Now let’s compare them to their comparable neighbors.

I’ll make it easier. The only comparable neighbor who is actually close to them is Denmark.

The others are an order of magnitude better.

Also, Sweden’s economy dropped even more than its comparable neighbors’ economies.

Italy, Spain, UK, Belgium, etc...are all able to be compared with Sweden, why wouldn't they be?

Consider Sweden to be like Minnesota, Italy to be like Florida, UK to be like New York, and Belgium to be like ... well, I don't know Belgium well. These places have very different climate, population, connections to other countries/states, economies, density, etc.

We regularly compare states on all sorts of measures including test scores, income levels, murder rates, etc. despite all these differences. Right now, Sweden is ranked 20th in the world in deaths per million for Covid and dropping.

Population sizes, density, climate variations, cultural aspects, etc. Not to mention, Sweden is vast compared to any of those places - for 10 million people, it should not have had as many cases or deaths.

Are Minnesota and New Jersey comparable?

How come absolutely EVERY time these discussions start and such links are posted, I check who owns the respective website and it's ALWAYS a "libertarian and economic think-tank" or a "Republican think-tank" or a "freedom think-tank"?

They are also outright wrong and lying:

> "People attacking Sweden don't realize Finland and Norway were actually more laissez faire.

> Since early June, Finland and Norway have had less restrictive policies--and they've done remarkably well."

This is, of course, not true.

I think it's worth considering that the absolute number of covid deaths in Sweden per day at the moment is around 15. I get the value of per capita rates, but do you think the numbers are as meaningful when they're that low?

Still much better than the rest of Europe where it's creeping above 1, or almost reached 2 (Belgium, Czech Republic)

It's not meaningful to compare Sweden with continental Europe.

Demographics, population density, social mores, healthcare, geography, climate are drastically different across Europe.

To be fair is not great to compare Sweden and Finland neither, except for the climate ...