Yeah, " the article is total non sense because Sweden now has much more deaths than its neighbours" is not much of an argument.
There s not just an economic cost, but also societal psychological and health costs. How do people react when they are locked in by their government, them and their kids kept out of school, work and social life months at an end, for many without a clear hope a finding a new job or saving their business ?
Besides the likely upcoming deaths in locked down countries when reopening society, there s also the problem with reopening the countries, although this might be vicious for Sweden while it doesn t face the issue of reopening borders it has not locked in the first place. Read somewhere a very negative article about Sweden policy, claiming the its residemts might be kept locked out of other european countries when they open up for having so many cases, and I d add as a punishment for not having followed suit in locking down. This makes sense now that some european countries are discussing and signing bilateral deals to allow their residents to travel between those same countries, keeping much more restrictions on people originating elsewhere.
Also one would need to look into how tough the lockdowns were, read in Denmark it was far from extreme, many shops still having the option to open although against government s advice ( didn t read more details though).
I might have a differemt opinion if living in Denmark, but right now in Madrid where kids had to remain locked indoors 6 weeks and adults 7 weeks before they were even allowed to stroll outdoors at specific times of tge day and things are now moving very slowly, schools expected to reopen in Seotember only and at half capacity, I d much rather we let the virus rip through, don t even care for Swedish style social distancing
The threat of a second wave while the first had already nothing to envy to Sweden slows down reopening s lot btw, a painful issue when having to live through this mess
