How schools can open in August — and be safe

IN case infections of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) spike should face-to-face classes resume nationwide in late August, as the Department of Education (DepEd) had planned, at least one national leader could say, “I told you so.”

President Rodrigo Duterte declared this week, partly translated from Filipino: “I will not allow the opening of classes with these kids packed together… For me, we should have vaccines first.”

Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd was more optimistic, saying it would be safe to open schools three months from now, even in the country’s metropolitan areas, where four-fifths of Covid-19 cases are. This despite the six-week high in new infections registered just days ago.

Who’s right — the Chief Executive or the chief physician? A century ago, at the height of the 1918 to 1922 Spanish flu pandemic, which took 50 million lives worldwide, schools were shuttered for three years. So, what if classrooms today close for a year?

To open or not to open

Well, for starters, idling nearly 30 million students and some 900,000 teachers, plus driving countless private schools out of business, may not really do that much to control Covid-19. And calling off classes doesn’t mean all youths just stay home. Nope: millions will still go out for fun, often without hygiene and distancing.

Reviewing 616 studies on school physical distancing during coronavirus outbreaks since the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome contagion, a recent report published in The

Lancet medical journal found nil data on how effectively such measures helped limit disease transmission.

Moreover, computer models predicted that closing schools would prevent 2 to 4 percent of Covid-19 deaths, far less than other distancing measures (https://www.thelancet. com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352

The report concluded: “Four systematic reviews of the effects of school closure on influenza outbreaks or pandemics suggest that school closure can be a useful control measure, although the effectiveness of mass school closures is often low.”

Still, by mid-March, 107 countries had implemented nationwide school closures for Covid-19, affecting 862 million schoolchildren, aping past anti-influenza measures, even though flu and Covid-19 are transmitted differently.

For their part, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) jointly issued in March anti-contagion guidelines for schools to hold, not cancel, classes (

The WHO-Unicef-IFRC Guidance for Covid-19 Control and Prevention in Schools has chapters with “key messages and actions” for school administrators, teachers and staff, and for parents, caregivers and community members.

Besides delivering more instruction remotely and letting anyone ill stay home, must-dos include disinfecting facilities daily, following and sharing health information, and addressing psycho-social needs.

The youth chapter enumerates how students and children should protect themselves, take the lead in health activities, and seek help and guidance when needed. It also outlines age-specific health education for preschool, primary, lower and upper secondary levels.

Analysts at the Center for Strategy, Enterprise and Intelligence (CenSEI), headed by this writer, also urge schools and even families to set up risk management mechanisms, even simple ones, to constantly watch for and proactively address potential problems before they get serious, as CenSEI has done for clients in government and business.

CenSEI has also long advocated creating and deploying information, education and communications initiatives and materials that engagingly and persuasively convey crucial and practical anti-contagion knowledge and behavior, tailored for the young and using the online and broadcast media they spend much time on.

Plus celebrities they admire. The Department of Agriculture just named film-TV heartthrob James Reid as ambassador for food security. Why not movie and pop stars as anti-contagion crusaders doing hit videos on how the youth can counter Covid-19?

Let’s experiment

So, should the DepEd reopen schools or keep them shut? One dumb idea: in the three months before late August, the department could do trial classes in selected public and private schools, enforcing anti-Covid-19 measures, monitoring and addressing risk factors and actual infections, and assessing how well schools, students and families keep the coronavirus at bay.

Absent any alarming spiral in cases among education personnel, students, and their families, compared with other households in their communities, the Education department can make the case that schools could reopen, but with the option to suspend classes when and where infections escalate.

In fact, the government has promulgated in cities and regions that very policy of selectively revoking restrictions but restoring them where coronavirus casualties pile up. The perils in easing enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) are far greater than those in reopening schools. But with extreme economic deprivation, the government is still shifting vast areas from ECQ to the less restrictive general community quarantine.

This despite warnings that lifting lockdown prematurely could trigger graver contagion. WHO Health Emergencies Program head Dr. Mike Ryan warned this week: “We’re still very much in a phase where the disease is actually on the way up… We cannot make assumptions that just because the disease is on the way down now, it’s going to keep going down — we may get a second peak in this way.”

Ryan worries about the new flu season, “which will greatly complicate things for disease control.” It’s also dengue time here, which would make even the young vulnerable to Covid-19 and compound the great burdens on hospital facilities and staff.

Another WHO worry is the Philippines’ contact tracing — crucial to the test-and-trace strategy of South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan and other territories that contained Covid-19 without severe lockdown. By WHO standards, the Philippines needs 94,000 more tracers. Plus: operational issues hamper coronavirus testing.

Which returns us to schools. Since testing and tracing pose challenges, which is tougher to spot and track — infections spread by youth hordes hanging out, or those among students monitored in class or saddled with homework?

With strict distancing, hygiene and disinfection, plus new-normal transport, reopening schools may actually help contain Covid- 19 better than leaving restless kids home. Think about it.