No clear link between school opening and COVID surge, study finds

[snoop1130]

No clear link between school opening and COVID surge, study finds

By Kate Kelland

 

Girls wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are seen in a classroom of a school in Bangkok, Thailand September 15, 2020. Picture taken September 15, 2020. REUTERS/Jorge Silva/Files

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Widespread reopening of schools after lockdowns and vacations is generally not linked to rising COVID-19 rates, a study of 191 countries has found, but lockdown closures will leave a 2020 "pandemic learning debt" of 300 billion missed school days.

 

The analysis, by the Geneva-based independent educational foundation Insights for Education, said 84% of those 300 billion days would be lost by children in poorer countries, and warned that 711 million pupils were still out of school.

 

"It's been assumed that opening schools will drive infections, and that closing schools will reduce transmission, but the reality is much more complex," said IfE's founder and chief executive Randa Grob-Zakhary.

 

The vast majority - 92% - of countries that are through their first wave of COVID-19 infections have started to reopen school systems, even as some are seeing a second surge.

 

IfE found that 52 countries that sent students back to school in August and September – including France and Spain – saw infection rates rise during the vacation compared to when they were closed.

 

In Britain and Hungary, however, infection levels dropped after initial school closures, remained low during the holidays, and began rising after reopening.

 

Full analysis of these 52 countries found no firm correlation between school status and infections - pointing to a need to consider other factors, IfE said.

 

"The key now is to learn from those countries that are reopening effectively against a backdrop of rising infections," Grob-Zakhary said.

 

The report said 44 countries have kept schools closed.

 

It found countries are developing strategies for schools during the pandemic - including some, such as Italy, France, which order temporary school closures on a case-by-case basis.

 

Other measures include policies on masks, class rotations and combining remote with in-school lessons.

 

"This first real global test highlights what school life looks like in a COVID-world," said Grob-Zakhary. "Understanding how countries undergoing a massive second wave are dealing with this new reality in the classroom is essential to guide future reopening decisions and to help schools remain open."

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-10-01

 

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[Dumbastheycome]

"No clear link ".

Perhaps this sort of  wishy washy non conclusive report is a small step towards a lowering of the impositions on the general populations of the world in recognition of the fact that overwhelming evidence exists to suggest it is the identifiable elderly or  health compromised who need and should be shielded from infection as  much and as  far as possible  while the  rest  of  society  gets  back  to  what is left of "normal" life?

That is if that is a desired and acceptable responsible  outcome from within society.

That acceptance need be a recognition of the factors behind vulnerability to mortality.

Obesity,  diabetic conditions, chronic digestive complications etc that amount to the most prevalent cause  of  social health issues. Are they a simplistic matter of self induced personal neglect and ignorance  or  are they an infliction by way of covert poisoning of the food chain that now  makes so many so  vulnerable to a contagion that  no convenient and profitable compensation  yet exists  for?

There is a quite callous  opinion held  by  more than a few that with the  burgeoning excess of human population that regardless of intent or  accident of  nature that the vulnerable sector is dispensable.

Yet  at the same  moment they ignore that  fact that it is that same  vulnerable sector that also and perhaps  not so co-incidentally are part of an employment sector that again  not so co-incidentally dispense profitable Big Pharma  compensations disguised as  humanitarian  assistance.

An equivalent deception is for those that participate in subscription  to the  "health and  fitness" provisions  of  similar deception.

There is little difference in outcome of life expectancy between  either in overall statistical reality !

Health and  aged persons  care is an industry of massive  proportions.

The irony of it IMO is that it is those societies/nationalities who clamour  for the sacrifice of the  vulnerable in pursuit of ...".normal" lives?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sheryl]

I assume by schools they mean primary and secondat=ry schools and not colleges/universities. Opening of the latter have been linked to surges of infection in several US states. (More likey due to college students' after hours activities e.g.  packing into bars in the evenings than their class attendance, one suspects).