Why look at these countries? Well, they seem to be on the opposite spectrum of what to do: lockdown and control everyone vs. let them choose how to live.
Source
Coronavirus Numbers as per Worldometer on 04/20
USA
Coronavirus Cases: 792,759
Deaths: 42,514
Sweden
Coronavirus Cases: 14,777
Deaths: 1,580
The number of infected with coronavirus is likely larger, since not everyone gets tested. Most people have mild symptoms or don't even notice. But, these are the numbers we are given.
Death Rate of Infected
The death rate for infected in the US is: 5.36% (lockdown strategy).
The death rate for infected in Sweden is: 10.69% (herd immunity strategy).
Seems like the non-lockdown, herd immunity is a big failure, eh? Not so fast.
Population Count
These are the population of each country:
USA
328.2 million
Sweden
10.23 million
Population Death Rates
The death rate for the US population is: 0.0129%.
The death rate for the Swedish population is: 0.0154%.
That's pretty much the same. The big difference is that the virus has been allowed to spread to more people and create a herd immunity and quicken to virus' life cycle and let the elderly and vulnerable out of lockdown-isolation sooner because everyone else will be pretty much immune from spreading it since they already have the antibodies for it.
The difference is also, ya know, the added bonus of letting people keep working and living their lives. But that's not a big deal according to some. I think it's a big deal though. For some, they prefer to force many people to not go to work, shut down businesses, and make all people isolate, lockdown and distance themselves. Rather than only the elderly and vulnerable doing that lockdown isolation routine for their own health. Everyone else could have kept to their lives and chosen a voluntary isolation/lockdown if they wanted to.
We know the US medical system has directives from the CDC, confirmed by the White House's Dr. Birx, to count any death where someone is infected with coronavirus as having died of/from coronavirus on their death certificate. This inflates the actual death count. Since that is the case, then the number of deaths is lower and so is the death rate, which plays into the favor of the lockdown working better than herd immunity.
So its does look like the lockdown works best, but not in the long run as there are so many people who aren't infected and in the meantime people can't work or survive or go out, etc. Then the rest of the population doesn't have immunity because the infection didn't spread as much, and this keeps the vulnerable at risk for longer, as the virus will just take longer to spread.
That's the whole "flatten the curve" idea. Instead of it being over in a few weeks, it's going to be dragged out over months, and you still get the same infection rate, and the same deaths because the area under the curve is the same whether its flattened or not.
Source
The whole reason to flatten the curve and impose a lockdown to slow the spread, not stop it, was to give the medical system a break. Now we are seeing that the medical system is not overwhelmed, as many hospitals are empty, while only few have issues dealing with infected coming in. The capacity at one hospital might be maxed out, but not all hospitals in the area. They aren't sharing the burden
Number of People Tested for Coronavirus
The US has tested 4,003,551 people. Sweden has tested 94,500.
Sweden has tested 0.923% of it's population, while the US has tested 1.219% of the population. The percentage of people tested in Sweden is 75.7% of the percentage of people tested in the US. Or the US tested 132% more of it's population compared to Sweden.
If you increase the amount of people tested, it will lower the infected death rate. If Sweden had tested the same amount, it would be around 124,740 tested. Assuming the infected rate would be proportional to the amount of people tested, the total infected would become: 19,506. Assuming the deaths are always tested and that number wouldn't change, this would give an infected death rate of 8.1%. This is only in comparison to the US. Compared to other countries it could be higher or lower.
Note also that the US has a population density of 34 people per square kilometer while Sweden has 23 people per square kilometer (according to totals on Wikipedia). This means people are closer together in the US compared to Sweden. This would increase the spread of infection. This indicates that the numbers would go up in all areas, not necessarily that there would be more deaths relative to the amount of infected.
How does that compare to the annual flu death rates?
Flu Deaths (aka Influenza-Like Deaths)
US
2018-2019: 34,157 (25,555 among 65+ years old, 74.8% of deaths)
2017-2018: 61,099 (50,903 among 65+ years old, 83.3% of deaths)
Flu infections 2018-2019: 44,802,629
Flu infections 2017-2018: 35,520,883
Infected death rate 2018-2019: 0.0762%
Infected death rate 2017-2018: 0.172%
Population death rate 2018-2019: 0.0104%
Population death rate 2017-2018: 0.0186%
I didn't do Sweden as I couldn't find numbers easily.
COVID Compared to Flu
Coronavirus death rates per population:
The death rate for the US population is: 0.0129%.
The death rate for the Swedish population is: 0.0154%.
Past two years of flu deaths rates in the US population:
Population death rate 2018-2019: 0.0104%
Population death rate 2017-2018: 0.0186%
Seems pretty close. The 2017-2018 US influenza season was worse than the current US numbers for coronavirus. If the herd immunity non-lockdown approach would have been taken, the coronavirus would have moved quicker through the population, being over sooner, and less disruptive overall.
Applying the non-lockdown herd immunity strategy population death rate from Sweden (0.0154%) to the US population (328,200,000), we get this many death from COVID-19: 50,542 deaths.
That's where the US deaths fro COVID-19 would likely be if they did the same as the people of Sweden: voluntarily choosing to distance themselves, isolate, or wear masks if they want to, or close down their restaurants, etc. But it's not being imposed on the population by the government. People are free to do it if they want. 50,542 COVID-19 deaths is still less than the seasonal flu deaths from 2017-2018.
People are going to suffer more in the end with the socio-economic hardships that were imposed by the authoritarian government policies.
Anyone can do the math. Think for yourself. Did we get played? I'd say so...