<This was first published in the Washington Examiner on June 3, 2020>
No one should fault our leadership for closing schools in March, given the uncertainty and limited information about COVID-19 available then. Three months later, we now have ample evidence about the risks of the virus to weigh against the short- and long-term harm to children from not reopening schools. Studies now show that not only are children far less likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19, but they also do not spread it to others easily. However, depriving children of traditional schooling can have severe consequences for their health, welfare, and socioeconomic prospects. For these reasons, countries from Norway to New Zealand have resumed traditional schooling with appropriate safety measures in place. Schools in the United States should do likewise in the fall.
While 22% of the population are aged under 18, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that this group made up just 1.7% of recorded novel coronavirus cases between Feb. 12 and April 2. A new study of over 1,000 patients seeking care unrelated to COVID-19 at Seattle Children’s Hospital in March and April found only 1% had been infected, and most had no symptoms.
Even when children do contract COVID-19, symptoms are milder, extreme illness is less common, and outcomes resulting from hospitalization are significantly better than in adults. A May JAMA Pediatrics investigation found a 4.2% mortality rate for pediatric intensive care unit patients versus a 62% rate for adults admitted to the ICU. Respiratory failure was also less common in children. Moreover, it found that 83% of 48 children and young adults admitted to pediatric ICUs in the U.S. and Canada in April and March had chronic underlying conditions, including lung disease and immune suppression.
A leading theory as to why children are less susceptible to the novel coronavirus relates to the lower quantity of ACE2 receptors in the upper respiratory tract cells of younger people. The virus uses this as a gateway for infection, but the number of receptors in children doesn’t begin increasing until after the age of 10. Professor Herman Goossens, a medical microbiologist, explained in the Wall Street Journal that “the new coronavirus seemed to behave more like the bacteria that cause tuberculosis; children between 5 and 10 years old are less susceptible to TB bacteria and hardly pass it on to others even if they get infected.”
When schools closed in March, the assumption was that, like influenza, children were equally vulnerable to COVID-19 and would transmit it to adults just as easily. Multiple reports now show this isn’t the case, including a recent contact tracing study by Australia’s National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance that looked at 15 elementary and high schools with 18 known COVID-19 cases (nine students and nine staff). Eight-hundred-and-sixty-three close contacts with these individuals were identified, and only two students were found to be possible secondary cases, and there was no evidence of children infecting teachers.
This is consistent with the experience of more than a half-dozen countries that have reopened their schools in recent months. With only one notable exception, none has had outbreaks or increases in infections. For example, Tyra Grove Krause, a senior official with Denmark’s disease control agency, is on record as saying, “Infections in Denmark among all age groups have been decreasing since schools reopened.” In May, a gymnasium in Israel experienced an outbreak after a teacher who knew he was sick came to school.
Most countries have put sensible measures in place to mitigate against the already-low risks to children and teachers, such as testing, temperature checking, or enhanced hand-washing routines. Belgium is requiring children over the age of 12 to wear masks. Whenever feasible, schools in Denmark are holding classes outside in nearby parks. Luxembourg tested all teachers and high schoolers before classes resumed and is offering voluntary biweekly testing with the incentive that masks are not required for COVID-19 negative students. Accommodations are also being found for teachers who are high-risk as well as for parents who aren’t comfortable sending their children back to school.
Meanwhile, families are grappling with mental health issues resulting from children deprived of the social contact they get from schools as they find their own way in the world, as well as from the sports and hobbies they enjoy. This has manifested itself in depression, teenagers running away from home, and attempted suicides.
Doctors at Contra Costa County’s John Muir Medical Center reported in May seeing a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the previous four weeks. Tom Tamura, the county’s Crisis Center executive director, noted, “I think people have found themselves disconnected from the normal supportive networks that they have, churches and schools and book clubs, you name it.”
A group of German academics in the fields of education and economics recently released a report on the impact of school closures on learning. Not only do they note that children aren’t gaining new knowledge on which future education is based, but also that as closures continue, so does the loss of skills already acquired. In particular, the authors write, poor, minority, and single-parent families will suffer the greatest harm as they are most likely to have smaller living quarters resulting in more stressful situations.
Children of immigrants often have parents lacking the language skills needed to assist with remote learning. Further compounding these inequities, as I’ve written, poor and minority children are more likely to attend government schools, which have performed poorly during this pandemic, creating a fast-growing private-public school gap.
Life is full of risks, and we need to weigh them against each other. It’s absurd to focus on one risk and ignore all the others. On the evidence, reopening schools in the fall with sensible measures in place is the safest thing to do for the health and welfare of our children.
Related posts
The Private Sector’s COVID-Era Triumph
Pandemic learning gaps make clear the need for public school reform
Don’t let COVID-19 dominate your life
Seattle exemplifies the fast-growing private-public school pandemic gap
[…] Reopen schools for the sake of our children […]