The UK versus Sweden: an enigma
EuroMOMO graphs, official Sweden data, and my own estimates show no evidence of overall excess mortality in Sweden, up to age 64, by the end of the pandemic and beyond.
Below are the EuroMOMO graphs for Sweden for ages 15–44 and 45–64. The shaded area is considered “normal range”.
Only in the Spring of 2020 do we observe temporary excess deaths in the middle-age group, which followed somewhat lower mortality in the previous winter.
That exception aside, neither Covid deaths nor Covid vaccine fatalities — both of which have surely happened — can be detected in mortality statistics for young and middle-aged Swedes. Of course, Sweden was spared the fatal consequences of panic, fearmongering, and lockdowns [here, here, here, and here].
Excess mortality in the UK (England) is strikingly different from Sweden, in EuroMOMO and in other analyses I have seen.
Here are the graphs for the same age groups:
Unlike Sweden, the UK paid the death toll of panic and lockdowns. That is part of the explanation but unlikely the sole explanation. As far as Covid is concerned, other variables have probably operated, accounting for excess Covid deaths in the young population of England but not of Sweden. We know that variables such as the prevalence of obesity, co-morbidity, and socioeconomic status affect Covid mortality. Which of them explain the difference is difficult to tell.
At any rate, we cannot attribute the excess mortality in the UK since 2021 to Covid vaccines, as some have tried to infer. If this were the case, Sweden would not have been spared. We would have seen the evidence in young and middle-aged Swedes. Unlike Covid mortality, which varied by country, fatal consequences of the mRNA vaccines should have been universal. If common enough, they should have resulted in excess deaths everywhere.
Sweden provides a falsifying observation, which carries a lot of weight, as I explained elsewhere — in the opposite context.
At most, we might be able to detect a signal of vaccine fatalities by examining trends in code-specific rates, and in anecdotal news reports of unexpected deaths. Short term fatality may sometimes be detected in special circumstances.
To be clear, I do not have anything positive to say about the saga of Covid vaccines [here, here, here, here, and here]. That vaccine fatalities have not been common enough to be reflected in country-level excess mortality is of no comfort. Let’s hope, at least, that that would be the case in the years to come.
