Since we're a wildly speculating about herd immunity (without concrete evidence like widespread antibodies testing and a clear proven link between antibodies an

Since we're a wildly speculating about herd immunity (without concrete evidence like widespread antibodies testing and a clear proven link between antibodies and long-term immunity), in all likelihood, Sweden can afford to be lax because all of its neighbors are not being lax. If Germany decided to adopt Sweden's or the US's lax approach, the virus would have ravaged Germany like it is the US, and would have rapidly spread into small neighboring countries like Sweden. This isn't just the case for Sweden, It applies to all the small Nordic countries that are seeing good outcomes. The policies they enact are ultimately a rounding error compared to the impact of policies enacted in large neighboring countries like Germany and France. This is basically what happened in the US, where states like Texas and Florida appeared to be doing well early on, but only because lockdowns in New York and other areas with early outbreaks temporarily protected them. Once everything reopened, those states were inundated with the pandemic. Canada is only doing better perhaps because it still has entry restrictions on visitors from the US. If they open up their borders to US citizens before the pandemic is brought under control in the US, their efforts will be for naught.