SAFELY REOPENED SCHOOLS ELSEWHERE COULD BENEFIT U.S. PURSUITS

Recently, being curious about how people in other parts of the world are faring with the Covid-19 pandemic, I contacted my family in Europe. Almost all of them are either parents or grandparents of school-aged kids. Given our contentious discussion about how to educate these young people during the coming year, I wanted to find out how that subject was being approached over there. Whether their children should attend school again in person, or continue remote learning, has been controversial in most European countries as well. Parents expressed similar concerns about safety as our families do over here. An open letter, published and signed by more than 1,500 members of the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health sums it up, when it concluded that continued school closure risks “scarring the life chances of a generation of young people.” Many adults decided that their governments had addressed most of the salient issues and that it was time to bring children back to school. By early June, more than 20 countries had done just that. How did they do this and how did they manage to keep everyone safe? Sweden, Taiwan and Nicaragua never closed their schools. Denmark was the first country in Europe to reopen its schools. During the process the country’s number of new Covid cases remained flat or continued to decline. The Danish school system assigned students to small groups, pods, that would be allowed to congregate during recess. The Danes also found creative ways to give these groups as much space and fresh air as possible, even teaching classes in a graveyard. Belgium, taking a page from the Danish experience, proceeded to have some classes meet in churches. Kids in The Netherlands, Germany and Austria went back to school in April and early May. The Dutch cut class sizes in half. However, they did little to enforce social distancing among students under the age of 12, and they actually just announced that, come September, everyone under the age of 17 can attend using the same rules. Germany reopened its schools by employing a shift system, to allow more space for social distancing. None of these countries experienced spikes of new cases. In the mean time, Norway went back. Finland did the same, not cutting classes, but preventing classes from mixing with one another. Scotland successfully adopted the pod system. Italy and Spain plan the reopen schools in September. Curiously, few of these school systems make a big deal about face coverings. The thought process appears to be that the discomfort of wearing masks might make this requirement counter -productive. In China, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam masks are already widely accepted and worn by many during flu season. Schools require them for almost all students and teachers. Kids don’t take them off. They listen! European kids seem culturally more rebellious. Obviously, opening safely isn’t just about the adjustments schools make, it’s also about how much virus is circulating in the community, which affects the likelihood that students and staff will bring Covid-19 into their classrooms. By May or June most European countries had flattened the curve on Covid-19. A prime example, as of July 8, the 7-day average of new cases in Italy was 198. It’s stringent lockdown regimen early on proved extremely effective. In the U.S. during that same period that number was 52,636. (Italy’s population is roughly 1/5 of that of the U.S.). Germany “only” suffered 9,000 total deaths during the pandemic. Their disciplined pro-active approach had done the job as well. The point is that Europe has been successful in bringing kids back to school safely. No spikes or related infestations. Given our deplorable situation, we have a way to go before we can take advantage of the successful adjustments European schools have adopted. We seem to be operating in an entirely different universe. Even when we compare ourselves to Canada, we need to admit that they did their due diligence. Their 7-day average was “only” 423, and the Canadians complain about that. It’s no wonder that they plan to bring kids back in September, allowing them to socialize in groups of six. For many countries this is the new normal. We just need to begin working harder and smarter. Theo Wierdsma