The excess mortality problem isn't about trust. No one has alleged that existing studied covid death numbers in Lombardy or New York or wherever are due to people lying.
It's just that some people, in every health care system, end up dying without a test being done. It's certainly plausible that Sweden has been far more conscientious about testing unknown deaths (or testing at-risk people before symptoms, etc...). That doesn't say anything about their trustworthyness.
FWIW, my money is on a bunch of these cases being discovered in Sweden too, they just didn't show up in the check the Times did. Epidemiology is just hard, and there are no magic tricks to play with the science.
Pretty hard to hide excess death. That's precisely the point of this chart. You can miscount Covid deaths, but it's pretty hard to miscount deaths overall unless there's a fraudulent cover-up. Deaths are all recorded and tracked. Bodies don't just disappear.
It's just that some people, in every health care system, end up dying without a test being done. It's certainly plausible that Sweden has been far more conscientious about testing unknown deaths (or testing at-risk people before symptoms, etc...). That doesn't say anything about their trustworthyness.
FWIW, my money is on a bunch of these cases being discovered in Sweden too, they just didn't show up in the check the Times did. Epidemiology is just hard, and there are no magic tricks to play with the science.