Sweden's decision to eschew lockdown and leave pubs, restaurants, shopping centres and primary schools open throughout the pandemic generated furious discussion internationally. Millions of people across the world have been confined to their homes, watched businesses go under, and struggled to stay on top of their studies amid wave after wave of restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus. But for some 10 million Swedes, the eighteen months since the first local Covid-19 case was registered last February have been largely unremarkable. That is not to say the virus has not taken its toll - nearly 15,000 people have died in total, around 1,450 per million. But that death rate is lower than the average for the European Union as a whole (1,684), and well below those of France, Spain, Italy and the UK. Some now concede Sweden has not become the cautionary tale many predicted. Many times I would have thought that the situation would have gone a different way, but it worked for Sweden," said Samir Bhatt, professor of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen, and one of the team at Imperial College who pushed the UK's lockdown strategy. "They achieved infection control; they managed to keep infections relatively low and they didn't have any health care collapse." The real benefits of Sweden's radical policy, however, can be seen in the economy, the psychological impact, and in schools. In the end, GDP shrank by just 2.8 per cent, significantly lower than the EU average of 6 per cent.