COVID-19 – More than 20000 deaths in UK and France, ever-growing mortality rate in Sweden and the Greek Miracle

This week we have been a little bit busy thinking about decision strategies to go back to the office, if you missed that article, find it here.

Still, we wanted to look at how mortality data evolved in the last week. We have been analyzing data from France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the UK since the first article in this series. Based on that data we concluded:

• Early lockdowns (implementing a lockdown at a low mortality rate) contribute to a lower mortality
• A lockdown takes 15 to 20 days to start affecting the number of deaths

 More recently we started looking at Sweden, trying to understand the consequences of the “no-lockdown” policy. So far, Swedish data shows lower mortality rates than France, Italy, and Spain. However, while the number of daily deaths on the later countries is now stable or decreasing, in Sweden it is still rising.

The thing that we like the most about these articles is getting your comments, last week André challenged us to look at Greece. So, we are adding Greece to the mix, along with Belgium.

Continued Trends

Let us start with the analysis of the countries we have been following for longer. The number of daily deaths continues to decrease in France, Italy, and Spain, sustaining that the (first) pandemic peak is behind for those countries. The number of deaths in Portugal and in the United Kingdom continues to grow at the same rate as last week. More on this later.

With 601 deaths per million inhabitants, Belgium is by far the country with the highest mortality rate on the list.

We have been insisting on data consistency. Some countries are reporting deaths only in hospitals, some in hospitals and nursing homes and others everywhere. We need to investigate more about what is included in the dataset we are using as source. However, we know the French numbers include hospitals and nursing homes, which should represent most of the death toll, and the difference to Belgium is just too significant to be justified by data consistency.

We must confess, we are not familiar with the situation in Belgium. Is the healthcare system overloaded, other factors? Please, help us understanding – chime in the comments.

Belgium declared the lockdown with a lower fatality rate than France and much lower than Italy, Spain and the UK, though the growth rate has been much higher than in the other countries. The lockdown came into effect and plateaued the growth rate in roughly 20 days, however at a larger level than the other analyzed countries.

On the other, thanks to André, we have found the Greek Miracle. Greece declared lockdown 4 days later than Belgium and with about the same mortality rate. However, while the death toll in Belgium has increased almost 500 times since then, it has only increased 9 times in Greece. We do not know what it is, but the Greeks are doing something right. They have, by far, the lowest growth rate in the group.

Again, let us know in the comments if you have some elements to share about Greece.

In terms of absolute numbers, as anticipated last week, unfortunately both France and the UK have joined the 20k+ deaths club.

What about Sweden?

As a reminder, Sweden is not in lockdown – restrictions are still the same:

• People older than 70 and those who feel ill are advised to stay at home
• Recreational events, sports, culture and other with 50 or more participants are banned
• Universities and senior high schools are closed

 The data for the other countries listed above shows a peak or a plateau of daily deaths roughly 15 to 20 days after lockdowns were enforced. What about Sweden without lockdown?

The trend we have seen in the previous weeks is once again confirmed – The death rate is still increasing in Sweden. The question remains the same, will it stop growing without a lockdown? We will be back next week.

This is critical information for the countries planning to go out of lockdown. We must assume the Swedish know and are following the WHO recommendations regarding social distancing and protective measures, but they are seemingly unable to keep the mortality in check. We are not epidemiologists or public health specialists, but an uncontrolled lockdown exit will likely have the same effect.

The chart above shows again how closely the trends of France, Italy and UK are. Good news for the UK, following that trend, the number of daily deaths is expected to start decreasing consistently in the next week.

Early Lockdown is Not Enough

The graph above compares the fatality rate at the lockdown date with the current fatality rate.

Countries on the left started lockdowns with a small number of deaths. As seen last week, Denmark, Finland and Norway decided to go in lockdown with no deaths. Countries on the right waited to have a relatively high number of deaths before going in lockdown – We debated the UK in the previous articles.

Countries on the bottom part of the chart show a low fatality rate, Greece being the best in class, while countries high in the chart have more deaths to mourn.

The data shows that all countries that have managed to keep a low death rate are countries that went into lockdown with a low death toll. However, it also shows that is not enough – As discussed above, an early lockdown did not help Belgium in keeping a low death count. 

We will try to add more points to that chart for next week. With more data, it will be easier to identify trends and outliers.

Thanks for reading.

Remember to leave your suggestions in the comments and we need your help to know more about Belgium and Greece. Meanwhile, stay safe, stay home, and remember the basic protective measures.

Peace ?