Irene Hartmann
10/08/2020 4:46 PM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 10/09/2020 10:22
“
Here they work in three ways: regular open, online or hybrid school, which at the same time has several formats depending on how many days the children go and how many connect online.
In my city they distributed notebooks to everyone, and access points to those who did not have adequate internet.
Primary and secondary remain online until January 2021. They begin to discuss how they will handle things afterwards
”.
The one speaking is a 45-year-old American woman, the mother of 11-year-old twins and a 17-year-old teenager. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States.
The where, however, is irrelevant.
The same thing is discussed everywhere:
to what extent the return to classes affects the expansion of the
coronavirus.
When in Argentina the school reopening is a hot topic, it is interesting to look at the experience settled by countries that have already passed the “first wave” of Covid-19.
But beware: the regional conclusions are so dissimilar and changing that those who expect to read statements such as "
open school increases contagion
" or "
open school does not increase contagion
" will undoubtedly be disappointed in the face of the inevitable and elusive global heterogeneity.
This Wednesday, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Carissa Etienne, warned that, in the region of the Americas, "more than half a million children and adolescents were infected with coronavirus and the numbers continue to increase" .
It took data from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), which published a report on September 28 analyzing the consequences of school reopening in the United States.
A student greets a school counselor at the entrance of a New York school in late September.
After returning to the classroom, in the United States a higher incidence of infections was detected among adolescents.
Photo EFE
There it was recorded "a
higher incidence of coronavirus in adolescents aged 12 to 17 years
, approximately double that of 5 to 11 years."
It makes sense, looking at the figures for Argentina: of the more than
840,000 confirmed coronavirus
here, boys between 1 and 10 years old represent almost 3%, while those between 10 and 20 years old, 6.70%.
Something similar had been shown by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hadassa Hospital (Israel) when, in a work published at the end of September, they noted that children
under 10 years old
not only
spread less
but also
spread the virus to a lesser extent
(almost the half) than adolescents.
What is interesting (and controversial) about the Israeli conclusions is that they coincide with those of a recent report from Spain in which, although they report an increase in infections
during
school opening, they justify it with a well-known argument: they
say that there are more cases because it is being tested more
.
Returning to the CDC, after noting that the monthly incidence of Covid-19 increases more among young Americans in their twenties and noting that due to the variety of jurisdictions it is difficult to generalize, they conclude something as obvious as it is central: “School studies suggest that
learning face-to-face may be safe in communities with low
SARS-CoV2
transmission rates
, but it could increase the risk of transmission in communities where transmission is already high.
France and Belgium
A man who lives in Belgium, father of a 3-year-old girl who attends the
maternelle
(nursery school) shared with
Clarín
a feeling of “continental” reach.
“In Europe the whole school is open.
There were localized closures, but not generalized and they are very few ", he explained, and said something that could be hopeful (although Belgium is having more or less half the cases than Argentina):" During the local summer there was a lot of talk: it was said that many countries had not prepared serious plans for the return to school, which was going to be a disaster.
In the end everything is open and it does not seem to be a major problem
because nobody talks about closing.
A specific class or school is closed, but it does not even seem to be a prominent issue in the media ”.
A pupil attends classes wearing a mask at a private school in France in May, when the gradual return to classes began.
Due to the infections, 14 schools and 290 courses were closed.
AFP photo
How do you handle the "daily" school?
"In my daughter's group there are 15 children, but it could be up to 18. There are 4 groups of that age and they mix only in the dining room and the patio," said the man.
That is, they make
"bubbles" of about 60 boys
from 3 to 5 years old.
Besides, there are those from 6 to 12 years old, who "have another patio, everything different, and different dining hours."
Moving around the map, in France classes returned in September and, although the epidemiological report of October 1 showed that
35% of the Covid-19 infectious centers were condensed in schools and universities
, only 14 establishments and 290 courses were closed by contagions.
The
teacher unions
are not happy with the situation and ask to emphasize the distancing measures and, in what
two consider it to be "the second wave of coronavirus," lowering student attendance to 50% (as universities are doing now).
On the opposite sidewalk, the educational authorities insist that the issue is more or less controlled and that
the infections occur outside the schools
.
Spain
One month after the start of classes in Spain and in the middle of the second wave of the pandemic, the management of cases detected in schools is more chaotic than the real incidence of infections in classrooms.
A teacher, wearing a mask, lectures at a school on the island of Groix, in France.
The photo was taken in May, as the gradual return to classrooms began.
AFP photo
According to a study by the Research Group in Computational Biology and Complex Systems of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia,
returning to classes did not "substantially" aggravate the situation
of the pandemic in that country.
However, coronavirus infections in schools led to the
suspension of more than 700 classrooms, the closure of more than 120 schools
and a string of strikes by students and teacher unions demanding security measures to prevent positive cases in schools.
The latest report from the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network indicated that, between May 10 and August 13, more than 9,400 infections were reported among children under 15 years of age,
10% of the total infected
.
At the same time, on September 24, the Ministry of Education assured that 95.5% of the schools had not registered positives in their classrooms and that, of the almost 390,000 classes that exist throughout the country, about 3,000 were in quarantine for any case detected in students or teachers.
Italy and England
Continuing with this overview of the Old Continent, the Italian Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, recently said that the number of infected is low, but, nevertheless, partial closures were determined in some schools.
Why?
In reality, the situation in Italy is controversial: while the Ministry of Public Instruction assured that the percentages of infections are around lower figures (0.04% of teachers and 0.022% of students), the local media point out
gaps in the information disseminated
, especially regarding the number of swabs made to members of the school community.
Finally, England opened schools in June, early compared to other countries that waited for the end of the summer holidays.
But, 15 days after the restart of the September school year, the arrival of the “second wave” of coronavirus forced the
total or partial closure of more than 360 schools
in England and the Wales region.
The numerical scenario is, there, bleak: an estimated
25,000 teachers
in Great Britain were forced to
leave classrooms
and isolate themselves at home.
All because testing kits are missing.
And for the coronavirus.
Idafe Martín, Marina Artusa, Julio Argarañaz and María Laura Avignolo collaborated.
DD
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