Not to mention Sweden is more locked down than the US - _0_ gatherings over 50 people allowed. 0.

I'm astounded there's still people doing the 'debate me!' act about it, most gave up by July in the US, we had already clearly chose a more intense version of the Swedish 'strategy'

I'm amazed that smart people have been advocating Sweden's strategy. Sweden has a population of 10 million. New York alone has more people than that.

It's as if population size, distribution and density aren't even a consideration, let alone local practices.

It was also the strategy of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Utah, and they seem to be doing a lot better in terms of both GDP hit and caseload than places like California and New York with heavy lockdowns.

Iowa has a projected 9.5% GDP hit. New York has a projected ~14% GDP hit, and due to its density and reliance on elevators and public transit, will of course have a higher case load, and require harsher measures to control the spread.

Half of the population of Iowa can fit in the 22 square miles of Manhattan. Oh, and infection rates in Iowa are climbing, whereas infection rates in New York peaked five months ago... And they are currently neck-and-neck in per-capita cases.

So, how did a mostly rural state get a case rate that's as bad as a state that packs half of its population into a single sardine-can of a city? Is their strategy actually working, if they are getting the same outcome, despite having a much easier set of starting conditions to deal with?

Meanwhile, in Canada, BC is projected to take a ~6% GDP hit... While having 1/10th the per-capita case load of Iowa, and higher population densities.

10M is a lot. It’s a population larger than the majority of US states and by far enough to draw conclusions from.

Sweden allows gatherings above 500 now (https://www.thelocal.se/20200827/breaking-sweden-to-allow-pu...). And it never forced business closures, which is way more open than most US states.

Because the virus isn't coming back in Sweden, whereas its neighbours are already experiencing a second wave. Sweden's argument was always that it was "front-loading" the infections, so over the long-term other countries would see a similar number of infections as they experienced multiple waves.

Plus they avoided the rise in depression and domestic violence that countries with lockdowns endured. As well as avoiding massive violations of human rights, although you leftists seem to care nothing about that.

  Because the virus isn't coming back in Sweden, whereas its neighbours are already experiencing a second wave. Sweden's argument was always that it was "front-loading" the infections, so over the long-term other countries would see a similar number of infections as they experienced multiple waves.

That doesn't appear to be what's happening.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...

Also, Sweden didn't avoid an uptick in domestic violence.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:iuGdja...