Finland's COVID-19 policy saved approximately 2,600 people from death

The coronavirus pandemic is far behind us, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused it has become just a part of everyday life. Therefore, it is a good time to look back a bit and examine the statistics related to the pandemic.

Among these, death cases are naturally the most reliable, so I will focus on that in this review. On a global level, the pandemic has been reported to have caused slightly over seven million premature deaths.

Is this then a lot or a little? This can be determined by comparing the number of deaths to previous pandemics.

The Spanish flu, caused by the influenza virus, is estimated to have killed 17-100 million people worldwide just over a hundred years ago. This is already a significantly higher number – and considering the increase in the world's population over the past hundred years – it is an astonishingly worse pandemic.

An even harsher ordeal was the bacterial disease known as the Black Death that raged during the Middle Ages. According to Wikipedia, it is "estimated to have killed 30-60 percent of Europe's population, i.e., 25-50 million people, and an equal number in the Middle East and North Africa."

The essential difference between COVID-19 and the aforementioned diseases lies in the advancement of medicine, which enabled the identification of people infected with the coronavirus – and their isolation from spreading it to others – as well as the development of vaccines and treatments that effectively reduced mortality. Therefore, it is clear that if the virus had spread to people a hundred years ago, the impact would have been significantly more devastating than what we have experienced now.

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One interesting topic of discussion has been the difference between Finland's strict and Sweden's more lenient COVID-19 policies. This can be examined by comparing the number of deaths caused by the virus in both countries.

Statistics show that a total of 27,407 people have died from the virus in Sweden. In Finland, the corresponding number is 11,958. The relationship between these numbers can be compared to the population ratios of the two countries. It is seen that about 2.1 per mille of the population died in Finland, and 2.6 per mille in Sweden.

Thus, it can be said that Finland's stricter COVID-19 policy, compared to Sweden, saved approximately 0.5 per mille – or roughly 2,600 lives – from death caused by the coronavirus. Therefore, the difference is not very large, and I do not take a position here on whether it is sufficient to compensate for the negative effects of the policy implemented.

Instead, I state that humanity should continue to prepare for the emergence of zoonotic diseases. Their occurrence cannot be predicted precisely, but it is certain that a new pandemic will occur sooner or later. And therefore, perhaps the most important lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is that with good prior planning and preparedness, Finns can be spared the confusion witnessed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Is the world´s best skier in classical technique, Iivo Niskanen, going to recover from COVID-19
Share of EU recovery funds will turn attitudes more negative
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