Nicolette Petra

The following article has been written according to the data available at the time of writing (22/3/20).

The past week has seen countries take various difficult but necessary steps in the bid to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Italy, the military has been called to enforce the lockdown as the country’s confirmed case rate and death toll overtook that of China. In Dubai, all roads will be sterilised and disinfected by the end of the month. France’s lockdown period will likely be extended. New York has imposed civil fines for those who break the state-wide “stay at home” order. In the UK, officials have called upon 65,000 retired doctors and medics to help tackle the outbreak.

With experts saying we are yet to experience the peak of the pandemic, countries worldwide are putting preventative measures in place in attempts to prioritise social distancing, flatten the curve, and lift the ever-encroaching burden off health systems. There has also been a more universally implemented precautionary method of ensuring social distancing and combating the virus’ spread: the closure of schools.

To many in Australia – especially our recent and infamous Bondi-goers – these actions may seem drastic or, as they have been commonly been described, draconian. The Australian Government has continued to give the public mixed messages about the severity of the virus. In particular, it has staunchly stood by its decision to keep schools open.

However, yesterday the Victorian Andrews Government and ACT Barr Government finally announced they would be the first states to shut schools come Tuesday 24 March. The NSW Berejiklian Government is set to continue its trend of delayed action, choosing to make updated announcements on Tuesday regarding whether schools will shut. The Australian Federal Government has been blindsided by the states taking this action. Nonetheless, it has not changed its stance.

In last night’s press conference, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said “the schools will remain open” because there is “health advice which says [students] can get to school and be taught, that it’s important we do that for as long as possible.” However, he also said that parents are allowed to choose for their children to stay home, leading to further confusion about the state of school closures or whether students should attend. Such mixed-messaging has been a constant in the government’s responses to the development of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia.

What follows is an argument for why the Australian Government should shut schools and why this, and a national lockdown, should have been done far sooner.

The Current Education Situation On an International Scale

According to UNESCO “…over 100 countries have implemented nationwide closures, impacting over half of world’s student population. Several other countries have implemented localized school closures…”

A graph provided on UNESCO’s website indicates that in just one week (from 14 to 21 March) the number of countries enforcing nation-wide closures has soared from 47 to 124.

UNESCO infographic depicting the worldwide increase of school closures. https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-emergencies/coronavirus-school-closures

Most importantly, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Dr Maria Van Kerkheove has attributed the closure of schools to the prevention of the onward transmission of COVID-19. In a WHO Press Conference on 18 March she stated, “We’re not seeing transmissions in settings like schools, where we would worry about amplification of transmission. In many countries schools have closed, so that is an important thing to take into consideration.”

The Australian Government’s No-School-Closure Policy

In stark contrast, Australia has adopted a no-school-closure policy. While universities across the country prepared to move classes online last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed that schools would remain open in his press conference on Wednesday 18 March. He provided two main reasons for this:

1. “The disruption that would occur from the closure of schools around the country would be severe [meaning] tens of thousands of jobs could be lost if not more”; [and]

2. There would be a “30% impact on the availability of health workers” according to the government’s advisers.

How Private, Public and Catholic School Teachers are Affected

While the UNESCO graph shows that Australian schools remain open because the federal and state governments have not advised otherwise, the graph does not account for the many private schools that have moved classes solely online or given students a choice to attend face-to-face teaching. The ABC reported this week that Pymble Ladies College, Kambala School and Knox Grammar School were among a number of private schools to…move classes online because of the coronavirus pandemic.”

However, unlike private schools, public schools are government-run. This means principals and teachers cannot choose to close schools and move classes online of their own accord. They have a limited number of sick days they can’t eat into for fear they may need that time off to care for sick family members or remain home should they become sick themselves. Additionally, teachers cannot make statements to the press without risking their jobs, meaning it is difficult for them to voice their concerns about schools remaining open.

Bravely ignoring this risk, 50 teachers from 45 Footscray High School in Melbourne have “put their names to an open letter calling on the Andrews government to immediately close the school or make ‘dramatic and substantial’ changes to protect staff and students from coronavirus.”

Catholic school teachers are in a similar boat, with Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop urging Catholic schools not to defy the Federal government’s recommendation to remain open.

Despite a number of other pleas by teachers who have anonymously given statements to the media about how the government has forced them to become ‘glorified babysitters’ and ‘sacrificial lambs to the economy’, the Australian Government has continuously refused to shut down schools. Only now are we starting to see a change of mind from state governments.

