So if cases started going back up, which is not the case for now, so this is not an argument
> The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths.
You compare the economic impact of one country which was hit by the virus (Sweden) and one which was not (Germany,Finland, ...). What is going to happen if the virus restart in Germany and Finland and not in Sweden ?
If you're going to make the "Sweden did things right" case, "Sweden got it bad and Germany didn't" is an odd position to support the argument with.
Of course, a lot of the US has lost patience with the difficulty of safety, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's worse now. But that's not because of lockdown not being effective. In fact, it's the opposite.
And let's not forget, in the US H1N1 infected 60M people and only killed 12K of them.
> "If we were to run into the same disease, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would end up doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done."
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
He's on record saying mask requirements will be needed if cases started going back up:
https://www.thelocal.se/20200804/tegnell-if-we-see-problems-...
and Sweden wound up with de-facto lockdowns anyways, as many people did it on their own without government instruction. The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...
> no. people can still transmit it by touching you.
That's an argument for "don't touch people", not "don't wear masks".