reopening schools is about safety and inequality

the evidence on how children are affected by covid-19 has been an ongoing mystery. back-to-school plans across canada vary, with most provinces keeping schools closed until september, and some seeing a partial return to school as early as this month.but without clear data about how this extremely contagious disease spreads amongst children, sending them back to school would be much like going into a war with an invisible enemy. we don’t know what we’re up against.

science is still new and incomplete

researchers from europe have found that children who get sick from covid-19 are just as infectious as adults, carrying the same amount of viral rna in their nose or throats as older patients. but viral load doesn’t equal disease. for example, doctors in singapore describe a six-month-old baby who tested positive for the novel coronavirus and had no apparent symptoms but still infected everyone in his household.a review of early literature on pediatric covid-19 cases finds that the novel coronavirus, sars-cov-2, seems to affect children less so than their adult counterparts, both in total case numbers and also severity. there have been very few cases in young children and no deaths recorded in children under 10 years old.in the review, which looks at 129 studies, deaths in children from covid-19 were extremely rare and the exact cause was hard to pinpoint. in one of the larger studies, researchers from china looked at 731 confirmed cases and 1,412 suspected cases — the median age was seven years old. ninety-four children (4.4 per cent) were asymptomatic, 1,091 (50.9 per cent) had mild symptoms and 831 children (38.8 per cent) had moderate symptoms. one 14-year-old boy died but it is unknown if he had covid-19 or a “suspected case” as it was also peak bronchiolitis season.however, this doesn’t mean children are completely invincible. in one study from italy, researchers looked at children whose presentations may have been delayed because their parents feared going to the hospital. four children died, two with diabetic ketoacidosis (dka) and two with acute leukemia. researchers suspect there will be more children who will die from the covid-19 response than directly from covid-19 itself due to the potential collateral damage covid-19 has on health systems. it’s also unknown if children (or adults, too) will have a delayed presentation of the disease. all this is too early to say without evidence.in a new study published in the cmaj, canadian researchers seem to have a clear stance on the risk. they studied public health measures in 144 regions in the world and found that countries that closed schools were much better at controlling the pandemic than countries that didn’t. (they also found that warmer weather had no correlation to slowing down the coronavirus and should not be a factor for re-opening schools.)

quebec is the first province in canada to reopen school, with plans to reopen many elementary schools later this month (it was previously scheduled to open on may 11 but has since been pushed back to may 25). the school boards plan to limit classroom sizes to 15 students and desks kept two metres apart. the school boards have announced some students might be relocated to high school buildings. students will likely spend the entire school day in their assigned seats, which means they might be returning to the regular classrooms with the same peers or even teachers.in a post shared on twitter, quebec students will be expected to bring their own trash and recyclables home and recess breaks “will entail of walking outside safely distanced from one another in a pre-arranged pattern.”there has been significant backlash to the reopening of schools in quebec, especially since the province has been hit the hardest by covid-19. on the university of toronto website, study author peter jüni says, “if we open schools too soon or without appropriate measures to control the pandemic it could backfire big time.”

virtual schools highlight inequities

but there are other concerns besides health and safety. for a vice-principal in toronto who requested anonymity to prevent ramifications for his school, continuing various versions of online classes is a safer option than in-person instruction, it does magnify the inequities in communities in terms of technology access. at-home learning is also difficult for children who need more personal, hands-on interaction to guide them.“i don’t have any problem with [virtual learning] because i feel it’s the safest,” says the vice-principal. “personally, i’m okay with the schools remaining closed. i’m not okay with the inequities of online learning or emergency distance learning. the inequities are really exposed as a result.”first, there’s the access to technology. not all students have homes with unlimited internet access or even enough devices to learn online. imagine sharing one or two devices amongst multiple children, or students who are trying to learn while also caring for their younger siblings because their parents are essential workers.some students might only have access to a phone, which makes learning hard when your screen is only a few inches wide. some might not have a designated study area at home, either because they live in close quarters or share a bedroom with siblings.he says many students, especially children, struggle with independent learning especially when it comes to higher-order learning, such as maths, and need face-to-face connection to be able to learn.with an estimated 1.3 billion students worldwide being affected by school and post-secondary closures, it may be time to reconsider curriculum.“we’re in a situation where people are saying, ‘the kids are going to get behind.’ but according to whose standards?” he says. “all of that learning can still happen, just because they don’t meet that ‘benchmark’ doesn’t necessarily mean they’re behind.”“whether it’s two months, three months, four months, or six months to a year that these students could potentially lose, in the long run, a lot of that they’ll get back over their life experiences.” diana duong is a writer and editor at healthing. find her on twitter @dianaduo.dduong@postmedia.com