224 new #covid19sverige deaths reported today, taking the total to 11815. Oldest change +1 to Jan 1, largest +28 to Jan 19. There are 37 reported deaths with no date yet allocated, so they do not appear on the graph below.

The usual significant lag of around 3 weeks remains.

In the first 6 months of the pandemic, from the 1st death on March 11 2020 to Sept 11 2020 Sweden recorded 5815 #covid19 deaths.

From Sept 12 until today, Feb 2 2021- less than 5 months - we have recorded 5963 #covid19sweden deaths.

Wave 2 is now officially worse than Wave 1.

A quick reminder on how well the Swedish strategy has worked - and is working - compared to our Nordic neighbours.

Rolling 7 day average continues at a high level, averaging around 90 deaths/day or more from mid-Dec to Mid-Jan. More recent weeks data remain incomplete.

The plateau in Stockholm cases continues, at around 500 new cases/day.

A similar plateau now visible in the national data. Note: these 2 graphs do not have the same Y-axis. The National graph is cases per 100000pop/14 days, a metric used by the ECDC

Hospitalisation and ICU admissions continue an overall decline, following case data by about 2 weeks. (graph by @covidxix). We're likely see this plateau over the next 1-2 weeks - again, following the case data.

I don't expect vaccinations to affect this significantly yet, as the majority of elderly, the priority vaccination group, were not being hospitalised.

FHM reports today a total of 256 978 have received at least a first vaccine dose, or just over 3% of the population.

Also reported today that random sampling of positive PCR tests has found just under 11% were the B.117 variant. This is likely contributing to the plateau in cases we're now seeing, and a likely future rise.

I am actually less concerned about this than I was.

A few weeks ago I feared we would see an explosion of cases over the past week following the end of school and work holidays, and that with B.117 spreading it could then get further out of control.

I was wrong, the explosion did not happen.

I believe this has been due in part to the very cold weather, with Google mobility data continuing to show very low levels of activity. This weather is expected to continue for at least another week or two.

Along with the additional restrictions put in place just prior to Christmas, this saw R drop below 1 for most of the past 6 weeks.

If B.117 becomes the predominate variant in Sweden, but we maintain the current levels of restrictions and activity, then we can expect R to increase to 1.2 to 1.3 - cases will be increasing again.

Now, if you're Denmark or Norway and trying to get to #ZeroCovid that's a problem

Sweden however, is not trying to do that.

If there's currently abt 2000 active B.117 infections in the country, with an R of around 1.25 in 2 months we'll have around 3000-4000 B.117 infections/day.

This sounds an enormous amount, but this actually only takes us back to the level of infections we had a month ago - even if there is no further decline in cases from the "base" variant.

And in 2 months, we're at the beginning of April, at which time last year seasonal influences had begun to contribute to a dramatic decline cases. If - and this is the big question - B.117 responds the same way, then we should start to see a dramatic decline again then.

So, in short I think B.117 will not lead to a dramatic change in the epidemiological scenario in Sweden. We'll see an uptick, and the very high level of cases, hospitalisations, and deaths will simply remain a very high level of cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

To my ongoing dismay, the Swedish government and Swedish people have largely judged this as acceptable. Indeed, I expect a "failure" to have an uncontrolled B.117 explosion will likely be considered further evidence of the success of the Swedish strategy.

All at the "acceptable" cost of tens of thousands of more seriously ill people and thousands more dead.