With the Prime Minister threatening to retract funding from private and Catholic schools if they don’t remain open, and public school staff unable to act contrary the government’s restrictions, teachers have been put in the impossible position of keeping schools open at the risk of their own health, as well as that of their families, their students, the students’ families and thus the wider community. Teachers are stuck under the government’s thumb. As a result, so too is the public.

A Lack of Cleaning Supplies and Services in Schools

The UNESCO graph also does not reflect the number of Australian public, Catholic, and private school students not attending school out of the concerns of their parents and caregivers. As of 19 March, attendance at schools across the country was down by as much as 30%. In Melbourne, one teacher reported attendance at a northern suburbs school was at “about 55% this week.”

This significant drop is not surprising when you consider that it is impossible for social distancing measures to be enforced and the cleaning resources the government has allocated to schools has been completely inadequate. The situation is so dire that teachers have had to resort to bringing their own cleaning products to scrub desks and surfaces between classes.

Moreover, what of the cleaning in schools which have had students test positive to COVID-19? In the past two weeks, NSW schools including Epping Boys High School and St Patrick’s Marist College had positive cases of the virus among students. Both schools were closed following these findings and all students and staff identified as being in close contact (15 minutes or more) with the infected students were asked to self-isolate for 14 days. However, both schools re-opened after only a one-day closure. Though the NSW Education Department announced that the schools would be “thoroughly cleaned” before classes resumed, one must question just how thorough this cleaning job was given the immense size of the average high school and the limited 24-hour window provided to clean it? One must also wonder whether the schools were given the same rigorous top-to-bottom hazmat-suit level cleaning treatment as the office of Minister Peter Dutton after he was confirmed to have COVID-19?

After Peter Dutton, Minister for Home Affairs, was diagnosed with COVID-19, his office was thoroughly sterilised by multiple cleaners in hazmat suits. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8111679/Cleaners-hazmat-suits-spotted-disinfecting-parlia… — After Peter Dutton, Minister for Home Affairs, was diagnosed with COVID-19, his office was thoroughly sterilised by multiple cleaners in hazmat suits. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8111679/Cleaners-hazmat-suits-spotted-disinfecting-parliament-Peter-Dutton-gets-coronavirus.html

Why Keeping Schools Open Is a Detriment to the Health of Not Only Students but Teachers (and the Wider Community)

During the 18 March press conference, the Prime Minister stated, “There is a national public interest here in keeping schools open, and our advice is that [it’s] not being done at the detriment of the health of any child.”

While the health of young people should undoubtedly be a priority in the current climate, there is also an undeniable public interest in ensuring the health of every Australian. Yet, not once in his press conference nor in any public address has Scott Morrison addressed how keeping schools open will and has affected the health of teachers. In fact, he has dehumanised the profession, simply calling them ‘the schools.’

While the myth that children are less affected by or are immune to the virus continues to circulate around the COVID-19 zeitgeist, a recent study on the Epidemiology and Transmission of COVID-19 in Shenzhen China found “the rate of infection in children under 10 (7.4%) was similar to the population average (7.9%) [meaning] there was no significant association between probability of infection and age...”

This means that young people are essentially just as likely to contract COVID-19 as the average adult – and that’s not even considering whether the young person is immunocompromised. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Dr Maria Van Kerkheove has also reiterated that “children can be infected; they tend to have mild disease, but they can die from this infection.”

At the moment, the consensus among the medical and scientific community appears to be that what makes cases in young people different to that of adults is that generally they are able to fight off the virus because they have a stronger immune system. Hence, the fact young people can and are contracting the virus means they, just like every other adult and elderly person, can spread the virus too.

However, what is most concerning is that it is common for children who do contract COVID-19 to be asymptomatic. This means when a child is infected with COVID-19, there is a higher likelihood that there will be no signs to indicate this. Consequently, children and young people have been labelled the ‘carriers’ of the virus, meaning they are the most likely group to spread the virus throughout our community as a result of not realizing they themselves are infected.

Thus, if one student were to unknowingly have COVID-19 because they are asymptomatic, and thus attend school (as has already been the case as aforementioned), they will likely spread the virus to their classmates, friends, and teachers. Those people then go out into the community – to shopping centres which remain open, on public transport routes that span the state, out with friends, home to their families – and continue the spread.

