Compare Sweden with its neighbour, Norway. Norway has restrictions similar to the US or Canada (afaik).
Sweden’s population is about 10 million, Norway’s about 5.6 million.
As of 14:40, April 4, Sweden had 6,380 cases; Norway had 5,579.
Approximate cases/million people: Sweden 650; Norway 1,000 (about the same as the USA).
Based on that, I’d say that’s too early to draw any conclusions about which strategy works best.
The big issue is whether Sweden’s hospitals will be overrun — recall, we’re trying to flatten to curve to prevent shortages. We’re not seeing that so far.
In case anyone wants to do their own analysis, I got my stats on China virus cases at the following site:
Since it looks like Sweden is going to abandon that strategy we'll never know. I see no reason why the strategy wouldn't work in the long run but the days where a few thousand people for love of country will be willing to take the fall and hold the line are long gone.
Sweden’s population is about 10 million, Norway’s about 5.6 million.
As of 14:40, April 4, Sweden had 6,380 cases; Norway had 5,579.
Norway has conducted 20X as many tests as Sweden, and Sweden has almost 6X as many deaths as Norway. Clearly, Sweden has a much higher infection rate than Norway, but doesn't have robust testing.