Coronavirus: ‘Better’ than expected return to school, despite Delta mutation

In many countries around the world schools have started more than a month ago and fears that the Delta mutation of coronavirus would derail lifelong teaching have proven largely unfounded, Reuters reports.

As he notes, in a dozen countries with high vaccination rates – in Asia, Europe and the United States – the rates of infections that were launched in August are very high. retreat, according to official figures and officials.

The question is whether this is due to seasonal factors in the midst of a global reduction in infections, and whether it is linked to vaccinations or other preventive measures. Public health experts say they will continue to watch for signs of an increase in infections as winter approaches.

“In the US, school transmission is higher in places with low adult vaccination and where there is no reduction, but overall, schools have remained open,” she said. Monica Gaddy, professor of medicine at the San Francisco School of Medicine at the University of California. “It goes better than expected.”

Infections among children increased almost sevenfold in August but reached climax in the week ended September 2, show data from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

But only about 2% Schools in the United States have been temporarily closed due to outbreaks of COVID-19, according to research firm Burbio, which records school closures.

Children make up the bulk of them unvaccinated in richer countries, either because vaccination for their age groups has just begun or because it has not yet been approved.

The infections associated with summer travel and test-related infections in August have fallen, public health experts say, and increased vaccinations, school measures and the wider community outbreak are helping.

Of course there are exceptions: In Singapore, infections in children had an increasing trend throughout September and in Japan, Tokyo schools have implemented rotational lifelong learning.

But in Scandinavia, Scotland, Germany, France, South Korea and the United States, infections are declining, despite fears that the more contagious Delta mutation would lead to an increase in infections, according to Reuters.

“We really expect the current downward trend to continue for a few weeks and then stabilized at a low level, at least for a couple of months. “Then there is uncertainty about the winter,” he said Preben Avicland, senior physician at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, in an email to Reuters.

Britain saw some increase in infections in schools that opened early, but it did not spread to the general population, he said. Neil Ferguson, epidemiologist at Imperial College London.

In Scotland, schools reopened in mid-August and test scores reached record numbers by the end of the month. In the week ended September 3, about one in 20 children aged three, eight, 13 and 16 was estimated to have COVID-19, compared with one in 45 in the general population, according to government figures. But infections between the ages of under 19 years fall every week since.

In the United States, the number of infections in children has increased as a percentage of total infections, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Schools simply reflect what is happening in the surrounding community and in most cases it exists smaller transmission than in the surrounding community due to the measures implemented “, said Dr. Sin O’Leary, professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado.

In Kentucky, for example, 45 of the state’s 171 school districts have closed at least once since the start of the academic year in August, according to the Joshua Sulta, a representative of the Kentucky School Boards Association.

Infections per 100,000 inhabitants in Kentucky are falling but still are from higher in the country and just over 50% of its population has been fully vaccinated. The state’s school districts were already experiencing staff shortages before COVID-19 infections and quarantines, Sulta said. The state legislature held a special session last week, where lawmakers gave local school officials more autonomy in implementing the COVID-19 protocols.

“What we know “Now and the tools we have compared to where we are at this time last year, the game has changed slightly”, Sulta noted characteristically.

* File photo