Can Schools Be Reopened During A Pandemic?

Can schools be reopened during a pandemic?

A little more than a month is left before the start of the new academic year, and therefore the question has become more acute all over the world: can schools work as usual, or is it necessary to continue to study remotely? Scientists and doctors in different countries still do not have a consensus on this matter.

Photo: Jeffrey Hamilton / Unsplash

It is known for certain that children are less likely to become infected with the coronavirus and generally carry it easily and even asymptomatically, but there is still no answer to the question of how they spread the infection among themselves and among adults.

“The problem is the lack of testing at the start of the pandemic. We need more thorough epidemiological studies to assess how children are involved in the spread of infection, "- quoted by National Public Radio of Oregon Health and Science University pediatric infectious disease specialist Judy Guzman-Cottrill.

According to Aaron Carroll, pediatrician at Indiana University School of Medicine, there is no evidence that children are superspreads, meaning they can infect a large number of people, but most schools in the US closed back in March. when the virus was just beginning to spread throughout the country. Therefore, educational authorities around the world will have a big experiment: schools will open with different levels of control over the spread of infection, after which doctors will receive an answer to the question of how children participate in the chain of transmission of the virus.

Several preliminary studies from different countries have shown that children are less likely to transmit infection to each other and to adults. So, in Switzerland, scientists tracked the contacts of all small patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who were hospitalized in a Geneva hospital. It turned out that children were the alleged distributors of coronavirus in only three cases out of 39.

In Australia, researchers analyzed the movements of nine students and nine adults infected with the coronavirus who came into contact with more than 700 students and 125 school staff. Only two cases of infection were associated with these individuals.

A larger study in South Korea found that the age of children is an important factor in the spread of the coronavirus. Scientists studied the contacts of about 5,700 patients from January to March, and found that young children are less likely to become sources of infection compared to children over 10 years old. In 19% of contacts within the family, children from 10 to 19 years old were involved, in 5.3% - children from 0 to 9 years old. But there is an important caveat: all this time, schools in South Korea have been quarantined, so it is not known how children who study in a closed classroom with two dozen classmates spread the infection every day.

A study from Germany showed that opening schools could trigger an accelerated spread of infection. After many students returned to school at the end of May, the incidence rate among teachers and other staff did not increase, but the number of new cases of COVID-19 among students increased markedly. Moreover, this applies only to high school students, among young children there was no increase in the incidence rate, which confirms the conclusions of Korean scientists about the age factor.

Most experts agree that the decision to open schools or distance learning should be made based on the level of spread of coronavirus in a particular country and region. The faster the infection spreads, the more dangerous it is to open schools.

“It is encouraging that in those countries where schools have already opened, there have not yet been major outbreaks in educational institutions. So, in Japan, South Korea, Finland and France, there were about 1 case of infection per 100,000 people after schools were opened,”the deputy director of the Center for Health Security named after M. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Anita Cicero. The expert stressed that all these countries have opened schools against the background of a very low level of the spread of coronavirus.

Note that the Ministry of Education of Russia announced that it did not intend to give up full-time education. The school year is scheduled to begin on September 1, but without holiday lines. Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said schools will observe the necessary safety measures to prevent the spread of infection.