Lockdown Eased: Netherlands And France Plan To Re-Open Primary Schools

Youngest pupils to start classes again in May as scientists say move should not cause more hospital admissions



Pupils in France last September on their first day of the school year, sitting alongside the French prime minister, Édouard Philippe (left) and beside him the education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer.

Several European countries are to relax coronavirus restrictions related to children, with Holland and France announcing that primary schools will reopen next month and Spain setting out how under-14s will be allowed out of the home from next week.

French children would return to school in staggered year groups, the education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer said, with no more than 15 pupils allowed in each class.

Primary pupils aged from five to 11 would be the first to go back on 12 May, one day after the end of a strict nationwide lockdown. The following week older children in selected years at secondary schools and lycée would return. All classes would be back by 25 May.

Blanquer said the aim was to have primary school children back in “small groups”, probably of “less than 10 pupils”. The plan is likely to prove challenging for headteachers in public schools, where classes of 30-plus pupils are common.


Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, announced that primary schools would reopen in the Netherlands on 11 May. The country’s infectious disease control institute found that the risk of infection from opening schools was “manageable”.

Leaked scientific advice, obtained by the Guardian, says the effective reproduction rate of the epidemic has been less than one in the Netherlands since 15 March. This means that one person with the disease infects fewer than one other person in the community.

Of all reported Covid-19 patients, the scientists advise, “barely 1% are under 20 years of age, while this age group accounts for approximately 22% of the entire population”.

The scientists conclude: “By opening childcare, primary schools and special education, more transmission is expected among children and their parents. However, it is expected that this will not result in much additional care and hospital admissions.”

“To start, children in primary schools will attend school half of the time. For example, one day one half of the pupils, the other day the other half. The starting date for all schools and day cares is 11 May,” Rutte said. Advisers will take into account data from Scandinavian countries, including Denmark, which last week reopened primary schools, and Norway, which did so on Monday.

Secondary schools in the Netherlands could resume a month later if no outbreaks occurred in the intervening period in primary schools, they said. They also suggested that children up to the age of 12 could exercise without social distancing, but that the rules should be enforced for older pupils.

Dutch-style phased reopening offers a model for other European countries which have so far not significantly eased lockdown measures or allowed pupils back to school. They include Italy, Spain and the UK, all of which have had high rates of infection and transmission.

On Tuesday, the Spanish government announced that children under 14 would be allowed out of their homes from 27 April if accompanied by a parent. They are not permitted to exercise or play in parks, which remain shut, but they can visit the supermarket, chemist or bank.

The trend across Europe is of a cautious return to pre-virus life. Austria said on Tuesday it would allow restaurants and cafes to reopen and religious services to resume from 15 May. Small shops are already open, with Germany following suit on Monday, as bookshops, florists and fashion stores welcomed customers again.

Meanwhile, several countries which previously had managed to suppress the virus reported a sudden resurgence. Turkey’s outbreak hit 90,981 cases on Tuesday, overtaking China to become the seventh most affected country in the world.

While Ankara took early steps to limit international travel and closed schools and restaurants soon after its first case was confirmed, on 11 March, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, resisted calls for a total lockdown. He insisted that the wheels of the economy “must keep turning”.

Reported fatalities for Turkey, at 2,140, remain much lower than is the case for other badly affected countries. However, analysis by the New York Times of death records in Istanbul showed that the city had had a jump of 2,100 more deaths than expected in a recent four-week period, suggesting the spread of the coronavirus could be much worse than officials say.

In Singapore, the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, extended a lockdown by four weeks, until 1 June, after the city-state recorded a sharp rise in cases.

Singapore instituted a successful contact tracing system for its general population. However, the virus has re-emerged in crowded hostels used by foreign workers. The measures, which include the closures of most workplaces and schools, were initially set to run from 7 April until 4 May. Loong conceded that cases had risen “in our migrant worker dormitories”. They were detected through “aggressive testing”, he said.

In other developments:

• More than 170,000 people have died in the coronavirus pandemic, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, in the US. There have been more than 2.47m cases worldwide.
  
  
• The World Health Organization has cited evidence of coronavirus originating late last year from bats in China; the virus was not constructed in a laboratory, it said, contradicting claims made last week by the US president, Donald Trump.
  
  
• Italy announced plans to ease its lockdown this week as confirmed cases fell by 528 to 107,709 – the first significant fall since the outbreak began. It reported 534 new deaths from coronavirus on Tuesday, 80 more than on Monday, bringing the death toll to 24,648.
  
  
• Denmark’s ban on gatherings of more than 500 people was extended until September. It said a ban on more than 10 people would remain until 10 May.
  
  
• Bavaria has cancelled Oktoberfest, the world’s biggest beer festival, over fears it could become a breeding ground for the coronavirus.
  

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