On a per capita basis, some days this week where sweden had 172 and 180 deaths in a day would be the equivalent of the US having 5600 and 6100 deaths a day.
Their approach is absolutely not working.
We really need to wait a year or two before we can tell which strategy was the best. It is not clear if the countries which managed to limit the infections will do any better in the long run than for example Sweden.
If Sweden has had a fairly sizable amount of deaths – of mainly elderly people, as we see – but its health system has not been overwhelmed for the bulk of the population and the economy has not greatly suffered, then things are arguably working out better than in countries which have minimized fatalities but are dealing with greater economic (and psychological) fallout.
What matters is deaths overall, not deaths per day.
That said, the US is a great example of how to handle the situation absolutely terribly - with a major political party probably funding and at least endorsing movements violating the lockdown and terribly unclear messaging.
No, I don't like the US's approach. Canada has had it's good and bad points and Vancouver was basically acting like Florida for a while, but the governments response has been well focused, even if we don't have the resources to throw at the problem that the US does - and the messaging has been extremely comforting and clear.
Time's already up.
As I've had to point out many times, "get to herd immunity faster" doesn't just mean let everyone get sicker sooner. The whole "flattening the curve" thing is not about an alternative to herd immunity. It's about getting there in a humane way that doesn't overwhelm health care and disproportionately affect some groups - the elderly, minorities, people with other health conditions, people who have no choice but to work and expose themselves more. "Let the chips fall where they may" is a recipe for excessive and unevenly distributed suffering. And worst of all, it might not even help reduce the total deaths over the long term. That's highly speculative and dependent on other factors.
Well, maybe if we had just engaged in a vigorous program of needle sharing and unprotected sex, we'd eventually have gotten there.
That has absolutely not been my impression, but they're probably both matters of perspective - who we talk to, what sources we read, and so on. To the extent that people do think of it as an alternative, that makes me sad.
Deaths per day is on a downward trend right now. Two weeks ago the maximum on a day was 108.