Well said. Eyeballing the chart shows no correlation between population density and covid death rate. Looking strictly at Europe, CSPI has a good chart (halfway down the long detailed post) showing minimal correlation. My take on population density is that the pro-lockdown media in March and April 2020 were predicting bodies piled high in the streets and the total collapse of healthcare systems without lockdowns. Because back then populations hadn’t normalised extreme losses of freedom so you needed to predict Armageddon in order to sell the lockdowns. Sweden, and later the US red states, proved that Armageddon was factually false. So the journalists needed some rationalisations for why Sweden hadn’t turned into a hell-hole and population density was the first thing they thought of.
If you still want to control for population density, compare Stockholm against European cities likeParis with similar population density. I’m pretty sure I read a good report finding that Stockholm was average again, but I seem to have lost the link.
Well said. Eyeballing the chart shows no correlation between population density and covid death rate. Looking strictly at Europe, CSPI has a good chart (halfway down the long detailed post) showing minimal correlation. My take on population density is that the pro-lockdown media in March and April 2020 were predicting bodies piled high in the streets and the total collapse of healthcare systems without lockdowns. Because back then populations hadn’t normalised extreme losses of freedom so you needed to predict Armageddon in order to sell the lockdowns. Sweden, and later the US red states, proved that Armageddon was factually false. So the journalists needed some rationalisations for why Sweden hadn’t turned into a hell-hole and population density was the first thing they thought of.
If you still want to control for population density, compare Stockholm against European cities likeParis with similar population density. I’m pretty sure I read a good report finding that Stockholm was average again, but I seem to have lost the link.