That is what Sweden has done. It now has a slightly lower cumulative death rate than locked-down Austria. It has a far lower cumulative death rate than the U.S.:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...

It also has a far lower cumulative death rate than locked-down individual states like NY or Massachusetts.

You should compare apples to apples. Not all societies are alike, and there are huge variances in population density, temperatures, style of living, etc. between different countries ( e.g. places where people share food and ear with their hands vs places where most people live alone in houses vs places where whole extended families share the same house, etc. etc.). Sweden fared drastically worse than its neighbours which are IMHO the most apt comparisons. It has 7 times the death rate of Norway.

The "neighbour" argument is DOA and has been from the start. There are no meaningful differences between Sweden and other countries except in its government response - Scandinavians aren't aliens and thus nobody was claiming they were incomparable back at the start. Instead it was headlines like "Sweden is a cautionary tale to the world". The idea that you aren't allowed to compare them only appeared once Sweden proved that COVID mitigations were a terrible failure.

The real question is actually what's special about Norway and such. Sweden isn't an outlier here.

There are definitely meaningful differences between countries. As an example, Sweden has a much higher percentage of people who care about protecting the rest of the populous; that is, if they’re sick, they tend to stay home on average much more than someone working in the US. (Even pre-COVID). Italy has a higher percentage of older people. Countries have differences. Comparing Sweden to its neighbors is, in fact, the right approach imho.

Of course there are differences. Do you know that in France used to kiss on the cheek when meeting, including strangers? And many continued well into the pandemic because "it's just the Chinese and Italians, we're better than them". Population density, age distribution, patterns of living matter. Ignoring then all to fit your preconceived notion that all countries were equally at risk from Covid is just.. wrong.

And btw not only did Sweden's strategy result in multiple times the death rate of its neighbours, it also resulted in a similar economic downturn. So it was all for very little.

Please, enough with the hyperbole. No one suggested anything of the sort.

TBH the thought has crossed my mind many times lately. At this point, I strongly believe we're all going to get Omicron (and the next variant) eventually, and it's just a matter of time. So, more and more I just want to get it over with.

Except for the fact that ICUs would overflow, it would be fantastic to just have a "once and done" event. Let (and encourage) COVID to sweep undeterred, and all the vaccinated adults get sick for a couple of days, some of the children get sick (and many will be asymptomatic), and all the stubbornly-unvaccinated meet whatever fate awaits them, all at the same time rather than spread out over the next five years.

I'm sure the antivax people would prefer this approach, but killing off 5 or 6 million people (based on a 1.4% CFR) in the US is fucking insane.

Not only does the antivaxxers prefer this approach, it's the approach they are already actively taking. In Florida, for example (but pick whatever southern-US state you prefer): people actively refuse the vaccine and violently refuse all other accommodations (no masks, no distancing, no reduced capacity at bars).