As Victoria brings forward its school holidays and NSW recommends parents keep their kids at home, some key questions remain: Is it worth shutting schools to slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), what what is at risk if we do?
Those questions received some airtime on Q+A last night, which, for a second week in a row, discussed the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on the Australian community, and its impacts on young Australians.
Claire Sellar, a NSW Year 12 student, said COVID-19’s impact on her education was already considerable without the looming threat of school closures. Her question was simple: is keeping schools open a good thing, and is it worth the hit to students’ mental health?
As with many questions related to COVID-19, there was no straight answer. The socially-distanced panel had some wildly different takes.
Professor Sharon Lewin, Director of the Doherty Institute, said school closures would contribute to a “package of interventions” against the virus, which “will certainly increase social distancing.”
“Now is a really important time to get it right, and I think I would err on the side of going a little bit harder now, in this precious time we have, to stop an escalation of infections,” she said.
That’s not in keeping with current advice from the Federal Government, nor Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly, who pointed to the evidence in favour of keeping schools open.
There’s the early data showing school-aged kids exhibit much milder symptoms of COVID-19 than their elder peers, Professor Kelly said. There’s also the argument that confirmed cases in children tend to be linked exposure to infected parents, and that kids don’t seem to spread COVID-19 as rampantly as they share the flu.
Then there’s the really brutal calculus of what it would mean for Australia’s healthcare workforce should they suddenly have kids to wrangle at home.
“This is not a two or four week thing,” Professor Kelly said.
“If schools close, they are closed for at least the next six months, probably for the whole school year.
“That is a big thing… That is a life-changing event. We can’t make these decisions lightly. They may have a place at some point.”
Doctor Norman Swan, who presents the ABC’s Coronacast, echoed much of what he’s said before: Australia’s testing and quarantine systems are not quite as robust as some other nations which have arrested the rate of infection, and school closures would be a good way to put on the “brakes.”
School closures would be “the biggest thing you could do to make a difference to the curve,” Dr Swan said.
So, we end up in the same uncertain position. Hopefully the next time this comes up, after the imminent school holidays, students like Claire Sellar will have a clearer answer about the state of their education.
You can watch a clip below:
Should the schools be closed? Will keeping them open have a detrimental impact on the mental health of students? #QandA pic.twitter.com/W0PcOam2Fs
— QandA (@QandA) March 23, 2020
