Gato, wouldn't it also be fair to say that given their position on various mandates and greater cultivation of natural immunity (as you pointed out) EARLIER, that they likely had a greater seawall already built before delta showed up?

I think this makes the biggest difference between these two states, especially when the vaccines that Israel disseminated so rapidly turned out to be leaky garbage in terms of sterilizing spread.

Their vax % may be similar, but Sweden spent way more earlier time building herd immunity.