Sweden never closed primary schools and Denmark and Norway had brief, transient closures; they never masked children under 12 and free childcare was always available. Children always had a safe place to go throughout the pandemic. Disruptions to normalcy were minimized.
I suspect we will learn Scandinavia’s compassionate decisions about child policies during the pandemic had less to do with science than cultural commitment. It was clear early on that children were mildly affected by covid and were not primary driversof the pandemic. However, when Sweden chose to keep primary schools open and in Denmark and Norway reopened schools in April 2020, it was unclear exactly how well it would go.
The below figure shows excess mortality (överdödligheten) in Europe in % by country in 2020 and 2021 with the country that dared never close schools, Sweden (Sverige), ending up near the bottom, above only Norway and Iceland.