Minister of Social Affairs Lena Hallengren questions the usefulness of reporting statistics week by week, and also expresses that excess mortality is probably the best way to measure death rates during the corona pandemic.
Therefore, the National Board of Health and Welfare has been commissioned to map how deaths in covid-19 are reported nationally and internationally.
"Big differences in how numbers are produced"
The mortality rate in Sweden is higher than that in our Nordic neighboring leathers, which have a mortality rate for the year 2020.
- There are large differences in how different countries produce figures on the number of deaths.
Better quality will be able to come in these comparisons over time, says Mona Heurgren, head of department at the National Board of Health and Welfare and responsible for the death register.
Swedish excess mortality, on the other hand, is lower in comparison with other European countries with excess mortality included in published comparisons.
More complete analyzes can be made when all countries' final data for 2020 are ready and reported to, among others, the EU statistical office Eurostat.
Covid-19 third most common cause of death
Published analyzes of preliminary statistics show that Sweden has an excess mortality rate of 3 percent by 2020 in relation to the previous five-year period, according to the National Board of Health and Welfare.
Covid-19 was the third most common cause of death in Sweden.
The National Board of Health and Welfare also questions comparisons between different countries and emphasizes, among other things, that there are large differences in how data on deaths in covid-19 are reported in Europe and globally, that countries use several methods for different purposes and that the data for 2020 are still preliminary.