It's important that I say the data I am using is from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and there are many caveats about whether the data are showing the same thing for different countries and whether all deaths are being included.
If Sweden carries on with its lockdown policy, presumably I would expect the death rate to remain relatively higher than other countries. Two more weeks should allow enough time to get a sense of this.
The UK and Sweden have so far suffered respectively 511 and 358 deaths per million cumulatively. We do not know what the infection fatality rate (IFR) for the virus is but if I look at San Marino, they have had 1213 deaths per million. This is 0.12%. The back of my envelope says it is going to be at least this number everywhere. On this basis, and continuing with my envelope, if we carry on with the current death rate of 6 per million per day, the UK will require another 120 days and Sweden another 140 days to clear the infection.
In reality, the IFR is going to be higher than this and will vary by the demographics of each country. A recent German study concluded that it is 0.36% in a particular part of that country. If that number is correct, that means we have at least another year to run. If it's higher than this then it's longer.
