The question is deaths. There is zero possibility that the US has more infections than Italy when our deaths are clearly lower, yet we are on the board as having far more cases. That's obviously flatly incorrect.

The number for infections/cases is a matter of testing, and we are able to execute a ridiculous amount of daily tests for our much larger population. Sweden is not testing to a high degree like Germany, South Korea, or Taiwan. The question is if their death per capita will be lower, equivalent, or higher than Italy or Spain, and if their economic recovery will be lower, equivalent or higher than other countries who quarantined sooner.

We aren't going to get a real per capita death rate for about a year, and that's because nobody is counting untested deaths, such as what appears to be high fatalities inside nursing homes. However we should get a general idea in the short term, about a month and though I feel like Sweden might be undercounting hospital deaths as compared to Norway I think it's close enough to get a general sense.

And what shall we agree is the measure of "better recovery." GDP? Jobs? Fatality rate/years lost outside of the virus due to economic hardship (likelier a longer term data point)?

For instance, though previous economic collapses have actually gone with a lower fatality rate, one might argue that increased lifespans due to superior health outcomes should be considered and perhaps there is data that shows this (I haven't seen this). Instead of dying at say 60 due to worse quality of life causing earlier death, people die at 80, and that extra 20 life years should be counted as "better." But, really you can have better or worse outcomes from a variety of other factors. For instance, a much higher amount of your doctors quit because they feel like they were sent into a war while everyone else partied.

Probably the easier debate is to compare Norwegian economic outcomes, fatality rates, unemployment, and future fatality rates vs Swedish ones. However, do fatality rates count the most? If you have much better employment but higher fatality over 10 years is that a better outcome? At least people are working as compared to being dead? Or perhaps it should be "life years lost." There can be more dead older people, but not at the expense of more dead younger people due to economic hardship. So, 1 suicide of a 40 year old due to economic hardship is the equivalent loss of five 75 year olds dying of COVID?

Of course, we've previously been saying that people's reactions to stress are their own personal responsibility, so maybe suicides due to economic forces shouldn't be considered, since they are under the person's control. They should just cope, as long as they aren't starving, which it takes quite a lot to starve to death.

Should it only be health outcomes like cancer and heart attacks? (Not addiction). There is also a non-insignificant amount of suicides in the employment sector, so we would have to compare like to like.

So let's back it up again "ultimately recover far better than other countries" is probably going to be easiest to do by comparing Norway to Sweden at a general picture of deaths per capita and GDP impact and recovery.

So is your thought that Sweden will have roughly the same or slightly more deaths per capita than Norway, but they will have a faster economic spring back, and if we watch the dip in Norway and Sweden and the trajectory back between Norway and Sweden as a percentage of their previous GDPs, Sweden will come out better? Or do you want to quantify it a different way?

I think some people might want to include the concept of "give me liberty or give me death." Being able to freely choose to party at a bar when you know the risks might be worth losing 5, 10, 25% of average lifespan to some people. The better outcome is the freedom, not the lowered mortality or the jobs. In that case, Sweden wins no matter what. Generally though, here people argue that freedom of personal choice also goes with similar to better outcomes, with the upside of personal choice.