Is it safe to reopen schools right now?
Answers
ANSWER:
NO
EXPLANATION:
Schools can be made safe, but they are not inherently safe.
If we think a little bit about what goes into making schools safe, there are a few big elements. One is community prevalence: In places where there is a lot of viral transmission, it will be more difficult for schools to be safe, just because there will be so many introductions of cases into schools.
The second important bit is how we act in schools and what mitigation measures we put in place to prevent transmission among the people in the school building. These are all of the things that we’re all familiar with now, after a year of implementing them in our own lives—masks, distancing, testing. [Testing] I think, is a big one—[and] pods, particularly, for younger children. These are all measures that can help to reduce risk in school buildings, and can help to get kids back in the classroom safely.
Answer:
It's been a rough year for school children around the world. The United Nations estimates more than 168 million children missed out on in-classroom learning as schools remained largely closed for almost an entire year. In the United States, all 50 states recommended or mandated public school closures, affecting at least 124,000 schools and 55.1 million students.
As of April 2021, about 40% of U.S. public school students were still unable to attend schools in person full time -- leading public health officials, parents and educators to worry that school children would fall behind both academically and developmentally.
Now, as millions of children and teens prepare to go back to school this fall, many parents are wondering whether it's safe -- and if COVID-19 precautions should still be in place to protect their kids.
To inform public policy on the opening debate, a team of researchers at Stanford University, Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital and University of Maryland developed a model to simulate potential COVID-19 transmission in elementary and high schools, as well as households.
In a study published June 11 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the researchers found that with controlled transmission of COVID-19 in communities and adherence to school-based prevention measures -- such as masking and physical distancing -- elementary schools could open with few in-school transmissions. For high schools and elementary schools in communities where COVID-19 rates are high, regular screening of students and staff without symptoms can reduce risk.
"Debates around school reopening have been incredibly contentious because schooling has such central importance to students, families and society, but also because evidence on safety in schools during the pandemic has been incomplete and sometimes contradictory," said Stanford Health Policy's Joshua Salomon, PhD, a co-author of the study.
For example, the researchers noted that some studies have detected little transmission occurring within schools -- yet coronavirus cases in schools have also been documented in other well-regarded studies.
Despite the contradictions, there is hardly any doubt about the benefits of in-person education. There have been reports of increased risk for poor mental and emotional health among children and parents in relation to remote schooling.
"Returning to safe, full-time in-person schooling for every student in the fall -- and keeping schools open and safe -- should be a national priority. Our main motivation in undertaking this study was to define the conditions and actions that are needed to make that possible," said Salomon, a professor of medicine, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and director of Stanford's Prevention Policy Modeling Lab.