Sweden has twice the death rate as its closest neighbors (both geographically and culturally), Norway and Denmark. Note that the differences in policy between Sweden and other European countries were largest early on in the pandemic, and the differences in Sweden's death rate then were even more extreme.

In a broader international comparison, Sweden (and Europe generally) did not fare well. Countries that took a zero-CoVID approach, such as China, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Singapore ended up with much lower death rates, because most of them vaccinated their populations before allowing the virus to spread.