Back in February 2020 I made the prediction that 225,000 would die of COVID19 in the US by November. I believed that was the low end, based on BBC reporting about the hospital overload and subsequent lockdown in Wuhan (the REAL Draconian measures); and my knowledge about how US citizens would resist a true lockdown. The actual number: 250,000. I further predicted that botched National leadership would cost Trump the election. CORRECT!
Sweden was able to avoid the dire predictions without lockdown because of demographics and superior civic culture. First, Swedes are more solitary with smaller median and mean household sizes. Population density is low, and there are far fewer group and mass gatherings. They eat a far better diet, exercise more and spend more time outside. They don't suffer from obesity, diabetes and heart disease at nearly the rates of US citizens.
Second, when the government makes a rational case for suggested behaviour, they follow it. They stayed home more, gathered less, distanced and wore masks.
They still had a higher mortality rate than their neighbors Iceland, Norway and Finland, high enough that refraining from lockdown and mandates is now considered a mistake by many health professionals.
OTOH, the patchwork of poorly enforced lockdowns, mandates and interstate travel bans in the US resulted in worse behaviour than Sweden's voluntary virus protocol. This PREDICTABLY bad behaviour is the reason for the accuracy of my forecast last year, and also for my prediction on election day that we would top 500,000 deaths by the end of February - which was also chillingly accurate.
Now I am looking at two of my trusted sources disagreeing wildly about the short term prognosis in the US: Scott Gottlieb of Pfizer saying the third wave is subsiding, and Michael Osterholm saying the more infectious variants will make the impending fourth wave worse than previous outbreaks for cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. I am inclined to believe the latter, because I already see people act as if our slowly increasing vaccinations mean life as normal can resume at the same time as b.117, b.1351 and b.1 are growing exponentially.