In response to Rob Kerchner’s comparison (letters, Oct. 5) between Sweden’s strategy during the pandemic and the United States, I just invested two minutes and checked the actual numbers of the World Health Organization’s website (covid.who.int) and the two countries are not that far apart in their numbers.
As of 1:05 p.m. Tuesday, the numbers for the two countries are as follows: United States 43,401,318 cases, which is 13.0% of the country’s population of 333 million. Deaths attributed to COVID-19 are 696,732, which is a 1.6% death to case ratio. Sweden 1,153,655 cases, which is 11.5% of the country’s population of just over 10 million. Deaths attributed to COVID-19 are 14,868, which is a 1.3% death to case ratio.
It also strikes me as a fairly rudimentary correlation to think about the density of population we have in the United States (93 residents per square mile) compared to Sweden’s (58 residents per square mile).
I can appreciate and relate to Rob’s frustration with all things COVID-19, but I believe we have to draw accurate comparisons to make a point. I plead with all Signal readers to get vaccinated and to follow the mask mandate. These two actions are the quickest way out of this.
Paul Butler
Valencia
