Their gamble is that it will come out in the wash - in the first period they will have scary, unpleasant numbers. But as the disease progresses through every community will have the same scary, unpleasant numbers - but in Sweden the economy will be able to reopen fully and finally in a month or two after everyone is recovered. But for the rest of us, it'll take an extra six months or a year; the same amount of people will die[] it's just a matter of how fast or slow.

[] in the non trivial sense, since obviously we'll all die; but presumably we won't all die from this pandemic.