On Thursday night, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a long-awaited guide to reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic, urging masks, diligent cleaning, and the strategic limitation of social interactions.
The orientation comes as President Trump pushes for schools to open in the fall after they closed in March, warning students that they are falling behind educationally and that needy children are missing important meals and social services.
“An important strategy administrators can consider is the cohort (or ‘pods’), where a group of students (and sometimes teachers) stay together throughout the school day to minimize exposure of students, teachers, and staff throughout the school year. school environment”. guide says.
“The cohort” would be a particularly useful strategy in regions where there is a significant presence of COVID-19, the guide says. If a cohort member becomes ill, everyone can stay home and get tested without closing school.
Staggering schedules can also be used to prevent the spread of the virus that infected 4 million Americans and killed 144,000.
School districts may consider staggering “cohort arrival and return times or locations or establish other protocols to limit inter-cohort contact and direct contact with parents as much as possible,” the CDC says.
Students should wear cloth face covers, the guide says, noting Taiwan’s experience of keeping schools open. The island nation has a larger population than New York State, but fewer than 500 confirmed cases of coronavirus.
The health agency urges “physical distance within buses, classrooms, and other areas of the school.”
In most cases, schools are run by local officials in the U.S., and practices are likely to vary widely. The CDC guide points out that areas with high and uncontrolled transmission of the virus should consider closing.
Overall, “a single case of COVID-19 in one school probably does not warrant closing the entire school, especially if the levels of community transmission are not high,” the guide says.
But to limit possible transmission, schools should “increase outside air circulation as much as possible, for example by opening windows and doors,” the guide says.
Drinking fountains, sports equipment, and door handles should be disinfected frequently. Items that cannot be easily disinfected should not be used.
A fact sheet released by the CDC says that “published reports of tracing student contacts with COVID-19 in schools in France, Australia and Ireland suggest that students are not likely to transmit the virus to other students compared to household contacts. “
Still, the CDC acknowledges conflicting anecdotes abroad about whether the reopening of schools increases transmission of the virus. In Denmark, cases among children increased slightly before declining, according to the CDC, while in Israel infections spiked, although broader social rules had relaxed.
The CDC says in the United States this summer: “Texas reported more than 1,300 cases of COVID-19 in child care centers; however, twice as many staff members had been diagnosed as children, suggesting that children may have a lower risk of contracting COVID-19 than adults. “
At a press conference Thursday at the White House, Trump said it was essential for students to return to schools.
“We cannot indefinitely prevent 50 million American children from going to school, impairing their mental, physical and emotional development. Reopening our schools is also critical to ensuring that parents can go to work and support their families, ”she said.
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