Some perspective here. Not every country is on the exact same timeline. Italy didn't initiate its nationwide lockdown until it already had over 10,000 confirmed cases. At that point, they knew things were about to blow up exponentially -- and they did. Hopefully the lockdown is slowing that growth.
For comparison, Sweden does not yet even have 5,000 confirmed cases. So, even during the "control" time before either country locked down, Italy was seeing more infections. As for whether Sweden's story has been written yet, here is a chart of their "daily increase" in confirmed cases. Notice which direction it is starting to trend?