February - a Month Full of Sick Kids
February is when more parents than any other month stay at home to nurse their ill children, according to the nations social insurance office, Försäkringskassan.
"It is the same situation every year. During January and February - with February at the top - parents stay at home twice or three times as often as during the rest of the year," Niklas Löfgren, insurance developer at Försäkringskassan, tells the news agency TT.
Some 600,000 days of work are lost in February because Swedish parents have to stay at home to take care of their ill kids. During the summer months it is only a third of that, partly because the parents are off then anyway, and partly of course because February sees more of flu viruses and contagious vomiting diseases.
