Whether their strategy was successful or not depends on the definition of success, but -- more importantly -- I think it is still too early to tell.
Much will depend on the endgame: if there is a vaccine soon, Sweden's strategy will look foolish, since it would have been better to enforce stricter measures and wait for the vaccine. If the vaccine takes a long time to arrive, they may have immunised a larger portion of the population much quicker than those with stricter measures (basically their Nordic neighbours) and will be in a position to return to "normal" much quicker.
Sweden has a high death-toll at the moment, but I think their strategy was a valid choice. It seems that there are strong diminishing to the measures. That is, even fairly light measures slow down the spread a lot, and the stricter measures have very little punch, but much economic impact.
Running the numbers on this, my team and I guesstimated that measures representing a 5% economic slowdown already reduce the infection rate by 60%, whilst a 10% economic slowdown would buy a infection rate reduction of around 70%. A 15% slowdown would buy an infection rate reduction of around 75%. So the thing is, the trade-off is not constant between economic impacts and the reduction in the infection rate, the policies seem to have (strong!) decreasing returns.
Sweden is closer to herd immunity than its neighbours. If the vaccine comes soon, the strategy of their neighbours will look better. If the vaccine takes a long time, Sweden's strategy may turn out to have been the better strategy. It is, quite simply, too early to say at this point.
I mostly agree, but I think there are some caveats here. If the duration of immunity is shorter than expected, or if long term health issues turn out to be fairly significant and prevalent, then Sweden's strategy won't end up looking too good.
And of course the other caveat is that when these strategies were implemented, the number of unknowns about COVID was much higher. So even if the outcome of their strategy ends up being acceptable, that still doesn't mean they made the correct decision base on the knowledge that was available at the time.
Much will depend on the endgame: if there is a vaccine soon, Sweden's strategy will look foolish, since it would have been better to enforce stricter measures and wait for the vaccine. If the vaccine takes a long time to arrive, they may have immunised a larger portion of the population much quicker than those with stricter measures (basically their Nordic neighbours) and will be in a position to return to "normal" much quicker.
Sweden has a high death-toll at the moment, but I think their strategy was a valid choice. It seems that there are strong diminishing to the measures. That is, even fairly light measures slow down the spread a lot, and the stricter measures have very little punch, but much economic impact.
Running the numbers on this, my team and I guesstimated that measures representing a 5% economic slowdown already reduce the infection rate by 60%, whilst a 10% economic slowdown would buy a infection rate reduction of around 70%. A 15% slowdown would buy an infection rate reduction of around 75%. So the thing is, the trade-off is not constant between economic impacts and the reduction in the infection rate, the policies seem to have (strong!) decreasing returns.
Sweden is closer to herd immunity than its neighbours. If the vaccine comes soon, the strategy of their neighbours will look better. If the vaccine takes a long time, Sweden's strategy may turn out to have been the better strategy. It is, quite simply, too early to say at this point.