Aim:The aim was to scrutinize the report in March 2023 that Sweden’s excess mortality was lowest in 2020–2022 compared with other European Union and Nordic countries, a report that received great national and international attention.Study design:Comparison of excess mortality in Sweden and Norway.Methods:Excess mortality for 2020–2022 was calculated for Sweden and Norway, the country with per-capita excess mortality closest to Sweden’s, compared with the average mortality for 2017–2019 in the respective country, following the definitions by Statistics Sweden reported in a daily newspaper.Results:Excess mortality is a measure with low misclassification compared with other pandemic outcome measures. Following the definitions, total excess mortality for the years 2020–2022 was 11,897 individuals in Sweden and 6089 in Norway. However, the distributions of excess mortality across the 3 years strongly differed. In Sweden, 60% of excess mortality was observed in 2020, 8% in 2021 and 32% in 2022. In sharp contrast, 0% of excess mortality was observed in Norway in 2020, 20% in 2021 and 80% in 2022. If the relative distribution of excess mortality in Sweden had been the same as in Norway in 2020–2022, approximately 7000 individuals who died in 2020 would instead have died as excess mortality in 2022, saving approximately 14,000 person-years in Sweden.Conclusions:The report disregards residual confounding due to the broad definition of the period 2020–2022. Mass media should avoid one-sided reporting.

中文翻译：

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瑞典2020-2022年的超额死亡率和媒体报道

目的：目的是仔细审查2023年3月的报告，该报告显示，与其他欧盟和北欧国家相比，瑞典的超额死亡率在2020-2022年是最低的，该报告受到了国内外的广泛关注。研究设计：瑞典超额死亡率的比较方法：根据瑞典统计局的定义，计算了瑞典和挪威2020-2022年的超额死亡率，这两个国家的人均超额死亡率最接近瑞典，并与各自国家2017-2019年的平均死亡率进行了比较日报报道。结果：与其他大流行结果衡量标准相比，超额死亡率是错误分类率较低的衡量标准。根据定义，2020-2022 年瑞典的超额死亡率总数为 11,897 人，挪威为 6089 人。然而，这三年间超额死亡率的分布差异很大。在瑞典，2020 年超额死亡率为 60%，2021 年为 8%，2022 年为 32%。形成鲜明对比的是，挪威 2020 年超额死亡率为 0%，2021 年为 20%，2022 年为 80%。 2020-2022年瑞典超额死亡率的相对分布与挪威相同，2020年死亡的约7000人将在2022年死于超额死亡率，从而为瑞典节省了约14,000人年。结论：报告由于 2020-2022 年期间的广泛定义，忽略了残留的混杂因素。大众媒体应避免片面报道。