Estimates of excess mortality for the five Nordic countries during the Covid-19 pandemic 2020-2021

Excess deaths during the covid-19 pandemic are of major scientific and political interest. Here we review excess all-cause death estimates from different methods for the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden), which have been much studied during the covid-19 pandemic. In the comparison of the methods, we use simple sensitivity estimates and linear interpolations of the death data to discuss uncertainties and implications for reporting ratios and infection fatality rates. We show using back-calculation of expected deaths from Nordic all-cause deaths that a recent study in Lancet, which is a clear outlier in the overviewed estimates, most likely substantially overestimates excess deaths of Finland and Denmark, and probably Sweden. The other estimates are more consistent and suggest a range of total Nordic excess deaths of approximately half of that in the Lancet study, a more uniform ability to identify covid-19-related deaths, and more similar infection fatality rates for the Nordic countries.