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During the recent pandemic, schools in many countries faced temporary closures. These are obviously bad – primarily because of their impact on the learning and socialization of the students, but also because of the pressures they put on families that rely on schools being open.
So, how can we keep schools open safely during a pandemic?
We cannot just order schools to stay open
Unless other measures are enacted to keep viral spread low within the general population, ordering schools to “stay open as usual” is likely to have a counterproductive effect. Sure, schools will be officially open, but in practice, teachers and students will be sick, and attendance will be lower anyway.
More importantly, it has to be acknowledged that the main reason governments closed in-person schools has nothing to do with the students and everything to do with protecting the economy and the vulnerable.
Consider the following:
- When the viral spread is high, people stay home more (which damages the economy) and go to the hospital more often (which reduces healthcare coverage for all patients).
- Keeping schools open when the viral spread is high further increases viral spread (as the students infect each other and then infect their families back home).
From the two points above, it becomes clear how countries that find themselves with viral spread so high that it impairs their economy and healthcare capacity have very strong incentives to close schools – and if they do not, they find themselves with an even worse economy and healthcare capacity.
Hence, we cannot just “wish that schools stay open.” Keeping them open means keeping the viral spread within the general population low and/or taking precautions within the schools so that keeping them open doesn’t contribute to viral spread.
Concrete strategies to keep schools open
One possible strategy is to reduce the viral spread within the general population. The lower the spread within the general population, the more schools stay safe even if no precaution is adopted within them (because the chance that someone within a classroom is sick and might infect others is lower).
Another possible strategy is to reduce the spread within the school. It is critical to achieve this as much as possible in ways that do not interfere with classroom life. Good options include improving ventilation, using air purifiers (they’re cheaper than believed – a class of 20 students could buy one with everyone pitching $4-$5 each[1]), and testing students to prevent the contagious ones from infecting others.
Moreover, stronger precautions should be taken in common areas. For example, students might remain mask-free in their classroom but might be required to wear them in the hallways. This would prevent an eventual outbreak within a class from spreading to other classes.
What about masking students?
There are pros and cons of asking students to wear masks.
The real negative of masking students is the risk that it impairs their development – if not for all students, at least for a portion of them.
Minor negatives include discomfort (but it’s not really a negative, since most discomfort can be avoided by each student trying a few models and finding one that fits comfortably) and “students don’t know how to wear them properly” (but the solution is simple: let’s teach them. Isn’t it what schools are schools for anyway?).
The positive of wearing masks is the protection they offer – even though we should note that masks are most useful when of good quality (N95+) and when used in the presence of good air quality.
Given the pros and cons above, it is my humble opinion that we should ask students to mask as little as possible (perhaps only during the few weeks of peak viral spread and/or in crowded areas such as hallways) while instead looking for other ways to reduce viral spread within schools.
Conclusions
The general principle is that the forcing function for school closures is hospital overwhelming.
If viral spread within a country is let grow so high as to cause hospital overwhelm, governments are likely to do whatever it takes to reduce viral spread, including closing schools.
Hence, keeping schools open during a pandemic requires keeping the spread low within the general population (by adopting precautions for the general population) and/or keeping the spread low within schools (by adopting precautions within the school) – the more we do the former, the less we have to do the latter.
It is possible to keep schools open and safe without requiring students to wear masks in the classroom, but that requires doing as much as possible other than that to keep the spread low – first of all, improving classroom air quality and using strict precautions in common areas such as hallways, but also keeping viral spread low within the general population.
Bibliography
- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsi%E2%80%93Rosenthal_Box
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