Sure, there're a lot of factors that can affect how disease spreads, like demographics, genetics, climate, health system, sociability, temperature, cafe culture

Sure, there're a lot of factors that can affect how disease spreads, like demographics, genetics, climate, health system, sociability, temperature, cafe culture, saunas, wfh incidence, international travel, travel links, tourism... I'm quite happy to accept that 'population density' is inadequate - I mention it only in passing in my comment, the point I'm making is that Sweden is not a country you would expect to perform at the european average, and given that, the most natural thing to do is to compare a country with its neighbors. Neighboring countries usually share many factors, and on top of that, they have a direct transmission effect too. Sweden did much worse than its neighbors. The explanation for that is either in the ways that Sweden is different from its neighbors, or in the difference in public policy. I certainly don't know which to blame, but I don't want to hear any more lionization of the Swedish approach that doesn't solidly get to grips with that question.