The opening paragraph of the article shows to me that the journalist in question has done a poor job researching exactly what happened in Sweden.
> Sweden has captured international attention by conducting an unorthodox, open-air experiment.
Almost every interview available with Anders Tegnell (swedish equivalent of Anthony Fauci) mention that the international community prior to covid had agreed that following a strategy similar to the one sweden are following now is the best choice. Somehow this translates to an "unorthodox" strategy. Never mind that during previous epidemics, like SARS, the current Swedish response was "the normal response".
> It has allowed the world to examine what happens in a pandemic when a government allows life to carry on largely unhindered.
I am really disturbed by this sentence. While it is technically correct that no lockdown has been imposed on the swedish people by the government, saying that life has "carried on largely unhindered" is straight up dishonest.
Ever since February or March there have been regular press conferences with the FHM ("swedish CDC") broadcast over public radio (and obviously you can listen to it on internet and in their app, with push notifications). The hospital system has almost completely shifted to handling covid, nationwide. Most companies have tried to shift their work to peoples homes as much as possible, just like FHM has suggested. Buying groceries online has increased by a large margin. Even the cars at my local supermarket are now practicing social distancing! Swedes, overall, have really taken the gravity of the situation to heart and made changes in their life to protect their community.
> but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.
This misses the most important points about the swedish strategy and shows a lack of knowledge about swedish economy and EU economy. The goal of the swedish strategy has been to preserve peoples health as good as possible. Locking everyone in their homes for several months is not a strategy that is resillient. It increases cases of domestic violence, people losing their jobs cause negative effects as well. The number of deaths related to covid have to be compared to overall deaths, but most importanlty the overall health. The goal was never to gamble peoples life away for the economy!
The article jumps straight into saying that Sweden did not gain anything, economically, from having no lockdown. Well of course not. How could a country with focus on exports and services thrive economically in a pandemic? If the inner market of the EU is as good as closed, who would make the bet that an export focused country would be thriving? Sweden is dependent on other nations, especially in the EU and Scandinavia, so of course the economy wouldn't fare well.
> Sweden put stock in the sensibility of its people as it largely avoided imposing government prohibitions.
This is factually wrong. From the 27th of March it became a criminal offence to organize events of 50 or more people, down from the 500 that was decided on the 12th of March https://www.regeringen.se/artiklar/2020/03/forbud-mot-allman...
This article is an example of poor journalism. It misrepresents the situation in Sweden, while containing crucial factual mistakes bordering on misinformation while also trying to steer american policy making in a specific direction.