Planning of school teaching during Covid-19.

Learning and education are two of the biggest world issues of the current pandemic. Unfortunately, it is seen in this work that, due to the length of the incubation period of Covid-19, full opening of schools in the Fall of 2020 seems to be impractical unless the spread of the virus is completely under control in the surrounding region (e.g. with fewer than 5 active cases every million people). In order to support the possibility of some in-person learning, we model the diffusion of the epidemic within each single school by an SEAIR model with an external source of infection and a suitable loss function, and then evaluate sustainable opening plans. It turns out that blended models, with almost periodic alternations of in-class and remote teaching days or weeks, are generally (close to) optimal. In a prototypical example, the optimal strategy prescribes a school opening of 90 days out of 200 with the number of Covid-19 cases among the individuals related to the school increasing by about 67% with respect to no opening, instead of the about 200% increase that would have been a consequence of full opening. As clinical fraction is low in children, these solutions could lead to very few or no symptomatic cases within the school during the whole school year. Using the prevalence of active cases as a proxy for the number of pre- and asymptomatic, we get a preliminary indication for each country of whether either full opening, or blended opening with frequent testing, or no school opening at all, is advisable.

School practices to promote social distancing in K-12 schools: review of influenza pandemic policies and practices.

BACKGROUND: During an evolving influenza pandemic, community mitigation strategies, such as social distancing, can slow down virus transmission in schools and surrounding communities. To date, research on school practices to promote social distancing in primary and secondary schools has focused on prolonged school closure, with little attention paid to the identification and feasibility of other more sustainable interventions. To develop a list and typology of school practices that have been proposed and/or implemented in an influenza pandemic and to uncover any barriers identified, lessons learned from their use, and documented impacts. METHODS: We conducted a review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature on social distancing interventions in schools other than school closure. We also collected state government guidance documents directed to local education agencies or schools to assess state policies regarding social distancing. We collected standardized information from each document using an abstraction form and generated descriptive statistics on common plan elements. RESULTS: The document review revealed limited literature on school practices to promote social distancing, as well as limited incorporation of school practices to promote social distancing into state government guidance documents. Among the 38 states that had guidance documents that met inclusion criteria, fewer than half (42%) mentioned a single school practice to promote social distancing, and none provided any substantive detail about the policies or practices needed to enact them. The most frequently identified school practices were cancelling or postponing after-school activities, canceling classes or activities with a high rate of mixing/contact that occur within the school day, and reducing mixing during transport. CONCLUSION: Little information is available to schools to develop policies and procedures on social distancing. Additional research and guidance are needed to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of school practices to promote social distancing.