The corona cabinet is scheduled to meet on Sunday to review a plan for allowing schools to function despite the pandemic, the Prime Minister’s Office announced, while the idea of postponing the beginning of the school year appears to have gained traction.
“I think the school year should start on time,” said Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, an epidemiologist and the director of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s School of Public Health. “I think we have all the tools to prepare under a multi-layer approach, from vaccination to serological testing.”
Israel is set to conduct mass testing of students to keep them monitored. Serological testing of children age three-12 will also be carried out in order to identify those who have recovered from COVID without knowing they had the disease, and can therefore be exempt from isolation.
Vaccinations are supposed to be conducted in schools during school hours, despite the argument between the Health and Education ministries, with the latter strongly opposing the idea.
In addition, students in grades eight to 12 who live in “red” cities with high infection rates will need to learn online, unless at least 70% of their class has been vaccinated or has recovered.
According to Davidovitch, all aspects of the plan are important, as well as thinking of alternative approaches such as holding classes outdoors or hiring more staff to reduce the overcrowding of classrooms.
“I think it is important to approach the issue from a general public health perspective, and not just focusing on the coronavirus,” he said. “We need to consider the effect of these decisions on the children’s social and mental health. The bottom line should be to keep schools open as much as we can, and give flexibility to the local communities to apply all the measures as much as they can.”
Davidovitch suggested using the few school days in September to test the new planned measures, noting that the logistical challenges are significant.
“It is clear that some places are better prepared than others, and the state should help those in need,” he said. “Schools have been closed for too long.”
According to Prof. Ora Paltiel, an epidemiologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Hadassah Braun School of Public Health, there are arguments both in favor and opposed to postponing the beginning of the school year.
“On the one hand, we are in the middle of a Delta outbreak, the community transmission is high and we know that this leads to outbreaks in schools and even children getting blamed for the outbreaks,” she said. “If schools open, there are going to be outbreaks, and many of them will need to enter quarantine. Therefore, maybe it could make sense to wait and let them shelter at home.
“At the same time, children have been the group most affected by the pandemic – not by the disease itself, but from the measures taken against it, and deciding to open schools no matter what would send a very strong statement about how education is our priority as a country.”
Paltiel acknowledged that there are so few school days in September due to the Jewish holidays that the impact of postponing the beginning of classes would probably be very limited.
“When the Jewish holidays fall so early, even in normal years, there is a question of whether it would make more sense to start after them,” she said. “However, children have had their right to an education curtailed for the past year and a half, so we have to move forward and allow them to go to school the entire year.”
Paltiel stressed that the decision to close schools in previous waves was not determined by the need to preserve the health of students, but was done for other considerations.
“Children were not getting sick and dying,” she said. “During the lockdown, we saw that they got infected at home and with their families, from their parents and siblings. We were not protecting the children, or society. I don’t believe in lockdowns. I don’t think that they have worked in this country.”
Regarding the government’s plans, Paltiel said anything that can prevent a child from going into unnecessary isolation is welcome.
Ultimately, she said, the question of the approach to the education system during the pandemic requires a value-based choice.
“Once you make the decision that education is a priority, a basic right for the children, you do everything you can to keep the schools open, unless the children themselves are falling ill and you have to protect them,” she concluded. “The same way we do not shut down the health system or the police, we should not close schools.”