And herein lies the issue with the government’s staunch no-school-closures policy: it has come at the detriment of the health of teachers, their families, the families of students, and the wider community because the government has not considered the practicalities nor logistics of keeping schools open and functioning.

Let’s consider the logistics.

The Government’s Lack of Understanding of the Logistics and Impossibility of Social Distancing in Schools

By their very nature, schools are communal, contained environments and despite the government’s focus on students, school communities also consist of teachers, administrative staff, librarians, teachers aids, cleaners, and volunteers. A school’s student body can range anywhere between the hundreds and the thousands. According to Angelo Gavrielatos, President of the NSW Education Federation, about 30% of state schools [have] more than 500 students, with the largest public school having more than 2000 students. Already, this seems to contradict the government’s less than 100 and 500 person gathering recommendations, but remember – these have conveniently not been applied to schools.

Looking specifically to social distancing in classrooms, on average each class has approximately 30 students. According to the NSW Education Department’s Educational Facilities and Standards Guidelines, the maximum size of a primary school classroom is 60 square metres; for high school classrooms, it’s 80 square metres. If the government’s new 4 square metre social distancing policy were to be applied (which it’s not, despite the fact the rest of the country must adhere to the restriction), only 1 teacher and 14 primary school students, or 1 teacher and 20 high school students would fit in their respective classrooms.

Scarier still, high school students are required to change classes up to six times a day meaning both they and their teachers are in contact with far more than a mere 30 people per day. If a teacher were to have a six period day with a different class each period, they would be in contact with 180 students for approximately 50 minutes – and that’s not counting the contact they may have with the rest of the school community on their recess and lunch duties, or with their fellow staff members.

However, the 4 square metre social distancing policy has not been applied to schools. This double-standard further points to the government’s neglect for the logistics of how schools are incubators for the virus. Schools are not bubbles – the students who learn in them, the teachers who teach in them, the people that work in them, leave at the end of each day, and go into our communities. Consequently, we have all been at risk.

Why Australia Must Shut Schools Now – And Should Have Done So At Least A Month Ago

While the Australian Government has cited the estimated “30% impact on the availability of health workers” as a reason for not closing the schools, history and current statistics tell a very different tale.

According to The Conversation, “The rationale for closing schools during pandemics is that children are thought to be important vectors of transmission.”

There is also evidence from several studies to support that proactive and widespread school closures were associated with reducing the rate of new influenza cases and lowering death rates during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.

Furthermore, keeping schools open, thus allowing the exponential spread of COVID-19 to continue, will only overwhelm our hospitals and health workers in the coming weeks. With hospitals set to run out of ICU beds by April, and biostatisticians warning that Australia is on track to facing similar numbers to Italy, the government should have closed schools, if not enforced a national lockdown weeks ago.

Yet, the practical logistics behind face-to-face schooling and the history of school closures correlating with stopping the spread of viruses, seem to be lost on the Australian Government which continues to insist that schools should remain open and focus instead on stimulus packages (which could have been made during a lockdown). Prime Minister Morrison himself used Singapore as a model example, highlighting in the 18 March press conference that Singapore has been “one of the most successful countries” in curbing the spread because it allowed schools to remain open. Of course, the Prime Minister failed to mention that Singapore has been able to do this as a result of “[halving] class sizes, instituting strict hygiene measures and [staggering] break periods to reduce playground contact”, amongst other measures. The Australian Government has taken no such action.

The government’s fact cherry-picking in order to appear more competent in tackling the pandemic, combined with its use of blanket statements and double-standard restrictions, is akin to the behaviour of a PR company. In general, the Australian Government has adopted a far more passive and complacent approach to social distancing compared to other countries. In the past week alone, the Australian Government’s incremental approach is evident:

Last weekend, the government announced its restriction on outdoor gatherings of 500+ people, only to follow-up on Wednesday with the advice that non-essential internal gatherings would be limited to fewer than 100 people.
The social distancing measure was raised from 1.5 to 4 metres on 20 March.
Bondi Beach was temporarily closed on Saturday 21 March after crowds exceeded the government’s recently implemented 500-people gathering limit.

This snail’s pace approach has also been applied to schools, only serving to further the spread of the virus among the Australian community, undoubtedly causing the encroachment on the medical sector we will experience in the coming weeks.

