Why Sweden Succeeded in “Flattening the Curve” and New York Failed
If flattening the curve was the primary goal of policymakers, Sweden was a success. New York, on the other hand, was not, despite widespread closures and strict enforcement of social distancing policies.Sweden’s approach of encouraging social distancing by giving responsibility to individuals may very well explain why the Swedes fared so much better than New York, where authorities disempowered individual actors and prevented nursing homes from taking sensible precautions.
You can take a statistic and make it say almost whatever you want. Some look at the results of Sweden's COVID-19 policy and say they are terrible by comparing them to neighboring countries. Others say how great they look by comparing them to New York or Belgium or Italy or somewhere else.
The fact of the matter is that even with Sweden's' more hands-off approach, they managed to "flatten the curve" far more that places like New York or Belgium which had much more draconian policies. In fact, Sweden did better than most of Europe.
In addition, many claim that Sweden's economy suffered anyway so why not be more strict and save more lives? True, Sweden's economy did suffer but theirs was one of the few European countries that saw their economy grow in the first quarter of 2020. So yes, it suffered but most likely far less than it could have. And based on the results of other places, it is hardly conclusive that being more strict would have saved more lives.
While it's convenient to argue it's about lives versus money, it isn't accurate. Poor economies cost lives in innumerable ways both in the short term and the long term.