COVID-19 in Scandinavia

We address two research questions. First, how did the COVID-19 disease progress in Scandinavia in 2020? Second, did Sweden’s unique public health care response lead to differential infection and mortality rates during 2020? We use synthetic control techniques to model COVID-19 dynamics, comparing Sweden to a synthetic control unit. We show that stricter lock-down policies are associated with fewer COVID-19 infections and deaths. This finding holds in the first and second waves experienced in Scandinavia. We document several important health care metrics including infection and mortality rates, reproduction rates, lockdown stringency, mobility of people, infection positivity rates, testing, and vaccination rates in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.