With declining number of COVID cases its time to Reopen Schools

Contact Counsellor

Last Updated28/01/2022

India continues to record over 2,80,000 cases every day, which on its own is an uncomfortable statistic.
These are not too far from that observed during the second wave and it is understandable why State administrators continue to impose lockdowns.
However, numbers are meaningless without context and the data from States show that what was most feared about Omicron — an upsurge of hospitalisations and indiscriminate mortality — has not come to pass.
The States that are in the throes of the wave now report, on average, that more than 95% of their available beds are unoccupied.
However, schools continue to be shut in most places and administrators are reluctant to open them because most children are unvaccinated.

Serology surveys by the ICMR and independent experts have found that greater than 70% of children displayed COVID-19 antibodies — which is no different from adults.
Other lines of research also establish that while children are likely to contract the infection and be carriers, they are less likely to fall severely ill.
Placing this in context with the disruption that has taken place in schools, the years of quality teaching time that have been lost and, the entrenching of inequality among well-off children and those who are dependent on schools not only for learning but also a nutritious meal, it is clear that schools, in good conscience, cannot be allowed to remain shut.

According to UNICEF, the Covid-19 pandemic has battered education systems around the world, affecting close to 90 per cent of the world's student population.
In India, over 1.5 million schools closed down due to the pandemic, affecting 286 million children from pre-primary to secondary levels.
This adds to the 6 million girls and boys who were already out of school prior to Covid-19.
This disruption in education has severe economic implications too.
A World Bank report, 'Beaten or Broken: Informality and Covid-19 in South Asia', has quantified the impact of school closures in monetary terms-India is estimated to lose $440 billion (Rs 32.3 lakh crore) in possible future earnings.
While the Covid-19 pandemic has made online education the buzzword, a recent report by the global education network Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) says that the Indian internet infrastructure is still far from ready to support the shift.
Only 24 per cent households have access to the internet, according to a 2019 government survey.
In rural India, the numbers are far lower, with only 4 per cent households having access.
A 2018 NITI Aayog report revealed that 55,000 villages in India did not have mobile network coverage.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not ended but societies are better prepared and aware of the reasonable measures that can be undertaken to save lives.
Lockdowns are effective as a temporary measure and give time to stock up, but they come with huge costs and are not sustainable over the longer term.
Thus, States should prioritise expanding vaccine coverage, insist on masks when children are in close confines, undertake periodic testing to gauge transmission and monitor hospitalisation trends while fully reopening schools.
Experience from other countries such as the U.K. and the U.S. suggests that the reopening of schools hardly impacted transmission trends.
India must incorporate these lessons.