School closures will have little impact on COVID-19 control, review finds

[webfact]

School closures will have little impact on COVID-19 control, review finds

By Kate Kelland

 

FILE PHOTO: Geography teacher Dinar Pamukci stands in front of the multimedia board after the last student left her classroom at Hesse's largest high school, Karl-Rehbein-Schule, in Hanau, after authorities decided to close schools in most of Germany's federal states due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Germany, March 13, 2020. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

 

LONDON (Reuters) - School closures do not tend to help contain the spread of infections during outbreaks of disease such as COVID-19, but will have a big impact on how societies restart after lockdown, scientists said on Monday.

 

Data on the effects of school closures on COVID-19 are limited as the pandemic is still under way, but researchers at University College London said evidence from flu epidemics and outbreaks caused by other coronaviruses suggests their impact on the spread of the disease will be small.

 

"We know from previous studies that school closures are likely to have the greatest effect if the virus has low transmissibility and attack rates are higher in children. This is the opposite of COVID-19," said Russell Viner, an expert at UCL's Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health who co-led the research.

 

"Policymakers need to be aware of the equivocal evidence when considering school closures for COVID-19 given the profound and long lasting effect they will have on children - particularly the most disadvantaged," he said.

 

Millions of children around the world have been affected by school closures as governments introduced social distancing and lockdown measures to try to slow the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the new SARS-COV2 coronavirus.

 

Viner's research, published late on Monday in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal, said that as of March 18, some 107 countries had implemented national schools closures.

 

To analyze the potential impact, Viner's team reviewed 16 previous studies, including nine which looked at school closures during the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - a respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus similar to the one that causes COVID-19.

 

Data from the SARS outbreak in China, Hong Kong and Singapore suggested school closures "did not contribute to control of the epidemic", they said in a summary of the review.

 

Experts not directly involved in the research said its findings were important and confirmed what many suspected: That the public health benefits of school closures were not proportionate to the social and economic costs for affected children and families.

 

"This work suggests that ... schools could, and should, begin to reopen as soon as practicable after the initial wave of cases has passed through," said Robert Dingwall, a professor of sociology at Britain's Nottingham Trent University.

 

Viner said the findings suggest countries should now "ask hard questions about when and how to open schools".

 

He said other measures, such as staggering school start and break times, closing school playgrounds and minimising the movement of children between classes could be considered to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading.

 

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-04-07

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[Number 6]

I think this analysis incorrect for Bangkok. When school is in session there is perhaps fifty percent increase in public transport ridership. Maybe more. These close quarters coupled by grubby kids in elementary and germy boys in particular. In the sticks, rural schools if kids are clean perhaps...

 

When these stories run we forget how serious this covid thing is. Nation's and economies in a real tailspin.

[jimmjam]

Lol, kids have died from covid19 though.

These articles are dangerous.

Do these young kids go to school by themselves or do their parents take them?

All it takes is one infected parent or teacher and all these kids will get it.

There will be deaths, kids arent immune to it.

Who writes this <deleted>.

[edwardandtubs]

32 minutes ago, jimmjam said:

Lol, kids have died from covid19 though.

These articles are dangerous.

Do these young kids go to school by themselves or do their parents take them?

All it takes is one infected parent or teacher and all these kids will get it.

There will be deaths, kids arent immune to it.

Who writes this <deleted>.

Clearly your musings on the topic are a lot more authoritative than the child health experts quoted in the article.

[jimmjam]

1 minute ago, edwardandtubs said:

Clearly your musings on the topic are a lot more authoritative than the child health experts quoted in the article.

Obviously i am.????

[tifino]

11 minutes ago, edwardandtubs said:

Clearly your musings on the topic are a lot more authoritative than the child health experts quoted in the article.

well... as far as wuhan china; whatever comes out of the 'experts' is purely conjecture anyway... there aren't enough real facts available to answer the original question. The only real way would have been to isolate the kids and staff from family (outsiders) and do wholesale Boarding School

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2020 by tifino

[Redline]

And then there is this:

 

https://www.axios.com/children-asymptomatic-carriers-coronavirus-440fe0f5-b11d-41dc-968e-9e85a8955d1c.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top
 

 

[Redline]

8 hours ago, jimmjam said:

Obviously i am.????

