Sweden and the United States have taken different approaches to the coronavirus pandemic, but they both may end up with high death rates.
Sweden has …
Sweden and the United States have taken different approaches to the coronavirus pandemic, but they both may end up with high death rates.
Sweden has avoided placing the country under lockdown, leaving schools and nonessential businesses open and urging its residents to social distance. States across the US, meanwhile, have relied on stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of the virus — but many have been met with protests, even as experts say that lifting lockdowns too soon could cause a spike in COVID-19 deaths.
Sweden’s controversial approach, which seems to rely on “herd immunity” to stop transmission through mass infection, has deeply affected the country of 10.23 million people. It has seen 23,216 cases of COVID-19 and 2,854 deaths from the virus — a death rate of 279.98 deaths per 1 million people, one of the highest in the world.
The United States, which has a population of 328.2 million, has seen 1,152,372 cases of COVID-19 and 67,456 deaths from the virus, meaning it has experienced a rate of 205.53 deaths per 1 million people.
While the US death rate per capita is only three-quarters of Sweden’s, both are high.
Sweden and the US are both among the top 10 countries with the highest death rate per capita from COVID-19, according to data from Satista. Based on the data, Canada has nearly half the death rate of the US, at 108.02 per 1 million people. Other Nordic countries are even lower — Norway has a rate of 40.
