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Swedish and Finnish scientists published these conclusions on July 7, 2020.

Anthony LaMesa
2 min readJul 12, 2022

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Why were they mostly ignored?

On July 7, 2020, Swedish and Finnish scientists published a paper at the Swedish Public Health Agency comparing Sweden’s decision to keep primary and lower secondary schools (i.e. schools serving Swedish children up to age 16) open during spring 2020 with Finland’s decision to close them in March. The following conclusions were reached:

Covid-19 in schoolchildren — A comparison between Finland and Sweden

The report was published in English, but ignored by both education and science journalists at the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. It got limited coverage from Reuters and Bloomberg.

Compare the minimal coverage of this reassuring Nordic research to the non-stop coverage of Israeli school outbreaks.

Just over two months later, in September, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign ran a YouTube advertisement with “Our Kids Not Safe in School” superimposed over an empty classroom.

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Anthony LaMesa
Anthony LaMesa

Written by Anthony LaMesa

Some thoughts on reopening America’s public schools.

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