Interesting Data From Sweden Where Schools Remained Open For 1,951,905 Children,

Study: Sweden Kept Schools Open – Over One Million Kids – And ZERO Death

Arjun Walia 

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine titled “Open Schools, Covid-19, and Child and Teacher Morbidity in Sweden” has found that:

“Despite Sweden’s having kept schools and preschools open, we found a low incidence of severe Covid-19 among schoolchildren and children of preschool age during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic… No child with Covid-19 died…Among the 1,951,905 million children who were 1 to 16 years of age, 15 children had Covid-19, MIS-C, or both conditions and were admitted to an ICU, which is equal to 1 child in 130,000.”

Sweden was one of the few countries that decided to keep schools open.

The study points out that the number of deaths from any cause among the 1,951,905 children in Sweden (as of December 31, 2019) who were 1 to 16 years of age was 65 during the pre-Covid-19 period of November 2019 through February of 2020 was 65, and 69 during 4 months of exposure to Covid-19 between March and June of 2020.

The data shows that there was no significant difference here.

When it comes to teachers, the study showed that “fewer than 10 preschool teachers and 20 schoolteachers in Sweden received intensive care for Covid-19 up until June 30, 2020 (20 per 103,596 schoolteachers, which is equal to 19 per 100,000).

As compared with other occupations (excluding health care workers), this corresponded to sex- and age-adjusted relative risks of 1.10 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.49 to 2.49) among preschool teachers and 0.43 (95% CI, 0.28 to 0.68) among schoolteachers (see the Supplementary Appendix).

In a Karolinska Institute press release, lead author and pediatrician Jonas Ludvigsson, MD, PhD, indicated he was hopeful about the results.

“It is very gratifying that serious COVID-19, defined here as needing treatment in an intensive care unit, is so rare among children despite schools being open during the pandemic,” he said.

“The next step will be to follow up the children who were treated in an intensive care unit for COVID-19 to see if they have recovered fully. My gut feeling is that children who have been seriously ill because of MIS-C seem to recover fully eventually.”

Open Schools, Covid-19, and Child and Teacher Morbidity in Sweden

Jonas F. Ludvigsson, M.D., Ph.D.
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden 
jonasludvigsson@yahoo.com

Lars Engerström, M.D., Ph.D.
Vrinnevi Hospital, Norrköping, Sweden

Charlotta Nordenhäll, M.D., Ph.D.
Swedish Association of Pediatric Rheumatology, Stockholm, Sweden

Emma Larsson, M.D., Ph.D.
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

In mid-March 2020, many countries decided to close schools in an attempt to limit the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus causing coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).1,2 Sweden was one of the few countries that decided to keep preschools (generally caring for children 1 to 6 years of age) and schools (with children 7 to 16 years of age) open. Here, we present data from Sweden on Covid-19 among children 1 to 16 years of age and their teachers. In Sweden, Covid-19 was prevalent in the community during the spring of 2020.3 Social distancing was encouraged in Sweden, but wearing face masks was not.3

Data on severe Covid-19, as defined by intensive care unit (ICU) admission, were prospectively recorded in the nationwide Swedish intensive care registry. We followed all children who were admitted to an ICU between March 1 and June 30, 2020 (school ended around June 10) with laboratory-verified or clinically verified Covid-19, including patients who were admitted for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C, which is likely to be related to Covid-19)4 according to the Swedish Pediatric Rheumatology Quality Register. (More information on the registry and a link to the Word Health Organization scientific brief on MIS-C are provided in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org.) The Stockholm Ethics Review Board approved the study. Informed consent was waived by the review board.

C

More...