It turns out their COVID numbers are incredibly good even independently of the fact that they seem to be avoiding the recent spike in cases that lockdown nations are experiencing.

Moreover, there are differences in the criteria for counting COVID-19 deaths which cast a very different light on some of the comparisons being made. //

Every time the government discovers that someone who had the virus has died, that person is registered as a COVID-19 death if it happened within 30 days of the diagnosis. //

Even in a culturally and geographically similar country like Norway—celebrated for its low death rate—they do things differently. The Norwegians only count something as a COVID-19 death if a doctor concludes that someone was killed by the disease and decides to report it to the country’s public health authority.

There’s a general lesson here. The data we’re getting is pretty much all garbage considered on its own and is worse than garbage when used for comparative purposes. //

The head of the Nowegian version of America’s CDC has made a startling admission:

“Our assessment now….is that we could possibly have achieved the same effects and avoided some of the unfortunate impacts by not locking down, but by instead keeping open but with infection control measures,”