GUWonder

..... and yet this wasn’t the explanation when The Netherlands’ reported death count per capita was far higher than Sweden’s.

If the Netherlands has been massively undercounting virus-related deaths, how does it show up in stats for the Netherlands with the all causes death counts from February 15th to-date?

Every non-micro-state with deaths from this virus has probably been failing to count some deaths with this virus. Sweden wouldn’t be an exception. Belgium may be the big exception in Europe.

RedChili

I got this information from a video I saw with a pandemic expert who explained why various countries have widely different statistics. Unfortunately, I can't remember who that expert was, nor where I saw the video, but it may have been on SVT. He said that the reason why Belgium has twice as many deaths as the Netherlands (two countries that you would expect to have a similar death rate), is that Belgium includes nursing homes deaths while the Netherlands doesn't.

GUWonder

.There are lots of open press articles on Belgium’s counting ways:

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...covid-19-cases

Belgium had been more eager to speculatively include deaths into the virus death count numbers than all non-micro-states in Europe.

But if the Netherlands has been massively undercounting virus-related deaths, who will show it in stats for the Netherlands with the all causes death counts from February 15th to-date?

CPH-Flyer

At the other end of the spectrum compared to Belgium is Russia, where they only count it as a Covid-19 death if a post mortem show Covid-19 to be the indisputable cause of death.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/14/e...ntl/index.html

I can see why a country politically would want to keep the numbers down, I can't really see why a country would pick a a way that put it as a high count outlier compared to many other countries.

RedChili

"A country" doesn't make that choice. It has to do with what practices the health authorities and the statistical bureaus are following. There are lots of people involved in such decision making. It also has to do with what individual doctors choose to write on the death certificate. In some countries, there's also been reports that hospitals are paid more if patients are listed as covid-19 patients.

Read the following article on how American hospitals are paid more for covid patients:
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/f...us/3000638001/

GUWonder

I doubt that there are enough employed American healthcare industry personnel in MN willing to risk an FBI raid at their home and office to engage in COVID-19 counting and related billing fraud that it drives a statistically significant error in the death counts in MN or anywhere else in the US mainland. Given what I know of FBI raids being done for medical billing fraud and that it’s well known in the industry that the FBI and other law enforcement do raids related to billing fraud, I am pretty sure that there aren’t countless senseless American medical practitioners willing to sacrifice their license and related employment/income to run up the COVID-19 death count and thereby risk an ugly FBI raid.

As someone who has had the FBI come to my door for things like my background checks or that of my family and friends, let’s just say I know people freak out about the idea of the FBI coming to the door even for non-criminal investigation purposes. And medical billing fraud is pursued vigorously as part of criminal investigations by law enforcement in the US.

Belgium had a choice on how to classify and count the deaths. They had preferred to avoid the risks that come from any downplaying of the threat from this novel coronavirus. The US and Sweden took a different approach from Belgium.

RedChili

I don't remember the soruces and I don't have time to search for them right now, but I've read several reports about instances where doctors wrote death certificates with the assumption that it was covid-19, but without any scientific data to support that conclusion. Also, I've seen statistics with an unexplained huge drop of mortality due to other diseases, leading me to draw the conclusion that the covid numbers are skewed. I've also read experts claiming that previously, when you had a person dying with e.g. cancer and the flu, cancer was listed as the cause of death, but today, when a person dies with cancer and covid, the cause is listed as covid.

Fredrik74

Then you should check the SCB statistics. The excess mortality during April was around 100 people/day.

nacho

I think FHM said 75, but I think 100 is more like the real figure. I guess weekend effect kicks in today with 28 deaths.

RedChili

Swedish statistics is more reliable than statistics from most other countries when it comes to covid-19. I really doubt the U.S. numbers. There has been lots of reports from the U.S. about people who are presumed to be covid-19, without any lab test confirmation.

GUWonder

Sweden’s per capita death rate for this virus in the Feb 15-May 15th period looks way worse than the US’s rate. If the US has been over-counting virus deaths, then Sweden has done even more extremely worse with this virus situation than appeared to be the case already.

nacho

The thing is now that DK and DE are ready to re-open, so what they are doing now is pretty much the same in Sweden. In some ways Sweden is more closed down than DK: I know that University of Gothenburg will continue to carry out courses online at least until late October, and public dentist and Malmo university dental clinic is closed until June 30.

There are studies showing that the economic loss in Sweden is similar to DK/NO - of course we don't know what the figures are like if SE had done the same as other countries. So far 3679 lives taken by this virus (only 5 today - probably it's the weekend effect).

RedChili

Based on what I've read, my guess is that countries like Sweden and Belgium have pretty accurate covid-19 related death figures, while countries like the Netherlands and Italy has been undercounting, and the US has been overcounting. My impression is that except for NY, the US has managed quite well ... at least, so far.

CPH-Flyer

Belgium is doing exactly what you are objecting to, counting suspected but untested fatalities. The Belgian government is not trying to hide that or claim it is a mistake. That's just their way of counting. Is that the accurate or the wrong thing to do? It can't be right in Belgium and wrong in the US?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52491210

CPH-Flyer

A Danish statistical exercise on private spending during the epidemic in Denmark and Sweden. (in Danish only, but hello Chrome built in translation)

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/pa...esten-lige-saa

Personally, I could go to some restaurants, and have food delivered from all my favourite places, though I have switched to 90%+ home cooking from 90%+ eating. It is quite fun to get back in to cooking, and now I have the time for it, so why not?