Sweden has had 2,300 COVID-19 deaths for 10 million people. The USA has 25 times as many deaths, but 32 times the population. Indeed, American cities with similar population and density to Stockholm have far fewer deaths. Washington DC is a little smaller and has similar density, but has had 165 deaths, versus over 1,100 in Stockholm. (Deaths are doubling in both countries every two weeks, so they seem to be at similar points in their overall trajectories.)
Similarly, the death rate in the US outside of NYC is comparable to that of Germany. (NYC has no counterpart in Germany; it’s almost three times as dense as Berlin, and more than twice as tense as Munich.)
But that’s a political decision the Swedes have made, and maybe it will prove to be the right one. It could be that, in the fall, the virus resurges in places where people have been sheltering and have not developed anti-bodies, while Swedes manage to avoid that resurgence because they never shut down. No expert can tell you which way it will be. They can tell you a discrete fact (sheltering in place will save more lives than otherwise), but are in no position to plug that fact into a value framework and reach a decision. But politicians must make a decision one way or the other.