Covid surge forces schools to close and pandemic-era measures to be reintroduced – and more people at risk as millions return to school next week

Schools in two states where COVID cases have risen have announced they are closing their schools and moving to distance learning.

Alabama and Tennessee announced the closure of two schools, affecting more than 1,000 children, just days into the new school year. Officials said the virus had forced them to close and do a “deep cleaning.”

At one school, children had to leave their desks for two days and return to distance learning, a measure reminiscent of the early days of Covid.

The shutdowns — both in Republican states — came despite a mountain of evidence showing they hamper learning, social interactions and children’s ability to develop natural immunity to common infections.

And there are concerns that more disruptions for students are in store in the coming months as many schools in states like New York, New Jersey and Michigan reopen after Labor Day weekend.

Stigall Elementary School in western Tennessee also closed for a day, just a week into the new school year, for a deep cleaning

Johnson-Abernathy-Graetz (JAB) High School in Montgomery, Alabama, which has 1,500 students in grades 9 through 12, decided to move to virtual classes just four days into the new school year after 15 teachers contracted COVID. There was no data on how many students had been infected.

Staff and children were told to stay home on Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th August and attend classes via online learning. In the meantime, a thorough cleaning was carried out in the school buildings.

The school is now open again with masks and disinfectant wipes in every classroom. Masks are not mandatory.

At Stigall Elementary, part of the Humboldt school system in western Tennessee, a one-day closure was announced just a week into the new school year due to an “increase” in cases.

The 246 pupils of group 1 had to stay home on Tuesday 13 August because their school was being cleaned. Parents had to either skip work or hire a babysitter.

A school spokesman did not reveal how many staff members or children had tested positive, saying only that there had been an “increase.”

Jessica Williamson, mother of a first-grader at the school, said VOS13: ‘Everyone’s saying, ‘Covid is back, Covid is back.’

“Those are little kids. They’re the ones that are most likely to put things in their mouths, to touch each other, just to share germs.”

She had to find a babysitter for her daughter for a day, but said she would rather do that than have her child contract Covid, which could result in her being stuck at home for several days.

Teachers are now also required to wipe down desks and desktops with disinfectant every time students move from class to class.

Face masks have not been made mandatory and other pandemic-era measures, such as social distancing, have not been rolled back.

Covid cases have been rising in the US in recent weeks, likely driven by summer travel and gatherings.

Eighteen percent of swabs tested positive for the virus in the week up to August 17, the last available week. That is 40 percent more than a month earlier.

But these levels are far below the levels seen during the worst days of the pandemic, when the percentage of tests detecting the virus rose by more than 30 percent.

Hospitalizations and deaths are also much lower than in earlier periods of the pandemic, although they are rising slightly. Experts say most people are now suffering only mild illness because of previous immunity from vaccines or infections.

The number of Covid cases has risen in recent weeks, which experts say is likely driven by summer travel and gatherings

The number of hospital admissions due to Covid, at 4.4 per 100,000 people, is also well below the peak of 35.4 per 100,000 people in 2022, when the Omikron variant was spreading.

It is also lower than the figures of 10.9 per 100,000 and 7.7 per 100,000 in early 2024.

The data also shows that 696 deaths from Covid were recorded in the week to 27 July, the latest available figure. That is significantly lower than the number of previous waves and less than a third of the level in January this year, when 2,500 deaths were recorded every seven days.

Since the pandemic, several studies have been published warning of the damaging effects of distance learning on children’s development.

These include the Education Recovery Scorecard paper from researchers at Harvard, Stanford and Johns Hopkins, among others, which analyzed data from 7,800 school districts to determine the impact of distance learning.

It found that students in school districts that offered distance learning for most of the 2020-2021 school year were, on average, more than half a grade level behind in math.

By comparison, students who had just over a third of the year of distance learning fell behind by just over a third of a grade level.

Another study published in early 2022 found that children performed worse in math and reading in 2020 and 2021 than before the pandemic. The study was conducted after analyzing the results of 7.3 million exams.

In the UK, experts have said lockdowns have caused “long-term and era-defining” damage to children’s education that could have been prevented.