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”.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Perhaps the first thing we should do is to give Emily a dictionary (no pun intended…), to look up the meaning of ‘Genocide’. I’ve had enough of this shit of inflammatory terms being hijacked by damaged and vengeful people and applying them to honest people doing their best for society. Emily, if you have male genitalia, and think you are also a woman, then you appear to be uniquely able to follow my instruction. F*** yourself…
Yes, it’s literally mass murder.
Gas chamber? Machine gunning people trench in the woods? Tutsi vs Hutu with machetes? Cambodia’s killing fields? Soviet-led starvation of the holodomor? Mao’s great leap forwards?
Hyperbolic nonsense. Laugh this GUY out of here.
I think British Cycling have done pretty much the right thing, initially anyway. They might also like to change their statement about “sex assigned at birth” to say “sex observed and recorded at birth” as sex is not assigned, it’s determined at conception.
I hope the oddity mentioned by the Breeze ride organisers can also be sorted out, if it isn’t then this particular bit of madness is not yet dealt with.
Genocide – give me strength! Someone likes to be overly dramatic. It is a bit irksome to hear these whiney comments about genocide because certain people are being prevented from making use of an unfair advantage in competitive sports, or grown men with beards and dangly bits are being prevented from popping into changing rooms with teenage girls. It is even more irksome when remembering how those of us who made the very appropriate comparison between the coerced vaxxing (which is a damn sight closer to real genocide than being kept out of a cycling competition) and nazi Germany, kept getting told off for trivialising the Holocaust, when we only wished to point out the frightening road we, as a society, had embarked upon. Why are these people never called to task for their offensive trivilising of genuine genocide, something faced by the Yezidis not all that long ago.
If Ems finds British Cycling so flawed, why participate in it at all? Presumably Bridges felt BC was homophobic, bullying, etc. for some time, boycott it if it was so bad.
As for non-registered events – boycott and organise your own with a selected invitee list, it’s the only way this will stop.
Genocide – give me strength! Someone likes to be overly dramatic.
Didn’t you notice this yet? Just like calling every public display of an opposing political opinions a coup, the woketards always claim they’re a victim of genocide in case of any real world setback. The more intelligent ones do this a little more covertly, eg, all out attack on humankind instead of genocide but they don’t do it for less.
It takes part because this is the only way mediocrity can be rewarded. hence the shrill faux outrage.
Now THIS is belittling the holocaust.
I expect there will no outrage from the sanctimonious idiots who strung AB up.
For the benefit of the phantom downvoters, I’m referring to the word genocide being used to describe hurty-feelings. If AB is judged to have sinned, then so did “Emily”. But I think the latter was worse.
Do you want to comment downvoters, or just snipe from afar?
Oh dear, a mediocre cyclist who saw a chance of medals by tilting the playing field gets upset because someone got out a spirit level.
I have to give it its due, though, managing to tick so many boxes in one rant – racism, gender phobia, imaginary gender phobia, genocide, immigration – there may be others but I couldn’t stay the course.
Waahhhh! I can’t cheat anymore.
Now I’ll have to git-gud at my sport through hard work, diligent training and gumption. And all this with no guarantee that I’ll succeed in the end.
And THAT’S why we applaud successful athletes. Because it’s hard to win (unless you invite yourself into the women’s category which is cheating)
Has everyone forgotten the awful way the IOC treated Caster Semenya, only a few years ago? She was well-built and fast but absolutely all woman. She had to have a physical to prove she was a real woman. There were snide comments about her testosterone levels. I’m sure that was invasive and embarrassing for her.
Now a bloke just needs a certificate to ‘compete’ (ha!) against women.
He’s jostling for an Amnesty International humanitarian award.
These days you get a humanitarian award by accusing people of being evil. Pretty easy really.
Delusional
Let’s see. Eliminating two sexes essential for procreation and survival of the species – that’s genocide
Reinforcing the delusions of mentally disturbed people is unkind and can be dangerous.
Not my own work, but I like this….
Put 100 women and 10 men on a deserted island and in 100 years you will have a thriving community of men, women, boys and girls.
Put 100 Trans women and 10 men on a deserted island and in 100 years you will find the skeletons of 110 men.”
Those 10 men would likely have a wonderful time. Or else die from exhaustion through excessive snoo-snoo (thanks Futurama)
Motorcyclist who identifies as cyclist breaks world record.
https://youtu.be/ipvesqJP1e4
Norm Hiccup is an inspiration!
So brave. I want a T-shirt.
This is just some nonsense story designed to rouse your emotions. I would be sceptical of anyone who pushed such a stiry. I don;t care two hoots about transsexual cycle lanes. Just watch how you are manipulated.We have far bigger issues to condier.
The push of the transgender agenda is an aspect of the evil cabal’s plan. By eliminating women, they eliminate family & procreation & it also promotes that masculinity is not a good thing.
The subject is also useful to promote division as a divided society is a weakened society & easier to control.
They are fighting us on multiple fronts & it is important that we understand what they’re doing whilst not losing sight of the bigger picture.
This is from the American Medical Association, and check out the quote from the doctor. These people are a major part of the problem on the ground, just like they are/were regarding the scamdemic and death jabs. People like this doctor should have their license removed for spreading such garbage and holding these views. It’s precisely these sort of Leftie idiots that are totally fine with mutilating kids and young people’s bodies or putting them on puberty blockers, which do irreversible harm.
”Aimed at protecting individual privacy and preventing discrimination, the AMA will advocate for the removal of sex as a legal designation on the public portion of the birth certificate. Under the policy, information on an individual’s sex designation at birth would still be collected and submitted through the U.S. Standard Certificate of Live Birth form for medical, public health, and statistical use only. The new policy aligns with existing AMA policy recognizing that every individual has the right to determine their gender identity and sex designation on government documents.
“Designating sex on birth certificates as male or female, and making that information available on the public portion, perpetuates a view that sex designation is permanent and fails to recognize the medical spectrum of gender identity. This type of categorization system also risks stifling an individual’s self-expression and self-identification and contributes to marginalization and minoritization,” said AMA Board Chair-Elect Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, M.D.”
https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-announced-policies-adopted-final-day-special-meeting
Here is an example of the irreversible damage messing about with your sex hormones will result in. I’ve read Elle’s story of why she transitioned to male ( no surgery though, thank goodness ) and then detransitioned back. She had a traumatic experience and was also very mixed up so thought she’d be better off as a guy. The problem is that when these people often seek therapy the therapist can make things worse and supports and encourages the wish to become the opposite sex rather than focus on the mental health issues staring them in the face.
https://twitter.com/TransJusticeOrg/status/1659260913873190913?cxt=HHwWgoDQkdLA8IYuAAAA
Communist society wreckers
I’m disappointed in you all. Have you no sympathy for the mentally ill?
She/he/it needs a slap to wake up
it’s not ok for any man to compete in women’s sports
Emily?
Surely the correct spelling of this bicyclist’s name is Emile…..
The deliberate destruction of female-only sports (girls are even more at risk than grown women) will only stop when ALL females refuse to participate in any sport at any level if biological males claiming to be women are allowed to compete with them.
One of the reasons I no longer subscribe to the DT is because they continue to use biologically incorrect pronouns when reporting on this kind of nonsense.
Up to now,I’ve always been against genocide – after reading his rant, I’m thinking of reconsidering.