Sweden was one of the few Western countries that kept schools open in the spring of 2020. Pre-schools, primary schools and lower-secondary schools (for those up to age 16) continued with in-person teaching, whereas upper-secondary schools switched to online instruction on March 18th.
Despite this, zero Swedish children died of COVID-19 up to the end of June. In fact, only 15 were admitted to the ICU, and four of these children had a serious underlying health condition.
So keeping schools open didn’t cause any deaths among Swedish children. But did it increase the spread of COVID-19? Although evidence suggests that children are less infectious than adults, their level of infectiousness is not zero. In addition, teachers could transmit the virus to one another in the staff room, and parents could do so when picking their children up from school.
In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Stockholm and Upsala University examined the impact of keeping schools open on the spread of COVID-19 in Sweden. Their analysis focused on the period from March 25th to June 30th.
The authors used rigorous methods to estimate the causal impact of keeping schools open on COVID-19 outcomes among parents, and among teachers. Specifically, they compared parents whose youngest child was in the last year of lower-secondary school (Year 9) to those whose youngest child was in the first year of upper-secondary school (Year 10).
This method ensured that the two groups of parents were as similar as possible with respect to other possible causes of COVID-19 outcomes. But to be safe, the authors controlled statistically for characteristics like the age, occupation and region of the parents.
They found that there was only one additional positive PCR test per 1,000 parents among those whose youngest child was in the last year of lower-secondary school. They also looked at the number of diagnosed cases of COVID-19, but found this did not differ significantly between the two groups of parents.
When the authors compared teachers from lower-secondary schools with those from upper-secondary schools, the differences were somewhat larger. However, the overall impact of keeping schools open on the spread of COVID-19 was small. The authors estimate that keeping schools open resulted in 620 more cases in a country that saw more than 53,000 up to mid June.
They conclude that closing schools “is a costly measure with potential long-run detrimental effects for students”. And their results are “are in line with theoretical work indicating that school closure is not an effective way to contain SARS-CoV-2”.
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“Nick Dixon and Toby Young Talk About Whether Klaus Schwab is Pulling the Strings”
Can we stop with this straw man stuff please?
Yes, it’s clear that, through funding by related parties, he very much is pulling the strings of the mainstream media, who won’t cover what in other times would have been a topic of immense public interest. I remember decades ago seeing heavy media coverage of the influence of freemasonry, but on the far more influential activities of the WEF, in particular their promotion of digital ID and CDBCs, both instruments of tyranny, there’s a deafening silence. This is not normal behaviour, and it can’t be explained away as political incompetence.
It is explained away by WEF stooges within the MSM. The MSM has been captured to ensure compliance on the messaging.
I take issue with Toby’s comments about those supporting Andrew Bridgen’s actions. Toby said something to the effect that those people view Andrew Bridgen in an idealistic way and can’t tolerate any criticism of him. Since when were politicians idolised by covid sceptics, especially an MP who voted for vaccine mandates for care home workers? No, it’s what he is doing that we support. And as Toby said, even a respectable professional like Dr Asseem Malhotra is getting smeared by the covid regime. They will always find something to use against the non-compliant so it’s not worth fretting over whether or not they’ll get triggered.
The story of the covid jabs is a massive crime that has resulted in at least hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of injuries worldwide, while governments are in wilful denial. The Nuremburg Code has been ignored and vax refuseniks have been persecuted. Worrying about the use of the h-word is simply playing into the hands of those who want to avoid these crimes being exposed.
/tin-foil hat on/
My personal view is that Schwab et al are just a think tank – and tank that has morphed over the years from something to Globalism to now something truly tyrannical out of 1984 and BNW etc..
The genesis of this I believe stems from our banking systems and fractional banking with interest.
The World financial system has become too big, too complex and like all currencies will eventually go to zero. We are now in the exponential portion of currency creation and I suspect in the next few weeks or months, the whole system will collapse.
For the first time in human history, a very high proportion of civilisation will no longer be able to feed itself, grow its own food, use its own stock and trade to survive and rebuild.
The Bankers have known that mathematically this is inevitable. Wars and devastation have been a good way to reset and stave-off mathematical collapse in the past. The world is too interconnected now for that model on a wider scale. Too destructive to infrastructure.
I believe that the C19 episode fulfilled a number of key markers. Control, possible ill-health and death with the treatment, possibly some sort of “marking” system but also more importantly, reducing the velocity of money world-wide while the finances are re-arranged to stave-off the collapse a little longer. The resources going into Ukraine is another marker. I don’t see why the G-7 would really give a damn about UKr unless for an ulterior reason (money laundering or positioning for break-up of RUS for resources – followed quickly by China to stave-off mathematical collapse further) when it itself has been breaking middle-east countries apart for a quarter of a century with immunity?
The Bankers need a solution and to usher in a new control currency without it being their fault. A collapse now would be seen as their fault and never be given control again. A black swan (as Schwab tells us now – a cyber attack) could collapse the system relatively easily and usher in CBDC’s.
CBCD’s need to be seen as the saviour (along with the digital control and personal digital ID) and hence the WEF, I believe rather than directly control, have had well-placed wealthy (made wealthy) see where their bread is buttered and if they don’t see the downside, they are all rummaging in the shit and detritus like the rest of us.
The WEF, Global Elites etc…rely on us plebs all wanting a saviour when the financial SHTF and they have the solution to the problem they caused. We will receive with applause the false prophet and for the first time in history, control and monitor expansion to suit them and not us.
We are the carbon they want to reduce.
/tin-foil-hat off/