as others have said, the area under the curve remains the same. The idea with Sweden is, after one year, the deaths will be about the same as everywhere else.

If the hospitals get overcrowded, there will also be more people dying from other causes and suffering from long term consequences, because a percentage of them won't be able to receive adequate care.

I haven't seen any actual data on how big that impact might be, however.

Even without overwhelmed hospitals there is a lot of excess mortality not directly explained by published COVID-19 death numbers. Including in Sweden.

Q is how many are dead when a region has 80% immunity (through vaccination or infection). Those dead should include also deaths due to lack of planned care, cuts in healthcare due to recession, suicides due to unemployment and so on.

Those countries that lock down and stop a first wave with only a few percent infected are basically betting on the arrival of effective treatment or effective containment.

Those that don’t are betting that containment is impossible and effective treatments and vaccines are a year out at least.

It’s impossible to say which scenario is right but I know I’d place my bet the same as the Swedish state epidemiologist.