And they didn’t destroy their economy.
the virus is hitting those people whether or not we lockdowned or not....
They didn’t torpedo it to the extent we did, but it’s imploding anyway. Sweden’s Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson said their economy is going to shrink 7% this year. The debt office in Sweden said their borrowing to cover emergency spending was up 30x. There was a survey recently in Sweden (I can’t speak to how well it was done or how much trust can be placed in the results) stating that 40% of Sweden’s private businesses were at risk of closing.
It’s worth noting that much of Sweden’s economy is already socialized anyway. They collect nearly half their GDP in taxes. The government there owns part or all of many of the largest businesses operating there. While I might look to Sweden as an example of a more sane response to COVID-19, I certainly wouldn’t look at them as an example of how to run an economy and I wouldn’t call them any sort of economic success story.