Corona: Kickl praises Sweden with misleading numbers

“Freedom & personal responsibility vs. coercion of the witnesses of Corona…” – with this tendentious introduction, FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl compares the pandemic strategies of Sweden and Austria. in one Facebook post of March 28, 2022 he creates a mood among his almost 250,000 subscribers for the “Swedish way” and compares the current corona numbers in Sweden with those in Austria. Why his posting is misleading – and how sensible Sweden’s approach to the corona pandemic actually was.

A 7-day incidence of 79 in Sweden compared to 2980 in Austria at the end of March – that would prove that the “Swedish way” had not failed, as “mainstream media and system parties” always did, according to the Kickl posting claim. The problem is that the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Because Sweden (with a slightly higher vaccination rate than Austria) experienced the most massive wave of infections since the beginning of the pandemic at the end of January this year. According to data from Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the 7-day incidence was around 2836 at the time. In Austria, it was slightly lower at around 2562 (according to AGES) at the same time. There were over 40,000 new corona cases at the time laut JHU daily in Sweden (weekly average) – a peak that Austria only reached in mid-March.

On January 12, 2022, extended restrictions on daily life were imposed in Sweden announced: Among other things, a curfew for restaurants, a restriction on people for events without checking vaccination certificates, as well as recommendations to limit social contacts and work from home. It is therefore a myth that there were no restrictions at all in Sweden – even if the focus of the country of ten million inhabitants has always been on individual responsibility and voluntariness. Since the beginning of February 2022, the numbers in Sweden have fallen massively and have now almost reached the level of the previous year. Almost all corona measures have been lifted again.

Kickl is now comparing these numbers with those in Austria, which is still at a relatively high level of infection. Thomas Czypionka, health economist at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), thinks that doesn’t make much sense: “The approach is absurd because the waves don’t happen in every country at the same time. Sweden in particular had a huge omicron wave.” A comparison also lags behind for another reason, as Herwig Ostermann, Managing Director of Staatliche Gesundheit Österreich GmbH (GÖG), explains to profil: “Sweden tends to pursue a low-test strategy – especially compared to Austria. That’s why the incidence is not always a good indicator and comparable 1:1.” In Sweden, there are no longer extensive tests – according to the Swedish health authority, not even people with symptoms: At the end of March, Austria tested a hundred times as many per 1000 inhabitants as Sweden – and was therefore able to identify more positive cases.

A particularly large number of Swedish corona deaths at the beginning of the pandemic

Comparisons between countries when it comes to the spread of the coronavirus are fundamentally difficult because there are so many factors that come into play – be they geographical, social or political. Nonetheless, a study recently published in the respected science journal Nature points to the Swedish way a bad report card: “In 2020, the death rates from Covid-19 were ten times higher than in neighboring Norway”. Especially in the first wave, many more people died of Covid in Sweden than in Austria, for example. “Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, the Swedish way led to a significantly higher number of ‘corona deaths’ than in other countries with a comparably well-developed health system,” confirms the virologist Dorothee von Laer. A particularly large number of older people were among the people who died in Sweden in spring 2020 – mainly due to the inadequate protection of old people’s and nursing homes, as has often been criticized.

However, the absolute numbers are slowly approaching: there are now even more deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in Austria than in Sweden, as the FPÖ also emphasized when asked by profil. With the Facebook posting, one would only have wanted to show that the Swedish way was not as bad as it is often portrayed. Herwig Ostermann from the GÖG analyses: “Sweden is in the middle of the field when it comes to Covid deaths, neck and neck with Austria. However, Sweden’s neighboring countries are all much better, for example Norway. ”The Norwegians recently recorded around 50 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants laut JHUSweden around 180 and Austria around 183.

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