The coronavirus continues to harvest lives around the globe and from country to country reports of deaths in the hundreds and thousands. Sweden has a relatively high death rate per capita compared to other countries, but this can be partly explained by the way statistics are used in Sweden, according to Tegnell.

- Now we have many cases in Sweden you should not deny it and it is very unfortunate. But yes, our statistics are enough, it's hard to imagine that you can be better at finding the cases than we are in Sweden, he says.

In Sweden, it is possible to follow individuals using social security numbers. People diagnosed with covid-19 can be run against the death register, and if they show up there checks are made with the country's regions to ensure that the cause of death is just covid-19.

- So we have a great track record and are probably more realistic, and are more likely to have higher numbers than most other countries for that reason.

Lack of statistics

In countries with other modes of operation, there is a risk that not all deaths in covid-19 are recorded. Anders Tegnell says that Norway does in a similar way to Sweden, while countries like Italy lack individual data at national level.

- Some countries, for example, only use those who die in the health care system because they are the only ones who are in control.

In countries with many deaths, there is also the risk that the statistics will not be included in the same way. Anders Tegnell believes that more accurate comparisons will be possible in the future when data from the Euromomo network can be analyzed. Euromomo measures mortality rates in several European countries and compares with normal values ​​over the same period.

-But then you don't get data day by day as we get now but then you get data with quite a lot of backlog. If you ever want to compare countries, I think that system is much better than what we are doing today.

"One-sided way"

Because the methods of keeping statistics are so different, it can be problematic to compare death rates in different countries.

- Yes, of course it will. Especially because you have so much focus on the death toll. I think it's much more complex when discussing the effect this pandemic has on different countries, says Tegnell.

He believes that the number of people who need intensive care and the effects on society at large must also be taken into account to see which countries have been affected most by the pandemic.

- For some reason, it is precisely the death toll we have as a comparative figure and it is very one-eyed, a very one-sided way of looking at the pandemic.