- Sweden's lockdown-free pandemic strategy is a global outlier.
- The country has recently seen its coronavirus death rate soar, with many of the oldest, frailest people left vulnerable to catching the virus.
- Former state epidemiologist Annika Linde said recently in an interview with Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that the country, in hindsight, probably should've instituted a lockdown.
- "I think we're starting to see that the Swedish model maybe hasn't been the smartest in every respect," she said.
Sweden was the only country that remained fully open as the novel coronavirus tore through Europe.
Now, it seems the nation is paying a deadly price for its choice.
Sweden has one of the highest coronavirus death rates of any country — per capita, it's now worse than any other in Europe.
Open letters signed by more than 2,000 Swedish scientists in April urged the country to reconsider a lockdown. But so far, it has not. Swedish people are simply urged instead to frequently wash hands, stay home when sick, and generally use common sense
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Finland and Norway, both geographically, economically, and culturally similar countries to Sweden, issued harsher lockdowns, and have kept their case fatality rates (roughly 5% and 3%, respectively) at a fraction of Sweden's 12%.
At the same time, the latest Swedish studies suggest that far less than 10% of the country's population has been exposed to the virus, in line with infection rates in the rest of the world.
