I don't know where you are, but in the US lockdowns were not as they've been portrayed in the media. As noted in this post, the US should have locked down far earlier than they did. Instead the US only locked down when things were on the verge of collapse. And then in most places lockdowns were loose and extremely brief. Maybe in a place like New York there was something resembling a strict lockdown, but this was not the case across the country. New York's lockdowns were pretty much lifted by the fall also, and had been gradually loosened throughout the late spring and summer anyway. I'm not sure what lockdowns looked like where you were, but lockdowns in the US were never done as they should have been if we really hoped to eradicate the virus.

So I think wrt Sweden there's been this false dichotomy drawn between strict lockdowns in the US, and Sweden, which didn't lock down at all. Sweden was not some free-for-all as has often been portrayed. Schools and universities were closed for students 16 and up. And although there was not a mandate to close schools for younger kids, many schools went remote nonetheless for at least a year, which is longer than many schools in New York were remote (I've written before that the school I worked at was only remote for less than half a semester).

So now of course, most in the US question the reasoning behind lockdowns while praising Sweden's let er rip approach, however neither portrayal really gets at the reality of the situation in either country.