"Positivity rates around 1% are irrelevant and interchangeable considering noise from false positives or sample contamination."

That's not the point. The point is that it took ages for Sweden to get close to 1% while many many other countries have been around 1% for months.

"Besides, both Norway and Denmark now have higher cases per capita, and even in absolute cases, if we are talking about Denmark."

I'm not blindly going to believe the first part but I'm not in the mood to find their data. Let's just say even if it's true, it's probably not far off from Sweden's current numbers, so by your definition just statistical noise.

The second part of that statement however is just misleading at best and plain wrong at worst. Denmark currently has more confirmed cases because they are testing far far more people. ~45k daily tests (0.78% of the population) vs. 18k daily tests (0.18% of the population) (based on 126k tests last week).

That's roughly 4 times more tests per capita in Denmark compare to Sweden. You talk about confirmed cases while it's obvious that Sweden's true daily case count is quite a bit higher than Denmark's.

If they are testing less per capita, wouldn't their positivity rate by default be higher, then? Or do you believe they're just blindly stumbling into positives?

I understand you wouldn't be in the mood to research data that contradicts your point of view (it's all freely available in Our World In Data, by the way) but don't expect me, then, to accept your logical inference, without any study to back it up, that Sweden MUST have more cases just because you think so.

Here's something to think about:

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/germany-covid-19-cases-rise-as-schools-reopen/1941262

Vs.

https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2020-09-07-here-the-mass-tests-continue-on-campus.By7ssdTX4v.html

So what do we have then when we compare neighbor countries...I believe it is too early to say. My bet is that at the end, if the vaccine takes too long to arrive, all these country will have a similar death per capita. Sweden had its dose of it and they are now more immunized.

But let's see the final stats in May 2021.

And I am aware about the testing capacity of Denmark vs Sweden, you can divide by 3 the height of the 2nd dome for Denmark, doesn't really change what I want to show.

It looks like Peru will be the worst-hit nation in the world when all is said and done:

Over 60,000 excess deaths already by the looks of it - about 0.2% of its population. Thankfully, the number of daily deaths and hospitalized people has been in a consistent decline for a while, so I suspect the virus is finally running out of available hosts.

Somehow, Peru cooked the perfect storm: the low number of ICU beds (1,600 compared to 46,000 in Brazil and 93,000 in the US) was certainly a determinant factor, but it's likely that so were other biological and social particularities we can guess but only speculate about their precise impact.

Studies in the upcoming years will be interesting and hopefully we'll learn something from them.

Update for Canada and the struggle with back to school

A steady increase nation wide since the last re-openings. Cases aren't as high yet as before and the average age of infections is far lower than before, the more at risk people are still in hiding. However schools had to close early March when detected cases were far lower than they are currently, plus Doug Ford said at some point that he would like to be under 100 daily cases for schools to resume. Today added 213 cases to Ontario.

The latest news on online learning is, perhaps sometimes during the next week we'll get more information... But if you happen to still have your username and password from before the holidays you can attempt to log in to Bright space to re-familiarize yourself with it.

We know you are anxiously awaiting the start of our Grand Erie K-12 Virtual Academy. Many of you have questions about online learning, the availability of technology, and when your children can expect to begin their school year. As the letter shared last week said, it is our intention to have the Virtual Academy up and running before the end of next week (September 14 –18). We understand this isn’t as specific as anyone would like, and we apologize for that. We are currently in the process of staffing the Virtual Academy and will provide more details to you once that process is complete.

Erm the school year started on Tuesday, good job... The kids are happy, still on March break....

Schools have started for those who want to risk the full class rooms. 4 class rooms are and will remain empty in our school since they put all the students together to save on teachers. It's A-M one day, N-Z last names next day to start off, which actually created a class with only one student one day and all the others the next day. The incompetence has no end. It should be full attendance from next Wednesday. However one school has already closed again due to detecting cases and school buses are being cancelled left and right since the drivers don't feel it's safe. There is currently a CAD 5000 signing bonus to drive a school bus (if you have the correct license)

Total clusterfuck!

NYC schools are closing before in person classes can even begin because teachers and students are testing positive.
https://www.pix11.com/news/back-to-school/1st-nyc-public-school-closed-over-covid-19-cases-city-says?_amp=true

Weekly update. New record, 310K new cases yesterday :/

Worldwide had 1.87 million new cases last week, same as last week but bigger numbers towards the end of the week.
Deaths did go up, 40,788 last week vs 37,524 the week before.

The USA is still declining and got overtaken by Europe. 247K new cases last week, down from 293K and 5,310 new deaths, down from 6,210.

The continents

Asia keeps climbing ahead. 832K new cases last week, up from 739K and 11,842 deaths, up from 10,781.
South America declines a little. 388K new cases last week, down from 485K. Deaths however went up, 15,588 vs 11,629 the week before.
North America in decline thanks to the USA. 318K new cases last week, down from 363K and 9,288 new deaths, down from 10,660.
Europe still climbing. 271K new cases last week, up from 233K. Deaths about the same, 2,502 last week vs 2,535 the week before.
Africa saw a slight decline. 55K new cases vs 56K the week before. Deaths declined a bit more, 1,505 vs 1,764 the week before.
Oceania saw a slight resurgence towards the end of the week. 830 new cases vs 767. Deaths more than halved to 63 vs 155 the week before.


India keeps climbing, no end in sight. 637K new cases, up from 559K with 8,937 deaths, up from 5,856.
Brazil had 192K new cases, big drop from 279K the week before. Deaths also dropped to 4,890 from 5,990
The USA is now slightly below Brazil in cases yet not in reported deaths (247K new cases last week and 5,310 new deaths)

Iran keeps on going on, South Africa and Australia are still declining, Japan and South Korea a bit less.
Canada had a big wobble in reporting due to 3 day weekend (labor day) but is still climbing overall.

Europe

The first to get over the first wave, the first to steadily keep climbing into the second.
Some manage to slow the growth rate down yet none really manage to actually go back down.

Heading into fall with most schools now open.

North America in decline thanks to the USA. 287K new cases, down from 278K and 9,288 new deaths, down from 10,660.

Did the numbers get mixed up?

Yes, I keep mixing up my columns.

318K new cases last week for North America, down from 363K.

287K is the total deaths on September 11th vs 278K total deaths on September 4th. This has been going on so long that the headers are pages above where the new numbers are :/

The leading 'Oxford' mRNA vaccine has been paused.

Severe illness (transverse myelitis) developed.
A leading coronavirus vaccine trial is on hold: scientists react

It failed in animal trials anyway.

"There was no difference in the amount of viral RNA detected from this site in the vaccinated monkeys as compared to the unvaccinated animals. Which is to say, all vaccinated animals were infected"
Doubts over Oxford vaccine as it fails to stop coronavirus in animal trials

2/3 have side effects like pain, fever, fatigue etc. Had to used with painkiller paracetamol to ease the side effects. 
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31604-4/fulltext#