Former Norwegian health minister on Sweden’s pandemic school policy: “We probably have something to learn from Sweden there.”

Ex-health minister declares that “we could have protected children and young people to a greater extent against the consequences of the infection control measures”

Last month, former Swedish State Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell and former Norwegian Health Minister Bent Høie met at a conference in Oslo to discuss lessons learned from their respective pandemic policies.

Tegnell noted that Sweden could learn from Norwegian care home policies and Høie — Norway’s health minister from 2013 to 2021 — said that Sweden’s approach to children and schools offered potential lessons for Norway on protecting children “against the consequences of the infection control measures.”

We can probably look at how we could have protected children and young people to a greater extent against the consequences of the infection control measures. We probably have something to learn from Sweden there. In Norway, we also closed the schools for the youngest children, but they did not do that in Sweden.

Høie added that Norway’s school closures — which were extremely short compared to those in the United States — may have “long-term consequences for children and young people’s health, which we do not know about today.”