You are

https://www.axios.com/children-asymptomatic-carriers-coronavirus-440fe0f5-b11d-41dc-968e-9e85a8955d1c.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top

[Redline]

9 hours ago, Number 6 said:

I think this analysis incorrect for Bangkok. When school is in session there is perhaps fifty percent increase in public transport ridership. Maybe more. These close quarters coupled by grubby kids in elementary and germy boys in particular. In the sticks, rural schools if kids are clean perhaps...

 

When these stories run we forget how serious this covid thing is. Nation's and economies in a real tailspin.

https://www.axios.com/children-asymptomatic-carriers-coronavirus-440fe0f5-b11d-41dc-968e-9e85a8955d1c.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top

[natway09]

The guy that wrote this rubbish obviously has no idea of the extraciricular activities that make up "school"

From breakfast with the family, getting to school (very few walk anymore) meeting in the playground, canteens, sharing crayons, computers, etc in the classroom (they cannot wear masks allday). toilet facilities, door knobs, bench spaces.. The list goes on.

This guy is as dangerous as Trump wanting a return to full work by Easter

[Chrysaora]

14 hours ago, webfact said:

Data on the effects of school closures on COVID-19 are limited as the pandemic is still under way, but researchers at University College London said evidence from flu epidemics and outbreaks caused by other coronaviruses suggests their impact on the spread of the disease will be small.

Any parent knows that schools are fertile grounds for catching anything.  

 

They should stop this nonsense immediately.

[Crazy Alex]

4 hours ago, Redline said:

And then there is this:

 

https://www.axios.com/children-asymptomatic-carriers-coronavirus-440fe0f5-b11d-41dc-968e-9e85a8955d1c.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top
 

 

Thanks for that. Logically, that is what I jumped to. How can one not? Asymptomatic kids will go to soccer practice, karate classes, church, etc. Oh sure, there's lots of other young kids there. But they virus will be spread. And where there are kids, there are adults.

 

This article is a perfect example of why just because "scientists" say something, doesn't mean thinking people should just fall in line and accept it as the truth.

[Crazy Alex]

17 minutes ago, natway09 said:

This guy is as dangerous as Trump wanting a return to full work by Easter

It's dangerous to want good news? By the way, that goal was amended. Oops!

[Crazy Alex]

13 hours ago, edwardandtubs said:

Clearly your musings on the topic are a lot more authoritative than the child health experts quoted in the article.

Yes, his musing are more authoritative and logical. I would encourage you to not simply believe an article because "scientists" and "experts" say so. They are obviously wrong in this case.

[Redline]

2 hours ago, Crazy Alex said:

Thanks for that. Logically, that is what I jumped to. How can one not? Asymptomatic kids will go to soccer practice, karate classes, church, etc. Oh sure, there's lots of other young kids there. But they virus will be spread. And where there are kids, there are adults.

 

This article is a perfect example of why just because "scientists" say something, doesn't mean thinking people should just fall in line and accept it as the truth.

Exactly 

[Iron Tongue]

Doesn't make sense, especially in Asia when grandparents are the typical caregivers for school children as parents have to work.  Good way to kill off the elderly and devastate limited healthcare resources.

 

From my experiences, when one student has a cold at school, every student has a cold, followed by every parent of the children.

[Dap]

13 hours ago, Iron Tongue said:

Doesn't make sense, especially in Asia when grandparents are the typical caregivers for school children as parents have to work.  Good way to kill off the elderly and devastate limited healthcare resources.

 

From my experiences, when one student has a cold at school, every student has a cold, followed by every parent of the children.

Absolutely! As any teacher will attest to.