Many parents won’t take the risk of sending kids back
Quebec Premier François Legault announced the province’s plan for a return to class for students on Monday. Elementary schools and daycares outside the Montreal area will start reopening May 11, but those in Montreal won’t reopen until May 19. High schools, CEGEPS and universities across Quebec will not reopen until the end of August.
Here is how some countries that have already taken the steps to open schools have managed with COVID -19 restrictions.
DENMARK
On the week of April 13, Denmark became the first European country to allow at least some of its children to return to school since the start of the pandemic, making it a type of laboratory closely watched by the rest of the world. Nurseries and elementary schools were reopened, with strict protocols on social distancing.
To temper the risk of infection, children are placed at their own desks, spaced two metres apart. At recess they can only play in small groups and are kept from contacting each other; hugging and wrestling are not allowed. In some schools they have to wash hands every hour. Children enter the school through several entrances to limit grouping.
Classes have been subdivided into two or three smaller groups, and children play only with members of that group, and stay with the same teacher all day. Teachers’ assistants are assigned to teach the subgroups.
Cleaning workers pass through to disinfect surfaces regularly.
The Danish government decided to send the younger age group back to school sooner because they had less access to online learning than older students.
Denmark was one of the first European countries to order a lockdown, on March 11, for its 5.8-million inhabitants. The country has recorded 8,896 cases and 427 deaths — a far lower toll than most of its neighbours in the West.
On Sunday there were only 130 new cases and four deaths reported in Denmark, below the averages reported for the last two weeks.
While many nervous parents have been reassured by the measures, others are balking.
Sandra Andersen, the mother of two girls age five and nine, has started a Facebook group called “My kid is not going to be a guinea pig,” Reuters reported.
“I won’t be sending my kids off no matter what,” Andersen said. “I think a lot of parents are thinking, ‘Why should my little child go outside first?’ ”
TAIWAN
Taiwan, which also reacted quickly to the virus, only closed its schools for a couple weeks.
By late January the country had started shutting down travel to the country, adopting the uniform use of face masks and hand sanitizer, and quarantining positive cases. All of these measures helped avoid a widespread outbreak and allowed citizens to continue sending their children to school, albeit with increased safety measures:
Parents test their children’s temperature before going in every morning and report any concerns to the school.
Children sanitize their hands and footwear before entering the school.
Children all wear masks (although video footage shows several appear to have forgotten, but still sit close together).
Students wash their hands before each class.
At lunchtime in several schools, students eat at their desks and use large, individual cardboard barriers to wall themselves off from their neighbours.
Beyond those measures, however, children can be seen congregating in close quarters, and class sizes are the same as they were before the pandemic.
Taiwanese health authorities cautioned that their example might not work in countries that have experienced more virulent outbreaks.
No new cases were reported in Taiwan on Sunday, and the number of confirmed cases remains at 429, Taiwan News reported. So far, six deaths have been attributed to the disease in the country with 23.7-million residents.
NORWAY
Norway, which is saying it has its COVID -19 crisis largely under control, decided to open its nurseries on April 20 in order to let parents go back to work.
Parents were not allowed indoors, drop-off times were staggered and children were separated into small groups of up to six. Toys and classrooms are disinfected twice a day, and children are taught how to do social distancing and maintain hygiene.
The country reopened its elementary schools starting Monday, after six weeks of quarantining. Class sizes are limited to 15 children. There was not unanimous support for the decision: a recent poll found 24 per cent of parents said they did not want their children to go back, and 13 per cent were unsure.
Norway has been progressively opening institutions. Hair salons and dermatologists were allowed to resume recently. Bans on sporting and cultural events remain in place.
As of Monday, Norway, population 5.3 million, had reported 7,554 cases and 205 deaths. It recorded 34 new cases on Sunday.
Quebec, population 8.5 million, had 24,982 cases as of Monday, and 1,599 deaths. It recorded 593 new cases and 84 deaths since Sunday.