The Prime Minister’s flirtation with the “Swedish experiment” was short-lived and at the end of March 2020, a draconian lockdown was introduced. Ministers knew that this would have a terrible impact on the economy but felt that the risk of the NHS being overwhelmed left them no choice.

A the journal published in the journal Nature last year examined what would have happened if the UK had followed the Swedish approach. Even assuming that the public here would have been as willing to follow non-mandatory recommendations as the Swedes (a fairly large assumption) the death toll in the UK would have at least doubled.

This time, the decision is much less clear, not least because vaccines provide protection against the virus. The news from South Africa, one of the countries where Omicron first appeared, has also been encouraging. Although more contagious, the new variant has resulted in fewer hospital admissions and deaths. The number of cases, after rising rapidly, has now begun to decline.

Some caution is required when comparing the two countries, as South Africa has a much younger population than the United Kingdom, and it is summer rather than mid-winter there. Nevertheless, it is clear that the government has set a high bar to impose further restrictions.

The Prime Minister’s weakened political position is one reason why the government has become Swedish. The risk of causing serious damage to the economy when it looks particularly vulnerable is another, as this will be a tough year for the British public. Inflation is rising, interest rates are rising and energy bills are expected to skyrocket in the spring just as Rishi Sunak’s increase in social security contributions takes effect.

The cumulative effect is a huge cut in living standards. According to the think tank Resolution Foundation, the average household will be £ 1,000 a year worse. Those with the lowest incomes will be hit particularly hard by sky-high gas and electricity bills.

Under the circumstances, it is easy to see why the government is unwilling to add to the economic pain by imposing stricter restrictions to slow down the spread of the Omicron variant. Fresh curbs mean slower growth and a blow to public finances. They would also test the resilience of the labor market.

The Swedes received a lot of criticism for their go-it-alone way. Although the death toll was much lower than the initial pessimistic forecasts, it was still higher than in the Scandinavian neighbors, where severe restrictions were imposed. In addition, the first hit for the economy was as serious in liberal Sweden as it was in locked Denmark.

As I said, when the second anniversary of Covid’s arrival looms, governments are beginning to see the benefits of the Swedish approach. This is partly due to the fact that Sweden now has one lower mortality than countries that went through the entire lockdown route, including the UK, France, Spain and Italy. It is in the lower half of the EU league death toll table when the size of the population is taken into account. The economic recovery has been fairly rapid. Britain is still struggling to get back to the levels before Covid: Sweden had managed it by mid-2021.

But there are other factors as well. Sweden has avoided the problem of lockdown fatigue and has not caused harm to its children’s life chances because schools were kept open throughout the pandemic.

All this indicates that the Nature magazine will not be the last word about the Swedish experiment. There have been valuable few benefits to the pandemic, but one of them is that it has thrown up rich country-by-country data for academics from all disciplines – epidemiologists, economists, educators, sociologists – to investigate and argue about.

Different approaches have also been tried within countries. The four constituent nations of Britain have exercised their own powers, so it should soon be possible to assess the effect of closing nightclubs in Scotland and Wales, but not in England, on New Year’s Eve. EU countries have varied in their attitude, while the United States provides 50 states to study.

What is clear is that no country got everything right and everyone made mistakes, unsurprisingly given that they did not expect a global pandemic. It is also clear, as time goes on, that governments – whether in London, Edinburgh, Rome or Paris – are only tightening restrictions with reluctance. In a way, it is a compliment to the Swedes because they may have been into something from the beginning.