The criticism of Sweden’s model, pointing to the slightly higher death toll than other countries, assumes that all those lives must have been saved through lock

The criticism of Sweden’s model, pointing to the slightly higher death toll than other countries, assumes that all those lives must have been saved through lockdowns. But is to institute strict lockdown measures for the sake of those elderly victims, effectively not to claim that that 1% or less of the population should be able to dictate the lifestyles of the rest of the population? If the median age of death is well over 70 with multiple comorbidities, I’m not sure there is a real democratic mandate (among a population familiar with the hard statistics) for shutting down society so drastically that it prevents, for example, young people from doing their ordinary socializing and courtship rituals. Yes, Sweden could have done more to protect care homes, but I don’t find its eschewing of a lockdown to be objectionable. As for this bit in the article. “‘We usually have tourists coming to Sweden in the summer,’ Isaksson says. ‘Who the heck is going to come to Sweden? No one wants to come to Sweden’” On some outdoors forums I participate in, people under lockdown often expressed envy of members from Sweden who were free to trek or cycle all this time, and some younger people reasonably unconcerned with COVID-19 are now keen to see that country’s impressive nature for themselves as soon as borders reopen.