Sweden has now overtaken the UK, Italy and Belgium to have the highest coronavirus per capita death rate in the world, throwing its decision to avoid a strict lockdown into further doubt.

But as its neighbours in Norway, Denmark, and Finland, who all put in place much tighter restrictions, have seen dramatically lower numbers of deaths over the past month, the strategy has also come under growing criticism.

Frodo Forland, Norway's state epidemiologist, last week complained that there had been almost no critical debate or media coverage of the high death rate in Sweden.

"It feels like you want to support your own government and strategy," he told the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper. "But Sweden is going against the whole world."

Lena Einhorn, a Swedish virologist and author, told the Daily Telegraph that she was frustrated that Tegnell and his team still refused to alter the country's strategy despite growing evidence of failure.

"They have made a decision and if they admit they have taken a bad decision that means taking responsibility for creating a bad situation," she said.

There were people posting here saying how Russia did such a great job from the start and had no infections. By closing their border. where are those people now? Russia is now the second worst impacted country in the world after the United States.