Learning curve: Schools don’t need to close to contain COVID
As the seemingly (but not-for-certain) less severe omicron variant elbows out delta and political leaders across America try to stave off fresh hospitalizations and deaths, one sound we aren’t hearing is a clamor for schools to close and give way to remote learning after the Christmas vacation.
Hopefully, we learned our lesson — one President Biden reiterated Tuesday: The benefits of in-person learning far outweigh the risks. Schools aren’t hotbeds of viral spread, and even when they may play a role, if adults are careful and vaccinated, classrooms can open without creating a public health problem.
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The 2019-20 school year was rudely interrupted in spring 2020 with no well-thought-out backup plan for at-home education. Last fall, New York City, the nation’s largest public school system, brought kids back on hybrid schedules while letting families choose to be fully remote, an option the majority selected.
While that was bolder and better than what many other districts attempted, it was insufficient. Every available piece of evidence suggests that students, and especially those who needed the most academic help, fell further behind. And schools aren’t only places for academic growth; they enable kids to develop socially, athletically and in so many other ways. Isolation has proven mentally punishing on youngsters. Meanwhile, the weekly COVID hospitalization rate for school-age children is just 1 in 100,000.
So it was a damn good thing when Mayor Bill de Blasio demanded teachers get vaccinated and brought almost all kids back this fall (with an exception for those with serious medical vulnerabilities), while dialing back rigid rules triggering class and building closures.
Unless something changes dramatically pandemic-wise, the mayor, the governor and others across America shouldn’t give any serious consideration to lurching back to remote learning. To offer a final layer of protection, add COVID vaccination to the long list of shots already required for kids to come back to school, as Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she wants to do before next fall. What sense does it make to require inoculation against extinct epidemics but not current pandemics?
