Aria Bendix - A year and a half after Sweden decided not to lock down, its COVID-19 death rate is up to 10 times higher than its neighbors

"Sweden's strategy would 'likely result in a massacre' in a different country"

It now has up to 10 times as many COVID-19 deaths per capita as its Nordic neighbors.

Sweden also didn't fare much better economically, suggesting its gamble didn't pay off.

Sweden has recorded more COVID-19 cases per capita than most countries so far: Since the start of the pandemic, roughly 11 out of every 100 people in Sweden have been diagnosed with COVID-19, compared with 9.4 out of every 100 in the UK and 7.4 per 100 in Italy. Sweden has also recorded around 145 COVID-19 deaths for every 100,000 people — around three times more than Denmark, eight times more than Finland, and nearly 10 times more than Norway.

"They underestimated the mortality tremendously," Claudia Hanson, an associate professor at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, told Insider

In a paper published in September 2020, philosophers Mirko Farina and Andrea Lavazza argued that many lives could have been saved if Swedish health authorities had followed the strategy of their Nordic neighbors.

"On paper they're all good scientists, but de facto in practice, most of them end up missing some basic human values," Farina told Insider.

Their paper also argued that Sweden's low density and small population — combined with residents' trust in national authorities — likely prevented a deadlier outcome. If a denser, more populous country like Italy were to adopt Sweden's strategy, they wrote, it would "likely result in a massacre."

Business Insider

Aria Bendix - A year and a half after Sweden decided not to lock down, its COVID-19 death rate is up to 10 times higher than its neighbors