a study by mcmaster university about the effectiveness of school closures on the spread of covid during the pandemic has concluded that keeping kids out of classrooms had very little impact on transmission of the disease.
“findings indicate that school settings do not substantially contribute to community incidence, hospitalizations or mortality (low certainty),” says the review in the u.k. health publication, the lancet: child and adolescent health.
the study compared international transmission rates in childcare settings and schools, citing 34,000 references across numerous databases.
“although the data consistently show that children can both contract and transmit covid -19, based on published reports to date, following reopening, the risk of widespread transmission from child to child and child to adult is low, particularly when ipac (infection prevention and control) measures are in place and adhered to,” the study said.
canada had the highest number of days of school closures in the world. the alberta government closed schools for 110 days; ontario had the longest shut down, losing 135 days of in-class learning.
fair enough, hindsight is always 20-20. it was understandable that at the beginning of the pandemic, when governments had little idea of how covid spread, they may have erred too much on the side of caution.