Schools in two states that were experiencing a surge in Covid cases announced they would close their facilities and move to remote learning.
Alabama and Tennessee announced the closure of two schools, affecting more than 1,000 children, just days before the start of the new academic year, with officials saying the virus had forced them to close and conduct a “deep cleaning.”
At one school, children had to leave their desks and return to remote learning for two days, a move reminiscent of the early days of Covid.
The closures, both in Republican states, came despite a mountain of evidence suggesting they hamper children’s learning, social interactions and ability to develop natural immunity to common infections.
And there are fears that further disruption could be in store for students in the coming months as many schools, in states including New York, New Jersey and Michigan, reopen after the Labor Day weekend.
Johnson-Abernathy-Graetz (JAB) High School in Montgomery, Alabama, closed for two days and switched to remote learning just four days into its new school term amid a surge in Covid cases.
Stigall Elementary School in West Tennessee also closed for a day just a week into the new school term to conduct deep cleaning.
Johnson-Abernathy-Graetz (JAB) High School in Montgomery, Alabama, which has 1,500 students in grades 9-12, made the decision to switch to virtual classes just four days into the new academic year after 15 teachers contracted Covid. There was no data on how many students became infected.
Staff and children were told to stay home on Wednesday, August 14 and Thursday, August 15 and attend classes via remote learning while deep cleaning was conducted at school buildings.
The school has reopened and masks and disinfectant wipes are available in all classrooms. Masks are not mandatory.
At Stigall Elementary School, part of the Humboldt school system in West Tennessee, a one-day closure was announced just a week into the new school term amid a “surge” in cases.
The 246 first-graders had to stay home Tuesday, Aug. 13 while their school was cleaned, and parents were forced to miss work or hire a babysitter.
A school spokesman did not reveal how many staff or children had tested positive, saying only that they had seen an “increase”.
Jessica Williamson, a parent of a first grader at the school, said: Fox13:Everyone says: “Covid is back, Covid is back.”
“They are young children. They are more likely to put things in their mouths, touch each other and share germs.”
She had to find a babysitter for her daughter during the day, but said she preferred that to her daughter getting Covid, which could force her to stay home for several days.
Teachers will now also be required to wipe down desks and desk surfaces with disinfectant every time students move between classes.
Mask-wearing has not become mandatory, and other pandemic-era policies, such as social distancing, have not been reinstated.
COVID-19 cases have been on the rise across the United States in recent weeks, believed to be driven by summer travel and gatherings.
Eighteen percent of swabs tested positive for the virus in the week to August 17, the latest available, up 40 percent from the previous month.
But these levels are far below those of the most severe days of the pandemic, when the proportion of tests that detected the virus rose by more than 30 percent.
Hospitalizations and deaths are also far lower than in earlier periods of the pandemic, though they are rising slightly; experts say most people now suffer only mild illness because of prior immunity from vaccines or infections.
COVID-19 cases have been on the rise in recent weeks, which experts say is likely due to summer travel and gatherings.
The Covid hospitalisation rate (4.4 per 100,000 people) is also well below the peak of 35.4 per 100,000 people in 2022, when the Omicron variant was spreading.
It is also lower than the 10.9 per 100,000 and 7.7 per 100,000 at the beginning of 2024.
The data also shows there were 696 Covid-related deaths recorded in the week to July 27, the latest available, well below the tally from previous waves and less than a third of the level in January this year, when 2,500 deaths were being recorded every seven days.
Several studies have been published since the pandemic warning how remote learning harms children’s development.
These include the Education Recovery Scorecard paper by researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins, among others, which analyzed data from 7,800 school districts to determine the impact of remote learning.
Students in districts where remote learning was implemented for most of the 2020-2021 school year were found to be, on average, more than half a grade behind in math.
By comparison, those who implemented distance learning for just over a third of the year fell behind by just over a third of a grade.
Another study published in early 2022 found that children performed worse in math and reading in 2020 and 2021 than before the pandemic began, after analyzing the results of 7.3 million tests.
In the UK, experts have said lockdowns caused “lasting and decisive” damage to children’s education that could have been avoided.