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By Johanna Gardener •
Updated: 15 Nov 2024 • 18:57 • 3 minutes read
A recent inquiry into the effects of Covid has compared the more relaxed approaches of countries like Sweden towards the pandemic with stricter countries like the UK, providing insight into the effects on young people.
The global Covid-19 pandemic was a period of great change and ambivalence. Affecting countries worldwide, the pandemic launched itself without prior warning, leaving unprepared governments and its citizens across the world at loggerheads about how to handle the extreme situation. In many countries across Europe, the chosen course of action was lockdown and confinement. Schools, restaurants and public leisure sites closed and people stayed at home – with children often attending online school. Outdoor activities in some countries were prohibited and masks were made mandatory.
Effects of Covid-19 on young people: myopia and mental health disorders
Today in 2024, this may seem like a distant memory but the effects of this unusual stint on people’s lives are particularly notable particularly on those of children and young people. Children in the UK and across the world are part of growing statistics in recent post-Covid years for chronic school absenteeism, mental health disorders, myopia and lower school grades.
However, during a recent Covid inquiry, insightful comparisons were made between countries like Sweden which had taken a more relaxed approach to Covid-19 and more stringent countries like the UK – particularly in terms of education.
Swedish primary and lower secondary schools stayed open during Covid
Admired by lockdown sceptics, Sweden was a place where most restaurants and schools stayed open and people were left to make their own decisions about personal risks against Covid-19. Here, primary and lower secondary-aged students were allowed to continue with full-time school, lessening the impacts on their development. One teenager, Vera Dahlstrom commented herself on the normality of being able to attend school everyday between 2020 to 2021: “I had a social life because I met my friends every day in school.” The International Journal of Education Research revealed that in Sweden, reading comprehension scores had remained unchanged since before the pandemic and there was the consensus that “open schools benefited Swedish primary school students.”
Swedish children more fearful despite full-time education during Covid
Interestingly, however, even Sweden did not remain unscathed. Elliot Hagander who works in a youth camp and was in upper secondary school during the pandemic, commented on how now-15 year olds are “far more anxious” on sleepovers and of being without their parents and that they appear more immature and mollycoddled. On an educational level, levels of absenteeism noted in the UK, for example, are not dissimilar to those in Sweden. A recent survey form the Swedish National Agency for Education revealed that up to 35 per cent of pupils in Year 11(ninth grade) had a 15 per cent absence rate.
Concerning older students of aged 16 and above, Swedish education shifted to a mix of remote and in-person learning. Vera’s sister, Annie, who was in upper secondary at the time commented: “I saw the bad effects of studying in the same room I slept in. Tiredness crept up on me and wore me down.” Both Annie and Elliot recall how their studies suffered as they struggled to adapt to a new study method.
I am convinced that life was better (in Sweden) for children than in the UK.
Despite this, Vera and Annie’s father, Ingvar, an academic advisor said: “I am convinced that life was better (in Sweden) for children than in the UK.” Former Education Secretary in the UK, Gavin Williamson backed this up, commenting how UK parents often punctuated sentences with “…and then Covid…,” when referring to key moments in their children s lives a far cry from the experiences of Swedish parents.
Despite some backlash against Sweden’s relaxed approach at the time, Mark Woolhouse from the University of Edinburgh claims that it set an example for other countries, who could have opened their schools earlier. Children were neither vulnerable to the virus nor vectors for it. Refusing lockdown measures did not result in an explosion of Covid cases either. In fact, the New York Times reported that Sweden had suffered a “remarkably average pandemic.” Sweden’s goal was to balance pandemic risks with economic consequences and the detrimental effects of lockdown; Ingvar Dahlstrom said: “People seem happy with the way things worked out.”
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Written by
Johanna Gardener
Originally from Manchester, UK and with a degree in English with Modern Foreign Languages, she has been a permanent resident in Spain for the past 12 years. Many of these years, she has spent working as a secondary school teacher, as well as in journalism, editing and marketing. She currently lives in the historic centre of Malaga, where she enjoys writing, walking and animals.
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