A comparison of COVID-19 epidemiological indicators in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland

Abstract

Aims: To compare the early impact of COVID-19 infections and mortality from February to July 2020 across the Nordic nations of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland through available public data sources and conduct a descriptive analysis of the potential factors that drove different epidemiological outcomes, with a focus on Sweden’s response. Methods: COVID-19 cases, deaths, tests, case age distribution, and the difference between 2020 all-cause mortality and the average mortality of the previous 5 years were compared across nations. Patterns in cell phone mobility data, testing strategies, and seniors’ care home deaths were also compared. Data for each nation were based on publicly available sources as of July 31, 2020. Results: Compared with its Nordic peers, Sweden had a higher incidence rate across all ages, a higher COVID-19-related death rate only partially explained by population demographics, a higher death rate in seniors’ care, and higher all-cause mortality. Sweden had approximately half as much mobility change as its Nordic neighbours until April and followed similar rates as its neighbours from April to July. Denmark led its Nordic peers in testing rates, while Sweden had the highest cumulative test-positivity rate continuously from mid-March. Conclusions: COVID-19 pushed Sweden’s health system to its capacity, exposed systemic weaknesses in the seniors’ care system, and revealed challenges with implementing effective contact tracing and testing strategies while experiencing a high case burden. Looser government restrictions at the beginning of the outbreak are likely to have played a role in the impact of COVID-19 in Sweden. In an effort to improve epidemic control, Sweden has increased testing rates, implemented more restrictive prevention measures, and increased their intensive care unit bed capacity.

Decreasing Psychiatric Emergency Visits, but Stable Addiction Emergency Visits, During COVID-19—A Time Series Analysis 10 Months Into the Pandemic

“…Instead, strategies have involved national authority recommendations to work at home to the largest extent possible, to avoid public gatherings, to avoid meeting new people and to restrict one's social contacts to the closest family. While such recommendations may decrease mental health patients' willingness to attend hospital and seek treatment, the societal restrictions imposed by Swedish authorities have been described as markedly less strict than in many other countries (8)(9)(10)(11).…”

Gambling and self-reported changes in gambling during COVID-19 in web survey respondents in Denmark

“…Thereafter, new formal lockdown procedures were introduced approximately at the time of the present study, and thereby should not significantly impact the results of the study. However, although the COVID-19 restrictions to society have been more extensive in Denmark than in Sweden (Yarmol-Matusiak et al, 2021), no large differences were seen in the rates of respondents reporting increased or decreased gambling. The percentage of respondents increasing their gambling was somewhat lower in the present Danish study, compared to the later Swedish study, but the difference reached statistical significance only in the full analysis, and not in the sub-sample of gamblers.…”

“…As the present study, and the contrasting study from Sweden, were carried out in the late part of 2020, it is at least theoretically possible that the continued trends in virus transmission and high mortality may have affected mental health in the Swedish population. In Sweden, mortality rates remained substantially higher than in Denmark through 2020 (Yarmol-Matusiak et al, 2021), which may potentially have an impact on perceived mental health. It also cannot be excluded that the perceptions of this prolonged crisis may have affected the high perceived impression of time spent at home in Sweden, although no data are available to confirm this.…”

“…One example of two neighbor countries with markedly diverse strategies have been Denmark and Sweden, two countries with otherwise similar welfare systems. Denmark is among the countries addressing the pandemic with different phases of lock-down strategies, in contrast to Sweden, where formal lock-down procedures were never used (Yarmol-Matusiak et al, 2021). For example, in contrast to Denmark, Swedish restaurants, stores and shopping malls remained open throughout 2020 (Mens et al, 2021).…”

A media visibility analysis of public leadership in Scandinavian responses to pandemics

“…This has gained international attention, both academically (cf. Gordon, Grafton, and Steinshamn 2020;Rubin et al 2021;Yarmol-Matusiak, Cipriano, and Stranges 2021) and in the media (cf. Ludvigsson 2020;Steinglass 2020).…”