A very interesting article from a Norwegian author who claims that one of the reasons why Italy has been hit so hard is the presence of resistant bacteria:
https://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/...k-martiniussen
For those who can't read Norwegian, what he's basically saying is that in Italy, doctors prescribe twice as much antibiotics as in Norway. Also, Italian farmers are some of the worst in Europe in feeding their animals antibiotics. (I found the numbers on a different site: 294.8 mg/kg for Italy, 2.9 mg/kg for Norway. Italian farmers use 102 times more antibiotics than Norwegian farmers. Swedish farmers use 12.1, and Danish farmers 40.8.)
This means that annually, 11,000 people die in Italy from resistent bacteria, while only 69 people die from the same cause in Norway.
And when somebody has a respiratory disease (even the regular flu or cold), they're more often infected with bacteria, and the bacteria destroy the lungs. "According to ECDC, several resistant bacteria are now endemic in Italian hospitals, which means that they more or less have colonized the hospitals permanently."
In summary, what he's bacially saying is that many of the patients that have reportedly died from covid-19 in Italy have actually died from restistant bacteria that have entered their bodies after being admitted to hospitals. When the hospitals admit the covid-19 patients and put them on respirators, they're infected with resistant bacteria that will kill them.
If true, this would provide a lot of hope that Norway will face a very different outcome from covid-19 compared to Italy, while Sweden may be a bit harder hit, and Denmark slightly more than Sweden again.