'Schools Should Stay Open As Covid Risk Is Low'

University of Hong Kong researchers said on Monday that schools should stay open as much as possible as they do not pose a high risk of Covid-19 transmission.

That, they said, would allow students to attend classes in person and boost their social skills after lengthy class suspensions in the past year caused some of them "irreversible harm".

Researchers called for a policy rethink, saying school closures should be kept to a minimum in case of future outbreaks.

"So far school is definitely... relatively a safe place that doesn't seem to have been an environment causing all those kinds of transmission. If we could keep on with our good quality and stringent social-distancing and good hygiene measures in schools, I deeply believe that schools should be encouraged to continue as much as possible," says Patrick Li, a clinical associate professor specialising in paediatric and adolescent health.

"In the Western world, they do consider school closure as an effective means, but usually they would consider it as the last step, the last resort, because everyone understands about the consequence of prolonged school closure."

While school closure is considered necessary and helpful at the beginning of the pandemic when people are unfamiliar with the virus, another researcher, Dr Mike Kwan, said it's now time for the government to consider more "precise" school closure measures with people abiding by infection-control measures over time.

He said schools could be suspended for shorter periods of time or closed partially, to better benefit pupils particularly those with special needs.

Li said full-day school resumption could happen in the long run if more people are vaccinated and the pandemic is firmly under control.

In a survey interviewing nearly 30,000 families last year, the team found out that the number of children suffering from hyperactivity soared by 7.5 percent during the pandemic, as online lessons cannot catch their attention.

The team also observed that children spent an hour more each day on electronic devices for gaming and recreational purposes, adding to their psycho-social problems such as sleeping disorders and worsening emotions.

"We witness actually even developmental deterioration among autistic children. All those changes in a critically, actively growing brain, actually could be irreversible, and could result in a very significant and long-term impact," Li warned.

He said all these resulted to a "significant" 3 percent increase in parental stress, particularly for those who have children with hyperactivity and learning difficulties with online lessons.