On 29 September 2021, Sweden was among the first countries – with Denmark and Norway – to lift all the restrictions related to COVID-19. Between 65 and 75% of the residents of the Nordic countries were fully vaccinated at the time, but the rollout was considered strong enough. In Sweden, the special pandemic legislation remained in place until the beginning of 2022. After a year and a half, the Nordic region returned to some sense of normalcy, and Sweden was no longer the outlier or the quasi-pariah state that it had been. The situation in Sweden posed a striking contrast to that of countries like Russia, which in autumn 2021 were seeing new peaks in infections and death rates along with low vaccination levels.

Nevertheless, Figure 3 reminds us of the markedly different impact of COVID-19 as measured by fatalities directly associated with the virus among the countries of northern Europe.

In proportion to the population, the Swedish death rate is at about 1,450 deaths per million people, which was significantly lower than the French (1,730), the British (2,020), the Italian (2,150) or the Belgian (2,200) rate but still much higher than rates of neighbouring nations. The measure of excess mortality (that is, death from all causes in a given year as compared to what should be expected from data for several previous years) is commonly believed to give a more accurate estimate of the true impact of COVID-19, provided that demographic statistics can be trusted. Seen in this light, and although calculation methods can vary, excess mortality in Sweden was high during four or five months of 2020, with peaks in April and December and very high for the age category over 75, but the average deviation was still among the lowest in Europe. According to Eurostat, Swedish excess mortality increased by 6.5% in 2020 as compared to the baseline of 2016– 2019, with corresponding figures of 12% for France, 18% for Belgium and up to 20% for Spain, while Denmark stood at 2%. The European average was nearly 12% higher than the baseline.