Awfully hard to do this kind of comparison without accounting for all variables such as age and health of population, specific characteristics of those who died, whether one or two heavy-outbreak areas skewed the stats, etc. The author himself has given more than one factor that clearly could be responsible for a higher rate -- the return of families from Italy who then went back to work and school, the fact that ski resorts were kept open, not prohibiting visits to nursing homes until April 1 (the article gives a huge clue here when it says COVID was found in about half of Stockholm's elderly facilities, which likely led to a highly disproportionate number of deaths), and so forth.



In the end, it's probably true that Sweden could've taken some moderate measures that would've made a real difference, and could've been earlier with the measures it did take, just as nations that were on total or near-total lockdown will find that not all their measures were necessary, and many were well over the point of sharply diminishing returns. But it's also true that Sweden's actions will prove to have been more in keeping with the models that did _not_ insist on worst-possible-outcome projections, as opposed to so many other nations that did.



There's going to be a real moment of "what do we do now?" at the beginning of next flu season, if current trends continue with uncovering much higher infection-recovery-and-immunity rates for COVID that result in a much lower death rate, approaching seasonal-flu levels. Flu causes a quarter to half a million deaths worldwide every year, and 30-60,000 in the U.S. alone. Everybody knows it's going to happen; nobody advocates shutting down an entire nation because of it; and except for a relative few, you can't get people to take the simplest measures to prevent the spread of flu every year. Cumulatively, millions die from it every decade. So now what, now that we've established this standard?