The Prime Minister of Sweden has warned the country's people that thousands will likely die as its relaxed response to the coronavirus outbreak comes under fire.
Unlike other European countries aside from Belarus - which remains largely open for business despite the pandemic - Sweden has not entered full lockdown mode in response to the disease.
Shops and restaurants remain open to the public, who have not been made to stay home and were only recently banned from gatherings of more than 50 people.
Parks and motorways remain busy and supermarket shelves are largely unaffected by stockpiling attempts, with hand sanitiser the only item that is regularly difficult to find.
However, on Sunday Sweden reported an 8% increase in its Covid-19 death toll to 401 fatalities, more than its three Nordic neighbours combined.
As cries grow from opposition parties to implement social distancing rules, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has warned Swedes of the sad reality that will soon be on them.
“We will have more seriously ill people who need intensive care,” the Social Democrat told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
“We are facing thousands of deaths. We need to prepare for that.”
When asked about whether the government had taken the wrong path in response to the virus, Mr Löfven suggested that the jury was still out.
"I don't think you ought to dramatise [the differences]," he said.
"We're doing it in a different way. Sometimes that is because we are in difference phases [of the pandemic]."
The Swedish government's response to the viral outbreak has been to put trust in its people to comply with a number of guidelines.
Anders Tegnell, the Swedish chief epidemiologist, has been a steady voice of calm throughout the pandemic.
“We think we’ve already taken the most important measures,” he said last week.
“Stay home if you feel ill; work from home if you can; and ensure that we protect our older fellow citizens.
"You could alter other rules, such as those governing trips to the restaurant or gatherings, but you get the best effect when everyone simply sticks to the basic code of conduct.”
Those who follow his reasoning hope that the approach works on the basis of Swedish exceptionalism.
Sweden has a young and healthy population compared to most European countries and it is commonplace for people to live alone, meaning social isolation is easier to achieve.
Nicholas Aylott, associate professor of political science at Sodertorn University in Stockholm, wrote in his blog: "Who is right? Have Sweden’s neighbours overreacted?
“Or has Sweden under-reacted? No one can tell — yet. There is no guarantee that insulation from politics will bring better outcomes.”
The burning question in Swedish society is now whether this laissez-faire, guidelines-rather-than-rules approach can be maintained as the death toll rises.
Although the Covid-19 fatality rate in the Nordic country is far from exponential and new confirmed cases a day hover between 400 and 600, political pressure on the Social Democrats to enforce draconian measures has been mounting.
Last week 2,300 doctors and academics, including head of the Nobel foundation, Carl-Henrik Heldin, published an open letter urging the government to change course.
Some of them argued that Stockholm should be locked down following the deaths of more than 50 elderly people in its care homes from Covid-19.
"We don't have a choice, we have to close Stockholm right now," Cecilia Soderberg-Naucler, Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis at the Karolinska Institute and signatory of the letter, told Reuters.
"We must establish control over the situation, we cannot head in to a situation where we get complete chaos. No one has tried this route, so why should we test it first in Sweden, without informed consent?"
Marcus Carlsson, a mathematician at Lund University, who has argued that there is no evidence of herd immunity, described the Swedish government's approach as "a mad experiment with 10 million people".
He added Tegnell and Löfven were "playing Russian roulette with the Swedish population."
Over the past week there have been signs that the government is changing course.
The maximum size of mass events has been cut from 499 to 49 and bars and restaurants were told to offer only table service.
A number of cultural institutions, including the Abba museum, have closed of their own volition.
Whether the country will keep along its lonely course and refrain from restricting its peoples' movements however, remains to be seen.
