The death rate maybe higher but they are in decline right now and that without lockdown, I would say the strategy succeed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...
It also says "Sweden did not record an economic contraction in Q1 of 2020", which is a misleading claim, given the lockdowns largely came in the last few weeks of that quarter, and later goes on to acknowledge "Forecasters agree that Sweden will face a severe recession in 2020".
I don't think this really supports the case you're trying to make.
Plus, some types of death are an economic boon because they:
a) cause economic churn and the associated fees, charges, and taxes
b) free up resources that were tied up with non-producers
I think the numbers show that countries who don't have a second wave had a strong first wave, where the lockdown came too late.
Examples: Italy, France, Germany
Then you have countries that had a strict lockdown on time, which resulted in rising rates as soon as lockdown was lifted.
Examples: Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore
Having said that, the latter countries do seem to fare better than the former, second wave or not.
At the same time, it's not possible at this time to declare "sweden's strategy has failed" - there's plenty of time for other countries to catch up on excess mortality.
I do think there's a very real chance that, assuming hospitals are not overwhelmed, there won't be a lot of difference in overall mortality between developed countries. This disease is, apparently, super infectious after all, and eradication seems unlikely.
100% of pre-vaccine, pre-containment pandemics ended in herd immunity.
The science is clear. If left alone, COVID-19 would rapidly burn itself out (and take about 0.5% of the population with it).
Before vaccination measles epidemics happened every few years, killing over 2 million people each year. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles
> Before the introduction of measles vaccine in 1963 and widespread vaccination, major epidemics occurred approximately every 2–3 years and measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.
Where's the herd immunity to measles?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#History
> Herd immunity was first recognized as a naturally occurring phenomenon in the 1930s when A. W. Hedrich published research on the epidemiology of measles in Baltimore, and took notice that after many children had become immune to measles, the number of new infections temporarily decreased, including among susceptible children.
(Measles is also fairly uniquely virulent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number)