Coping with COVID-19, Italian and Swedish style: Opposite strategies, similar outcomes

The global coronavirus pandemic instigated a range of national strategies for managing the crisis, no two more divergent than those of Italy and Sweden. The former chose to fight the virus through a strict lockdown, while the latter took a much more permissive path largely based on personal responsibility. As Italy reopens after months of individual and societal isolation, Prof. Giuliano di Baldassare, director of the Center for Natural Hazards and Disaster Sciences at Uppsala University, discusses how despite the radically different responses, the outcomes in Italy and Sweden seem at this point remarkably similar.