As coronavirus infections flare up across the world, from Spain to Australia, there are two countries worth paying attention to: Italy and Sweden https://trib.al/5co5dSU 

While the daily case count in Spain rose past 2,000 last week and France’s surpassed 1,000, @LionelRALaurent points out that Italy and Sweden’s daily cases are averaging around 200 each, with no rebound in sight.

What are they doing differently? http://trib.al/5co5dSU 

These countries once stood out for the wrong reasons:

Italy’s draconian lockdown saved lives, but it came late
Sweden’s lockdown controversially never came at all

Both have death tolls of almost 600 per one million people http://trib.al/5co5dSU 

Still, with Italy gradually reopening its economy and Sweden maintaining its policy, both nations have found their stride in living with the virus http://trib.al/5co5dSU 

Italy’s top-down, public-health management of life after lockdown is working.

As in other nations, social-distancing rules require people to keep one meter apart and wear face masks in public spaces, but Italy has a particularly high level of enforcement http://trib.al/5co5dSU 

Italians have to:

Have their temperature checked before taking a train
Give restaurants full contact details for infection tracing
Fill out special forms for access to tourist hotspots

Those who break quarantine face fines or jail time http://trib.al/5co5dSU 

Regulations extend to how Italians dance in a nightclub or sunbathe on the beach.

Memories of harrowing scenes in overloaded hospitals are a motivator, fostering a feeling of collective responsibility and fear http://trib.al/5co5dSU 

So if the lesson from Italy is that bureaucracy, enforcement and obedience are key to controlling the virus, what’s with Sweden?

Despite the controversy, grim death toll and continued rise in infections, the country has stuck to its approach http://trib.al/5co5dSU 

In contrast to Italy, Sweden has:

No mandatory mask-wearing
Social distancing is recommended rather than enforced
People are advised to stay home if they’re feeling unwell

But Swedes haven’t benefited from simply “letting the virus rip” http://trib.al/5co5dSU 

Behavioral changes have taken place. The flow of human traffic is still not back to normal in many areas, and some rules have been tightened:

Ban on visits to elderly care homes
Shutdown of restaurants in Stockholm that weren’t following guidelines http://trib.al/5co5dSU 

It’s not a model that can be easily reproduced elsewhere, but the real secret might be consistency.

If the aim is to live with the virus until a vaccine is found, a stop-and-go approach to rules (see: flip-flops on face masks) might be counterproductive http://trib.al/5co5dSU