“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington

Its decision to carry on in the face of the pandemic has yielded a surge of deaths without sparing its economy from damage — a red flag as the United States and Britain move to lift lockdowns.

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While Sweden has avoided the worst outbreaks in Italy, Spain and Britain, it has also seen an extraordinary increase in deaths, mortality data shows.