https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/it-s-been-so-so-surreal-critics-sweden-s-lax-pandemic-policies-face-fierce-backlash
The country did not ignore the threat entirely. Although stores and restaurants remained open, many Swedes stayed home, at rates similar to their European neighbors, surveys and mobile phone data suggest.
, The country has seen roughly 590 deaths per million—on par with 591 per million in the United States and 600 in Italy, but many times the 50 per million in Norway, 108 in Denmark, and 113 in Germany.
Stockholm’s nursing homes ended up losing 7% of their 14,000 residents to the virus. The vast majority were not taken to hospitals.
One measure of COVID-19’s impact, excess mortality, was far higher in Sweden than in neighboring countries and Germany,
The government limited gatherings to a maximum of 500 people,
Upper secondary schools and universities went online.
Indirect data suggest children in Sweden were infected far more often than their Finnish counterparts.
Sweden’s summer traditions may have helped: Hundreds of thousands leave cities and towns for remote cabins in what amounts to 3 months of national social distancing.