it's only been 4 months so we don't know the total deaths for 2020 yet, either those attributed to "COVID-19 deaths" or not. But the data so far for this year shows that COVID-related deaths, or deaths attributed to COVID, for the elderly are 30-50% worse than a regular total year. COVID affects the elderly more, which is known. And the elderly account for 95% of the COVID-attributed deaths so far, and 5% for non-elderly.

Comparing 4-month period in 2019

Looking at only the first 4 months of deaths in 2019, by April 30 there were 23 non-elderly (0-64) dead. This indicates there are 5.5 more "COVID-19 deaths" for the non-elderly 0-59 years old. There are only 127 0-59 year old dead from COVID-19 related deaths. It's 5.5 times more, but they likely also had some health issues, such as weakened immune systems. If the COVID-19 attributed deaths stop going up, the number of regular deaths will likely go up as they do each year, and the ratio will decrease from 5.5, into the negatives like it was in 2019 where non-COVID-19 deaths outpaced current "COVID-19 deaths" by 3-8 times.

For the elderly (0-64) in the first 4 months of 2019, there were 194 deaths. There were 11.65 times or 1165% more deaths for the elderly in the COVID-19 year so far. Again,, as the virus "dies" down, the numbers at the end of the year will be much lower, probably somewhere near 50% as is mentioned above in comparing the complete 2019 year.

Summary numbers

On April 20, the "COVID-19 death" rate for the Swedish population was: 0.0154%.
On May 3, the "COVID-19 death" rate for the Swedish population was: 0.0260%.

This is an increase of 1.68 times, or 68%, in 14 days.

On April 20, the "COVID-19 death" rate for the US population was: 0.0129%.
On May 3, the "COVID-19 death" rate (from 67,046 deaths, worldometer) for the US population was: 0.0204%.

This is an increase of 1.58 times, or 58%, in 14 days.

Again as a reminder:

Past two years of flu deaths rates in the US population:
Population death rate 2018-2019: 0.0104%
Population death rate 2017-2018: 0.0186%

So far, the COVID-19 virus season is a bit more severe than the other flu virus seasons, but not by much. Only 9% and 39% for the US and Sweden respectively, compared to the US flu season.

COVID-19 deaths likely inflated

We know that anyone dying with COVID-19, whether is actually contributed to their death or not, is part of the "COVID-19 death" count. Not that they necessarily died because of,by, from COVID-19. It doesn't just "kill you". Most of the cases are in vulnerable people, elderly and those with health issues (whether they knew about it or not). We also know, at least in the US, that "presumed" and "assumed" or "likely" COVID infections in a dead person are being declared as "COVID-19 deaths". Similar "diagnostic methods" have been used in other countries.

New York deaths with underlying conditions

In New York, as of April 14, 72.3% of COVID-19 attributed deaths are elderly 65+, of whom 71% have confirmed underlying conditions, with 5.3% with no known underlying conditions. And 27% are unknown if they do or don't have underlying conditions... I think that's what you get when you don't do autopsies and just slap on a "COVID death" as the cause...

In the New York non-elderly 0-64, the underlying conditions account for 84% of the COVID-19 attributed deaths, and 11.5% are unknown if they do or don't have conditions. That leaves 4.5% of people that are without any known underlying conditions.

Judge for yourself: Lockdown vs. no-lockdown

Lockdown:

  • People force to not work
  • Businesses ruined
  • Economic hardship in coming years
  • Increased poverty
  • Increased unemployment
  • Increased depression
  • Increased spousal abuse
  • Increased child abuse
  • Increased sexual abuse
  • Increased suicides
  • Fines and arrests for not standing 6 feet apart
  • Long lines for buying food
  • etc.

0.0204% deaths in the population for lockdown (US) vs. 0.0260% deaths in the population from non-lockdown (Sweden). Which one seems more worth it?

I don't like getting sick and avoid people who are sick in any year. Most people live through COVID-19 without knowing they are infected or showing many symptoms at all and get over it easily. The vulnerable (elderly and health compromised, weakened immune systems, etc.) were the only ones that needed to be protected, isolated and locked-down, if they agreed to it. Everyone else could have chosen to social distance if they wanted to, or not, and would have been fine in the vast majority of cases.

The death toll would have been so much smaller if the elderly and vulnerable would have been aware of the need for their self-isolation if they wanted to avoid getting the illness. They are the ones that needed to stay home, while the rest of us could have developed a herd immunity, and then no one would be contagious after a few weeks to 2 months, and then the elderly would not be able to get sick and die.

Things could have been way different. But instead, everyone was locked down and the illness still spread to up to a quarter of the population already anyways, according to some antibody studies. And the vulnerable weren't always protected in the end, as most of the deaths come from them. The lockdown failed to do what it purported to do in my opinion.

Also, the death toll across the board could have been drastically smaller if treatments were used, that were not mentioned by the government, or talked about as "dangerous". This includes hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin+zinc, or treated naturally (my preference) vitamin C+D+A+zinc. These have been used to treat patients with over 99% success, rather than waiting for them to get worse and finally putting them on ventilators where 80-90% of them would die anyways. The medical and government system failed people who unfortunately depended on them for "answers" to treat COVID-19.

H2
H3
H4
3 columns
2 columns
1 column
10 Comments
Ecency