Israel’s rocky schools reopening may be lesson for U.S.

As the United States and other countries anxiously consider how to reopen schools, Israel, one of the first coun- tries to do so, illustrates the dangers of moving too precipitously.

Confident that it had beaten the virus and desperate to reboot a devastated economy, the Israeli government invited the entire student body back in late May.

Within days, infections were reported at a Jerusalem high school, which quickly mushroomed into the largest outbreak in a single school in Israel, possibly the world.

The virus rippled out to the students’ homes and then to other schools and neighborhoods, ultimately infecting hundreds of students, teachers and relatives. Other outbreaks forced hundreds of schools to close. Across the country, tens of thousands of students and teachers were quarantined.

Israel’s advice for other countries?

“They definitely should not do what we have done,” said Eli Waxman, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and chairman of the team advising Israel’s National Secu- rity Council on the pandemic. “It was a major failure.”

The lesson, experts say, is that even communities that have gotten the spread of the virus under control need to take strict precautions when reopening schools. Smaller classes, mask wearing, keep- ing desks six feet apart and providing adequate ventila- tion, they say, are likely to be crucial until a vaccine is available.

“If there is a low number of cases, there is an illusion that the disease is over,” said Dr. Hagai Levine, a professor of epidemiology and the chair- man of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians. “But it’s a complete illusion.”

The United States is facing similar pressures to fully reopen schools, but is in a far worse position than Israel was in May: Israel had fewer than 100 new infections a day then. The United States is now averaging more than 60,000 new cases a day, and some states continue to set alarming records.

On Tuesday, the secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, said that over a billion children worldwide were affected by school closures last month, exacerbating what he called a “learn- ing crisis” before the pan- demic in which more than 250 million children had been out of school. “We are at a defining moment for the world’s children and young people,” Guterres said.

Students in Mexico will exclusively take classes broadcast on television or the radio when the school year begins later this month, in an effort to avoid further coronavirus outbreaks, the government announced on Monday.

Schools will only reopen when authorities determine that new and active infections, which remain high across the nation, decline enough for a safe return to the classroom.