But the bar to close schools needs to be high – much higher than was used during Covid. It might become necessary to temporarily close schools in the event of widespread closures, or if schools have difficulty operating safely due to illness among a large proportion of staff, or if a school is caring for medically frail children or, in a last resort, because the virus is spreading widely and with high severity in schools. Because children often congregate in less-controlled environments when not in school (social events, contact sports, other indoor environments), the reduction in virus transmission may be relatively small. Masking, ventilation, protocols to keep ill children home and other measures minimize spread in schools. And these costs fell disproportionately on those least able to afford it – families living in or near poverty or who are otherwise disconnected or disenfranchised.įor all these costs, the benefits of closing schools may be minimal. Parents and caregivers were less able to work efficiently. Children lost opportunities for healthy nutrition, physical activity, social support and more. Children fell far behind in learning, creating a gap that will reverberate for years, as well as in their social and emotional development. Pre-Covid modeling of school closures in an influenza pandemic indicated that benefits might only be minimal and the harms substantial.Įxperience during Covid makes the harms of school closures even more apparent. For those localities that choose not to close, federal officials should make high-quality masks available through a mail-order system and fund remote learning options that meet the home-schooling requirements in multiple states. But policymakers should publicly commit to reopening no later than four weeks after closure. This latter point is critical: Many staff members and parents fear for their and their children’s safety during epidemics, and jurisdictions must accommodate their needs, which may require suspending in-person school. ![]() The harms include impaired education and social and emotional development physical and mental health issues and loss of economic activity for parents.ĭuring a brief closure for this new pandemic, states should use the billions of unspent Covid-19 funds and recent Covid-19 systems and contracts to immediately improve indoor air ventilation and disinfection, enlist families to build do-it-yourself air purifiers, supply N95 or KN95 masks in all sizes, contract with local health organizations to provide on-site testing services, and develop alternative staffing and remote learning plans for personnel and children who decline to come to school. With a new, potentially lethal respiratory virus circulating, school closures have two theoretical benefits: reduce illness in children and adults present in schools, and reduce community spread. Why, then, would anyone argue in favor of closure? In this scenario, I believe jurisdictions should close in-person school and child care for a brief, well-defined period to strengthen respiratory virus protection measures and accommodate students who choose remote learning and employees who are most vulnerable. We hope to show that experts with policy-making experience and similar goals can come to different conclusions and advise different strategies. We gave the experts a few parameters, and asked them to briefly address specific questions they may be asked by local leaders if such a virus were to emerge and spread in their communities.Īs you’ll see, not everyone agrees. We asked a group of experts to take part in a scaled-down Disease X simulation to show readers the diversity in views on how to best respond to pandemic threats - quickly, with little detail, as they would likely have to in a real-world situation. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, outlines in a guest essay, public health leaders sometimes participate in simulations where they are asked to make decisions based on limited information about Disease X, as they would at the beginning of any pandemic. The next currently unknown virus that could cause a pandemic - what the World Health Organization calls “Disease X” - may be different from Covid, requiring a different set of tools and a different level of response. ![]() It’s been three years since the Covid-19 pandemic began, and yet many aspects of how to best respond to a novel virus remain unsettled or fiercely debated.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |