Question

What will happen when schools re-open? Will we wear face mask? Social distance? How will schools help keep kids go back to school safely?

Answer 1

Answer:

At schools across South Korea, children eat their lunches in silence, facing plastic screens that separate them from their friends1. They wear masks, except when practising social distancing in the playground. And their temperatures are checked twice every morning — first at home and again at the school gates.

This could be the new reality for the millions of children around the world. Summer holidays are drawing to an end in the Northern Hemisphere, and in places such as the United States, the United Kingdom and some European countries that closed schools during the coronavirus pandemic, governments are debating when and how to open schools. A growing number of studies show that there are ways to do this safely. The key is vigilance on hygiene and physical distancing, a swift public-health response to halt the spread of any infections and, most crucially, low levels of viral spread in the community.

“Some countries in Asia, particularly South Korea, provide a good model for how schools can provide face-to-face teaching during the pandemic,” says Zoë Hyde, an epidemiologist at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

But researchers say that if schools are opened before community transmission reaches low levels, cases will surge.

High-risk environment

Schools can be high-risk places, says Young June Choe, a paediatrician and epidemiologist at Hallym University in Chuncheon, South Korea. Children are often crammed into poorly ventilated rooms for eight hours or more, he says. And there’s a lot of mixing, because children come from across the neighbourhood, some on public transport, and often with their parents in tow.

Earlier in the pandemic, it appeared that the virus might affect children differently from adults. Because children had milder symptoms, it was assumed they might be less infectious. But now there is evidence that children can spread the virus to other people, especially those living in the same household2,3. Several studies show that once children are infected, they are no less infectious than adults4.

Answer 2

Explanation:

Early this spring, school gates around the world slammed shut. By early April, an astonishing 1.5 billion young people were staying home as part of broader shutdowns to protect people from the novel coronavirus. The drastic measures worked in many places, dramatically slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

However, as weeks turned into months, pediatricians and educators began to voice concern that school closures were doing more harm than good, especially as evidence mounted that children rarely develop severe symptoms from COVID-19. (An inflammatory condition first recognized in April, which seems to follow infection in some children, appears uncommon and generally treatable, although scientists continue to study the virus’ effect on youngsters.)