No justification in closing schools over Covid: World Bank expert

New Delhi, January 16

There is no justification now for keeping schools closed in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and even if there are new waves, closing schools should be the last resort, according to World Bank’s Global Education Director Jaime Saavedra.

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Risk less, cost extremely high

There is no relation between opening schools and spread of Covid. The risks for children are low and cost is extremely high. Jaime Saavedra, world bank’s global education director

Saavedra, whose team has been tracking the impact of Covid-19 on the education sector, says there is no evidence that reopening schools has caused a surge in Covid cases and that schools are not a “safe place”.

He also asserted that it did not make sense from public-policy perspective to wait till children were vaccinated as there was “no science” behind it.

“There is no relation between opening schools and spread of Covid. There is no evidence linking the two and there is no justification now to keep the schools closed,” Saavedra said in an interview from Washington.

“It does not make sense to keep restaurants, bars and shopping malls open and keep schools closed. There is no excuse,” he added.

According to various simulations by the World Bank, health risks for children if schools are opened are low and the cost of the closure is extremely high.

“During 2020, we were navigating in a sea of ignorance. We just didn’t know what is the best way of combating the pandemic and the immediate reaction of most countries in the world was let’s close schools. Time has passed since then and with evidence coming in from late 2020 and 2021, we have had several waves and there are several countries which have opened schools,” he said.

“We have been able to see if schools opening have had an impact in the transmission of virus and new data shows it doesn’t. Many counties have also had waves when schools were closed so obviously there has been no role of schools in some of the spikes. Even if the kids can get infected and with the Omicron it is happening even more but fatalities and serious illness among children is extremely rare. The risks for children are low and costs are extremely high,” he added. —