It’s as arbitrary as saying 2 countries share a border and one has a higher death toll than the other
What are the highly relevant factors in comparing places?
Pencilneck will have him on late late show in no time where he will be describing imaginary scenes like those seen in 28 days later.
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He was “alarmed at seeing uncritical coverage of the Government” and then came to Ireland…
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It isn’t. Many countries share borders but have very different characteristics on the whole. Norway Sweden and Finland are three fairly similar countries in profile. They are certainly more similar to each other than any of them are to Germany say. Finland also shares a border with Russia. It is far more similar to Sweden than it is to Russia, right?
Debatable. Finland was in the Russian empire. It speaks a completely different, unconnected language to Sweden
Would Belgium and the Netherlands have similar or different characteristics? Cos there is a chasm between the death toll of those places
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It has to be said that Norway and Finland have experienced very low Covid deaths compared to essentially all of Europe. I think a reasonable comparison to Sweden is other European countries that have fairly similar population, population density, and broad demographics (age profile etc).
Death toll:
Belgium 21,956
Czechia 19,682
Portugal 16,086
Hungary 14,552
Sweden 12,713
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You seem to want to deny any similarities between Sweden and its two neighbours to either side because it doesn’t suit you to acknowledge them.
I’ll happily acknowledge them when the same metrics people use to measure Sweden are used across the board. Sweden could have done better, they’ve admitted as much themselves.
Why are the Belgians and Czechs so much worse than their neighbors?
I’ve a mate in Sweden and he can’t get his head around the Irish reaction to the virus at all.
I think we are one of the only countries in the world where people have been told to stay out of work for months on end and work from home. Most Europeans seem be skiing and working away as normal
Most other countries can be trusted to do the right thing tho. Like it or lump it, Paddy has an I’m alright jack attitude and doesn’t really give a fuck for rules or restrictions.
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My mate in Sweden was almost half looking forward to a lockdown as he was wrecked from too many nights out 
Re the Czechs and Belgians, I don’t know to be honest. I’m sure it will take time for some of the variety in outcomes to be established and figured out.
To me, the example of Norway Sweden and Finland is stark and obvious. They are three very similar countries. One (the one in the middle even) took a radically different approach to the other two and had radically different outcomes.
This appears obvious to most. You appear to deny this. I think that’s strange.
Yeah it has become the national conversation and pass time here. Before that it was brexit and the doomsday scenarios that would follow with that. I think it is a small country mentality. I doubt there is another country in the world that has devoted as many column inches or broadcasting time to it as we have. I seriously doubt if Keith Begg hadn’t seen the news back home that he would still be over in Sweden now. But he internalised it and ironically became a tinfoil conspiracy theorist over there. He wouldn’t have paid a blind but of notice or set up a group if he wasnt so in tune with the goings on back home.
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Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
William Butler Yeats
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If the three of them were on an island in the middle of an ocean I would concur, but they are not. Sweden has a bigger and more centralized population than them, and it is located across a narrow sea from mainland Europe. By contrast, the bulk of Norway’s and Finland’s populations are much, much further from the population hubs of Europe (Finland’s population is much closer to St. Petersburg in Russia but you rubbished that comparison earlier).
I think it is strange that media, especially and bizarrely left-wing media, constantly focus in on Sweden when they have outperformed several other european nations with similar populations. I’ve yet to see the Guardian article attacking Belgium or Portugal
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Sweden is much closer to Germany than it is to Norway and in particular Finland when it comes to “relevant Covid death toll factors”. The population density of southern Sweden is five times that of Norway and Finland (there’s that 5 times number again!) and although half that of Germany is similar to France. The over 65 demographic is 22% of the population which is high for Europe, where the average is 19% (Ireland is 13%). Sweden also has a high number of recent immigrants, and we know this demographic has been disproportionality impacted elsewhere.
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The EU being shown up badly as anti-science
There is also mounting evidence of the AstraZeneca vaccine being rejected and left unused in fridges following weeks of bad publicity, including Emmanuel Macron’s unsubstantiated claim that it is “quasi-ineffective” among older group
That is a shocking thing to say. Paddy has disgraced himself throughout this farce.
The Austrians, Hungarians, Danes, italians, dutch etc all mustered some sort of fight back, or at least the occasional protest. Even the English had a few snowball fights, or had the odd octogenarian strong armed by the cops.
The irish have acted like sheep led by dead sheep.
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