Temporary school closures likely won’t stop coronavirus spread, CDC says. Here’s why

Schools across California and the U.S. announced widespread closures Friday, but the federal government’s top health officials say it likely won’t make much difference in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

Regular hand washing and home isolation for students with symptoms likely have more impact than closing schools for two weeks to a month, they said.

“There may be some impact of much longer closures (8 weeks, 20 weeks) further into community spread, but that modeling also shows that other mitigation efforts (e.g., hand washing, home isolation) have more impact on both spread of disease and health care measures,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report.

The report noted that other countries, such as Hong Kong, which closed its schools during the outbreak “have not had more success in reducing spread than those that did not,” such as Singapore.

The federal agency noted that school closures come with a host of other unintended problems that local officials should carefully consider, including lack of meals for impoverished students and services for students with behavioral and mental health issues.

“Provision of academic support ... for economically and physically vulnerable children, support for families for whom telework and paid sick leave is not available, ensuring that high-risk individuals continue to be protected must all be addressed,” the agency said.

Officials noted closures also create burdens for the doctors and nurses and their support staff who have kids at home. “Special consideration must be given for health care workers so that school closures do not impact their ability to work,” the report said.

But other experts say there’s so little known about the coronavirus that school officials are right to be cautious.

“I would say the jury’s still out. There’s disagreement among experts. The evidence is clearly reasonably strong for (school closures limiting the spread of) flu, but this isn’t flu,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a vice dean at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a former Maryland health department secretary.

“Kids get very, very sick from flu, and kids don’t seem to be getting very sick from this virus,” he said. “So to the extent to which kids are passing it on to each other is really unknown and the sense to which they’re infectious to adults is not well characterized. There are a lot of unknowns still.”

In California, officials in Sacramento and the Bay Area said they were temporarily closing schools after consulting with local health officials, who have advised prevention measures such as frequent hand washing and “social distancing.” And this week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom directed all gatherings of more than 250 people to be postponed.

“The most effective way to slow the transmission of this virus is to implement social distancing practices,” Gayle Garbolino-Mojica, superintendent of the Placer County Office of Education said Friday in the county’s official closure announcement. “We won’t take chances when it comes to the health and safety of our students.”

This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 3:48 PM with the headline "Temporary school closures likely won’t stop coronavirus spread, CDC says. Here’s why."