Holidays over: a review of actual COVID-19 school outbreaks up to September 2020

Grech, Victor; Grech, Elizabeth; Myatt, Jeremy Borg

In the absence of an effective vaccine and/or treatment, COVID-19 remains pandemic. It is only public health measures, such as social distancing (and these included school closures), that have prevented millions of infections and deaths. School closures followed a precautionary principle in that many previous epidemics (e.g. influenza) were mainly transmitted by children. This is supported by few studies and yet, these closures have significantly impacted parents and children. We are now in September 2020, with public health restrictions being lifted in an attempt to attenuate the negative economic impact of the pandemic. The easing of restrictions has led to a resurgence of COVID-19 in a second wave of infections. In the meantime, summer school holidays are coming to an end in the northern hemisphere and it is salutary to review the effects on viral surges due to school openings thus far. This review shows that as schools open, outbreaks that affect both pupils and staff occur probably due to failure to adhere to public health principles: hand washing, distancing etc. Reopenings should clearly be done slowly and cautiously so as to control potential COVID-19 outbreaks before they get out of hand. Reopenings may also require targeted closure of other establishments/facilities (such as restaurants and shops) so as to keep the locality’s COVID-19 reproduction rate below 1.