The fact that Sweden didn’t lock down everything while most of its neighbors did made it an ideal benchmark when trying to see how effective that policy was. As I’ve already written, lock downs failed. You just can’t contain a highly contagious virus once it spreads enough, no matter what you do.

But Sweden has also come out opposing mask orders. More of their neighbors have joined them this time, including Norway, Finland, and the Netherlands. So how has Sweden compared to other countries?

Really, really well.

From a scientific or experimental perspective, Sweden is the counterexample that destroys the argument in favor of masks and lock downs. They had a mildly rough March and April (though not nearly as bad as New York City), and have had nothing to speak of since. Not that the constant declarations of their imminent (“just wait two weeks!”) destruction have done much to inform people of that.