The map shows the relative change in number of deaths in 2020 compared to average 2015-2019. Municipalities in various shades of blue had lower mortality in 2020 than the 2015–2019 average, while municipalities in pink and shades of red had higher mortality. Those in beige are where mortality was mostly unchanged in 2020.
In Sweden, many municipalities in the south had excess mortality. Noticeable is a ring of municipalities surrounding Stockholm with excess mortality. During the first two months of the pandemic, March-May 2020, there were 2110 excess deaths in the Stockholm Region (Calderón-Larrañaga, o.a., 2020). Many of these occurred in distant suburbs with high shares of socioeconomically deprived populations (Sigurjónsdóttir, Sigvardsson, & Oliveira e Costa, 2021). There was a disproportionate impact of Covid–19 in Stockholm (Kolk, Drefahl, Wallace, & Andersson, 2021). Denmark had a mix of municipalities with slight excess mortality, slight mortality deficits, or little change, consistent with having very moderate excess mortality overall. Finland showed a similar pattern, with some municipalities recording excess mortality and others mortality deficits. Consistent with having no excess mortality, Norway had many regions with moderate or significant mortality deficits and only a few areas with high amounts of excess mortality. In Iceland, except for one small region near the capital, there was not much difference between the Greater Reykjavík Area and the rest of the country.
