I just googled to see how Sweden is getting on (not so well) and this article came up www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/03/swedish-model-failed-covid-19
"Our future historians will doubtless wonder, too, just how, in the imagination of many on the British right, Sweden went from gang violence-riddled dystopia to exemplar in a few months. The answer is quite simple: the same small group of people who talked so fervently about Sweden’s libertarian refusal to lock down – newspaper columnists, backbench MPs, anonymously funded thinktanks – have massively outsized access to British public debate.
All of this is very familiar. In my latest book, I chart how a cadre of backbench Tory MPs, anonymously funded thinktanks and ubiquitous media commentators turned “no-deal Brexit” from an outlandish notion to “nothing to fear”. During the pandemic, the same strategies were employed – often by the same people .....
....Sunak is part of the growing libertarian trend among Conservative MPs, many of whom have been vociferous in their opposition to renewed lockdown measures. Lockdown sceptics have had financial support, too: the much-discussed Great Barrington declaration, which advocated herd immunity, was coordinated by a US thinktank that has received funding from the billionaire Koch brothers, who pumped huge sums into the Republican party and its fringes.
All of this has shaped Britain’s haphazard pandemic response. Faced with pressure from lockdown sceptics in the media and inside his own party, Johnson dithered, time and again."
The bit in bold is what cat has been talking about.