COLUMN: Closing schools at this point is inexcusable

It's almost impossible to enumerate the harms of school closures, and the real impact can only been seen years from now

A grade six classroom is pictured at Hunter's Glen Junior Public School (Toronto District School Board) on Sept. 14, 2020. PHOTO BY NATHAN DENETTE /Pool via REUTERS

One of the most interesting things I have noticed in my Christmas cards this year is hearing the struggles of parents: Those whose children have disengaged, lost ground or struggled.

Youth who have been hospitalized for mental health problems, especially eating disorders. Parents who have desperately tried to juggle parenting and work, inevitably feeling like a failure in both.

As we usher in 2022, families are at the end of their rope. Yet, here we are.

Schools have been postponed or suspended in Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia. All with some vague promise of some “change” that would make going to back to school somehow safer or better sometime in the future.

I am here to tell you that any delay of school opening is inexcusable, given everything we know about the potential benefits and the known risks of closing schools and of COVID-19.

I was in a debate in June of last year discussing the point “schools should never again be closed for COVID-19.” Since that debate, even more data has emerged showing how little schools contribute to community spread of COVID. The evidence is clear, schools are no riskier than any other activity, and substantially less risky than many.

As I said in the debate: “the only way closing schools makes children less likely to spread COVID, is if they ceased to exist . . .” But they don’t.

It is almost impossible to enumerate the harms associated with closing schools, and many will only be discovered years from now in economic and social harms that will take generations to recover. Here are a few: Closing schools harms education, social functioning, mental and physical health, as well as equity and racial justice.

Ironically closing schools harms our healthcare system as parents of children are not available as they are supporting on-line “learning.” Parents of children who have “school” that is only for healthcare workers know that their children are being warehoused, not educated. Unless, of course, only the children of healthcare workers are being educated which is infinitely worse. As a healthcare worker and a parent, I can assure you, I am not fully there if my kids are not meaningfully in school, and I am not alone.

There is no scientific justification for stopping children from returning to class. True, there are some very vulnerable children with profound underlying health conditions who are at risk from COVID, however they are a very small number and can be well protected by vaccines that are extraordinarily effective at reducing the risk of severe disease.

For the rest of children, vaccinated or not, COVID poses little risk, as can be readily seen in the statistics around the world.

I invite readers to look at any country and examine the statistics of severe disease in children, it is invariably low. Likewise, the spectre of long-covid in children has largely been debunked in well conducted studies that show little difference between children infected and uninfected with COVID. These data are almost all generated before vaccines and in many places without mask mandates.

In the end, it must be clear that there is no magic public health bullet that is going to change circulation of a respiratory virus that is widespread in the community. Nor is there an argument that the severity of disease justifies closing schools now when they were previously open without major incident.

The Omicron variant is substantially less likely to cause severe disease, including in children. Those at risk of severe disease are either too young to be in school, or have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. Teachers have consistently been shown to have no higher risk of infection or severe disease than other members of the community. What is closing schools supposed to be stopping?

Instead, we are trading the certainty of profound harm to our children for essentially no benefit from a public health or disease transmission perspective. It is an indictment of the politicians who feel comfortable using our children as political pawns that this is happening, despite the overwhelming and irrefutable evidence that it has served no purpose in the past and is unlikely to do so now.

Now is our time to stand up for “the science” which argues for children to be in school, learning, growing and becoming the generation that will make the world a better place. God knows the world could use it.

Dr. Jennifer Grant is an infectious diseases physician and a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine.