Once again, a comparison demonstrates that the mortality rate in 2020 is barely larger than in 2018

 

By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 8 December 2020, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

Statistics Sweden, the country’s official agency for statistics, has published its latest data for the development of its population. These data include, among others, the figures for total mortality. [1] Analyzing such data is important as it reflects the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. If the pandemic would be very severe and devastating, this would result in qualitatively higher figures of total mortality. This is even more the case as Sweden has been one of the few countries in the world which has neither imposed any lockdown nor mandatory mask-wearing.

 

As the RCIT has demonstrated in numerous works the claim of bourgeois governments and their supporters among the Lockdown Left about the supposedly “unprecedented and highly dangerous COVID-19 pandemic” is simply a propaganda lie. We have shown on the basis of official statistics and analysis of other pandemics in past decades that the current pandemic is serious but it is neither devastating nor unprecedented. [2]

 

In fact, the ruling class deliberately exaggerates the severity of the pandemic in order to justify the massive expansion of the police and surveillance state which goes hand in hand with a wave of repression and attacks on fundamental democratic rights of the popular masses. In fact, the policy of putting a whole society under curfew orders has not been seen in the Western imperialist countries since the end of World War II in 1945. This is why the RCIT has characterized this policy from early on as the COVID-19 Counterrevolution. While the virus has not been deliberately invented, the ruling classes around the world have prepared for such a kind of pandemic since a number of years. As we showed in a recently published study, several imperialist institutions have elaborated plans for utilizing such events for the expansion of the police and surveillance state (or chauvinist bonapartist state as Marxists call it). [3]

 

In a recently published article we have analyzed the effects of the pandemic to Sweden’s mortality. [4] We did show that the total number of death for 2020 do not show any dramatic rise. In this brief article we will not repeat our theses but limit ourselves to report the latest figures from Sweden which confirms once again the validity of the Marxist analysis.

 

In Table 1 we reproduce the figures for the size of Sweden’s population. As we can see, the country had a population of slightly more than 10.2 million people at the end of 2018. Since then, the population has slightly increased by 1.4% and accounts for a bit less than 10.4 million people in October 2020.

 

 

 

Table 1. Sweden’s Population in 2018 and 2020

 

Year                                                                        Number

 

December 2018                                                  10,230,185

 

October 2020                                                       10,377,781

 

Increase from 2018 to 2020: +1.4%

 

 

 

In Table 2 we reproduce the figures for total mortality. We compare the number of death for January to October 2020 with the figures for the same period in 2018. As we can see 77,069 people died within this period two years ago compared with 79,627 people in 2020. This represents an increase of the absolute number of death by 3.3%.

 

 

 

Table 2. Sweden’s Total Mortality for January - October in 2018 and in 2020

 

Period                                                                    Total Number

 

January – October 2018                                   77,069

 

January – October 2020                                   79,627

 

Increase in 2020 (January-October) compared with the same period in 2018: +3.3%

 

 

 

Finally, we compare the number of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per month for the period January to October in 2018 with that for 2020. Since Statistics Sweden provides such figures we can calculate not only the absolute number of death but also the development of mortality per capita. As reader can see, such mortality per capita has been only slightly higher this year compared with the same period in 2018 – concretely by 1.0%. (See Table 3)

 

 

 

Table 1. Number of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per month, 2018 and 2020, Sweden [5]

 

 

 

                                                                2018                                       2020

 

January                                                 84.2                                        78.2

 

February                                               88.2                                        75.5

 

March                                                   90.1                                        80.1

 

April                                                      76.9                                        102.0

 

May                                                       66.3                                        83.4

 

June                                                       65.6                                        71.8

 

July                                                        71.1                                        66.1

 

August                                                  66.3                                        65.1

 

September                                            68.2                                        65.3

 

October                                                 70.5                                        67.7

 

Total                                                       747.4                                      755.2

 

Increase in 2020 (January-October) compared with the same period in 2018: +1.0%

 

 

 

We note in passing that the increase of total mortality figures in 2020 so far is not only low in Sweden but also in various other countries. However, Sweden is remarkable since the supporters of chauvinist state bonapartism claim that the only way to avoid the devastating effects of the pandemic would be the draconic Lockdown policy. Naturally, this has always been wrong as the RCIT explained from the beginning. However, the figures from Sweden provide overwhelming factual confirmation of the Marxist position!