Alternative Methods to the Government’s Current No-School-Closure Policy

When it comes to schools, there are several methods to face-to-face learning which would be effective alternatives in the current climate. Some of these include:

Online learning, much of which is already available to and used by schools through sites such as Google Classroom, Moodle, Zoom and the simple but effective email.
Ensuring equal access to online learning for all students by providing laptops to those students who do not have access to technology at home
Opening day care or learning spaces with significantly reduced class sizes that also adheres to the 4 square metre per person social distancing restriction for the children of medical workers who are needed on the frontline and cannot care for their children or do not wish to risk the health of grandparents. However, this still leaves the possibility of children spreading the virus to their parents.
Freezing rent and mortgages and providing payouts for workers who have to stay home to care for children. Should a national lockdown occur, this should be applied to all who are affected.
Thoroughly sterilising and disinfecting schools so that surfaces (which the virus is known to stick to) can be kept clean and the health of teachers that are still forced to and the students who choose to attend face-to-face classes can be better prioritised. This should also be done in public areas nation-wide.
As we are still waiting for a national lockdown, it would also be helpful given the infectious nature of COVID-19, to receive a single and consistent message from the government through a media campaign on how to effectively avoid bringing COVID-19 into our homes and how to care for those who are self-isolating.

Australia is Already on the Backfoot – Acting NOW Has to Be Our Priority

The Australian Government had the time and the warnings of the WHO and other countries to take greater preventative measures far sooner than it did. It had the signatures of thousands of doctors across Australia imploring “for more drastic lockdown measures to reduce the chance of an Italy-style coronavirus catastrophe.” It should have taken more and greater precautions to stop the spread of the virus far sooner, so that infection wouldn’t spread and our health systems would not be overburdened.

Last week, strategic–policy analyst Bill Bowtell has expressed his frustration at the Government’s lax and reactive responses to the virus:

“You’ve had, since the beginning of January to do this. And when the situation got serious in Taiwan, they created a national unified command I think on January 20. Eight weeks ago.

“Nothing like that was done... There was no public education campaign. There was no mobilisation of the people. The state governments did not sanitise and disinfect the transport systems. And people would go around saying that as recently as on Friday your PM was saying ‘nothing to see here. Social distancing next week. Everybody go out and it’s not a problem.’”

We have been bombarded by a $30m government health campaign about how to sanitise and cough into our elbows, two months too late, the money for which could have gone towards the health sector or payouts as opposed to asking Australians to reach into their superannuation. We have been berated daily to wash our hands by a government that is surely washing theirs of the responsibility to decisively lead and protect its people during this current health crisis.

Holidaying in Hawaii while one’s country, people and wildlife burn is not leadership. Better yet, being the first world leader to call COVID-19 a pandemic on 27 February and still not have called a national lockdown almost one month later, is not leadership. Advising the rest of the country to gather in groups of no more than 500 people only to openly state you are going to go to the football (and then indecisively (but rightly so) backflip on that decision) is not a good example nor is it leadership. Threatening teachers with retracting school funding, thus threatening their livelihoods, is not leadership. Enforcing a double-standard of social distancing based on profession is not leadership. Deprioritising the health of an entire profession and treating them as expendable is not leadership. Willfully ignoring the advice of the WHO and other countries who were where Australia is now two weeks ago and are suffering today, is not leadership.

And what the Australian people need now more than ever, is decisive leadership from a government that has forethought and is willing to be proactive about putting a stop to COVID-19.

If the Prime Minister is not willing to implement an enforceable national lockdown, then at the very least he should change his stance and advise the State Governments to shut the schools. While it would be ideal for the Federal and State Governments to work as a united front on this and all issues relating to COVID-19, if the two levels of government continue to clash then the State Governments must take it upon themselves to close the schools, as is their constitutional responsibility. The NSW Government in particular must take evasive action, being Australia’s coronavirus epicentre.

Humans are nothing if not adaptable and resourceful. Australians will adapt to education online, just as the rest of the world has.

Teachers are not collateral. Nor are their families, the students they teach, or the wider community.

People are not expendable. Humanity cannot afford for this pandemic to become endemic.

“Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist. Everything we do after will seem inadequate.”— Michael Leavitt, Former US Secretary of Health and Human Services

Sources:

Dear #ScottyFromMarketing: You Say Schools Stay Open, We Say “Stop It!”