Coronavirus - scientists question school closures impact

By ITS Education Asia

Many countries have been closing their schools (like Hong Kong) as a way to try to slow down the spread of the Corona virus. A recent study  conducted by The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health is questioning whether this policy really has any impact.

Countries like the UK that have closed schools to help stop the spread of coronavirus should ask hard questions about whether this is now the right policy, says one team of scientists.

The University College London team says keeping pupils off has little impact, even with other lockdown measures.

What does the research show?

The research, published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, looked at 16 studies - some based on the spread of coronavirus, and others on seasonal flu and the 2003 Sars outbreak. The findings suggest that:

• while school closures help during influenza outbreaks, the same may not apply to coronavirus
• data from the Sars outbreak (in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore) suggest that school closures did not contribute to the control of the epidemic
• recent modelling studies of Covid-19 predict that school closures alone would prevent only 2%-4% of deaths, many fewer than other social distancing interventions

What do other experts think?

Dr Samantha Brooks, from King's College London and team member of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness & Response, said "The finding that school closures have at best only a small impact on the spread of Covid-19 is of great significance, especially linked with the sensible suggestions for how a gradual return to normal schooling could be implemented."

Prof Robert Dingwall, professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University, said "This is an important study that confirms what many of us suspected, namely that the public health benefits of school closures were not proportionate to the social and economic costs imposed on children and their families.

"It also underlines how the assumptions used in modelling the pandemic may rest on very flimsy foundations in terms of scientific evidence. This work suggests that UK schools could, and should, begin to reopen as soon as practicable after the initial wave of cases has passed through."

Certainly some food for thought.

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