At a press conference last week, Anders Tegnell said a massive decline in new COVID-19 cases shows Sweden's "lighter touch" strategy is doing what it was designed to do.

"It really is yet another sign that the Swedish strategy is working," Tegnell, Sweden's top epidemiologist, said. "It is possible to slow contagion fast with the measures we are taking in Sweden."

Unlike most nations in the world, Sweden avoided a hard lockdown. The nation of 10 million people instead opted for a strategy that sought to encourage social distancing through public information, cooperation, and individual responsibility. Restaurants, bars, public pools, libraries, and most schools remained open with certain capacity limits.

Sweden's decision to forego lockdowns brought a barrage of scrutiny and criticism. Its approach was described as a "cautionary tale" by The New York Times.

But as I've pointed out, the criticism stemmed less from the results of Sweden's experiment than the nature of the experiment. There are ample examples of nations (and US states) that have suffered far more from COVID-19 than Sweden even though these countries (and states) initiated hard lockdowns requiring citizens to shelter at home.

Perhaps the best way to measure the success of Sweden's policies is to compare the outcome models predicted to the actual results.