Franklin Graham is wrong, but you knew that

        Franklin Graham, the babbling, bloviating, God huckstering, homophobic shithead, claims that “Sweden has a lower Covid-19 infection rate than UK, Italy and Spain.” His reasons are that he wants to “open up” the economy (one guesses that “donations” are down) and cites Sweden as proof that isolation is unnecessary. PolitiFact gives him a “half true” rating because taking just cherry-picked data, without contextual considerations he is correct. However, this sort of unilateral and biased pronouncement is the first refuge of Fox News and their ilk.

        Realizing that the average Graham supporter needs no facts, just beliefs, it’s unsurprising that he said what he said. The critical thinker, reading such drivel, might on the other hand wonder if the comparison can even reasonably be made. In the course of this riposte, I’ll throw a lot of numbers at you, but stick with me here.

        Right off the bat, one of the most significant factors in the case of contagious disease is population density.  Our parents (or grandparents for younger readers) understood this instinctively. I can recall being kept inside when Polio was diagnosed anywhere nearby. Jonas Salk changed that. As an aside, in this era of epic Pharma greed, it sounds almost insane, but Jonas Salk refused to patent his successful Polio vaccine. But I digress.

        As I was saying…population density, as I will show, is a significant factor in contagious disease propagation. By comparing Sweden to Italy, Spain, and the UK, Graham displays his ignorance. I will list these nations and parenthetically, I’ll list their population density in units of individuals per square mile. Italy (533), UK (727), Spain (299) and, for comparison, USA (94) and Sweden (64), See the logic problem here yet?  

        Sweden is “recommending” social distancing, true, but they are also sheltering and isolating the most susceptible of their population. That alone means that reasonably healthy persons are the vast portion of any group in public. And yet…! Sweden’s neighbors have taken a more aggressive approach during the Covid-19 outbreak. Denmark and Norway, for example, quickly closed their borders along with schools and industry to maximize social distancing. The data shows that those two countries have done better than Sweden in keeping the number of cases down. Sweden has experienced high death rates compared to other countries, with nearly 8% of Swedes confirmed to be infected with coronavirus dying from it, compared to less than 2% and 4% for neighbors Norway and Denmark, respectively.

        But wait, there’s more, and no one, including PolitiFact, has mentioned it. Taking a look at the USA and considering population density demographics tells an even more nuanced story.  

       Six US states - both Dakotas, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming and Alaska have fewer than 20 persons per square mile. Unsurprisingly, they are also among the states with the lowest rate of Covid-19 cases. While we cannot truly know how seriously their citizens took admonitions re: social distancing, we can note that these states have one thing in common, that being relatively small populations and few to no large cities. Of these states, New Mexico has the highest number of confirmed cases of Covid -19. It also has the largest city, Albuquerque, and ¼ of the whole states’ population lives there. Coincidence?

        Now, consider the entire USA: We see high infection rates in Washington. DC, Florida, New Jersey and New York state. Unsurprisingly, these are also among the highest in population density in the country. For example, New York state, has 421 persons per square mile, Florida 400. Washington, DC has 11,569.  That, however, is admittedly an “apples to oranges” comparison, since New York state has lots of sparsely inhabited regions while DC is wall to wall persons. New York City, on the other hand has 27,000 individuals per square mile. It hardly takes a scientist to discern why these two municipalities have high infection rates.  

        The United States, even with its wide-open spaces, has a population density of 94 people per square mile, while Sweden, which Franklin Graham apparently thinks is comparable for statistical purposes, has about 2/3 of that number. Additionally, while the US has beaches and open air dining across much of the nation from early April on (and in the South, year round), most Swedes are less likely to be dining al fresco, since, as I write, Stockholm, at 59.2 North latitude and sea level is in the high 40s. Farther north, it still reaches freezing every night and folks aren’t going to all that many open air events. By comparison, Bozeman Montana, at 45.6 degrees latitude and almost a mile high is warmer. You might think this would help keep contagion rates down but keep reading.

        Even with all the above data (I like data) Graham is simply, as usual, full of crap in his flat statement that “it’s working in Sweden.”  As of April 9, Sweden’s rate per capita of confirmed deaths from the coronavirus of 8% was (and remains) higher than the rate of its fellow Scandinavian countries or the US (5.6%).  Its relatively higher population density (highest in Scandinavia) is the very reason they probably should have mandated social distancing. Read on the learn the consequences and the outlook.

         Hospitals are overcrowded and staff members are overworked, and the military has begun setting up field hospitals in major cities, including Stockholm, the country’s capital and the epicenter of its outbreak. The government is now seeking extraordinary powers to impose further restrictions.

        Some Swedish experts have estimated that as many as 4 million Swedes — out of a population of around 10 million — may eventually contract the disease. (warning; data break: That’s a 40% “positive” rate.)  Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has candidly stated this week that “thousands” in his country will die from Covid-19. (they already have and counting.) 

       While it’s still a bit early to tell if the Swedish government’s methods will prove successful in the end, some Swedes have told media sources in Sweden that they’re unhappy being the world’s guinea pigs at such a dangerous time. This is understandable, since Norwegian and Danish data is readily available, and their social isolation seems to be working

        It is worthy of note that, unlike the US, Sweden was actually better prepared for whatever may eventuate because of a national health system run by medical professionals, vice politicians.

        In summary, Sweden and the US are vastly different. Even within the USA, states vary markedly in demographics and therefore, infection rates.  Several quick examples:

  

 State:         Montana     Alaska      New York     Wyoming

Covid cases:  444             339         267,000           743

% of pop.     .041%           .04%         1.3%            .12% 
 infected

        Now for an apples to apples summary: I’ll show you just the headline of an article in Forbes of April 21. “Sweden: 600,000 Coronavirus Infections In Stockholm By May 1, Model Estimates”   

Admittedly, that’s just a “model” but here are the real numbers as of this past Thursday, April 23.

       To understand the significance of the data, one must remember that Sweden has almost exactly twice the population of the other Nordic nations, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. As of 3 days ago Sweden had 18,640 confirmed cases of Covid-19. Denmark 8,073, Norway 7,449 and Finland 4,576.

       Make sure you get that.  Even when adjusting for population differences, Sweden still has the highest infection rate of the Nordic four and the others are “social distancing.”  Denmark, second highest has about the same rate as Wyoming, a rounded off .14% of the population infected. Sweden, lauded by Graham, on the other hand has an infection rate of .18% (and predicted to soar to as much as 40%!)

        Sweden is not even “doing better” than her Scandinavian neighbors by any realistic measurement, and her own folks are beginning to have serious concerns for the future

Franklin Graham is a liar, and, like Donald Trump who he worships, has an agenda and any lie of any magnitude is apparently justified to further it. Pathetic, just pathetic.