Dear Australian Federal and State Governments,

In response to your decision to re-open schools for term 2, I have one question: Are you insane?

While the rest of country has been forced (effectively, I should add), to quarantine themselves to less than two people, you are actively promoting large groups of children to intermingle. Children that might not fully grasp the importance of proper hygiene, are less likely to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze, put their hands in their mouth among other things, and then go back home to their families.

While the imposed quarantine laws are so strict that you fine a person eating a kebab alone in a park $1000 or fine a 17 year old $1600 for driving with their mum, you are now allowing and implicitly encouraging groups of children into the same room. So I ask again: Are you insane? Not only is there clearly not any consistency here, but this is unmistakably a recipe for disaster – a disaster that Australia has managed to mostly mitigate until now.

Not only is this school policy inconsistent with the other social distancing guidelines, the policies themselves are vague, imprecise, and are generally mixed with regards to the seriousness and specific recommendations put forward (not to mention variable from State to State). Currently, with schools set to resume in two days, principals, teachers, and other staff are still unsure what will be happening and what they will be required to do. For example, on the one hand, although it is ‘strongly encouraged for parents to keep their children home if possible. Any student whose parents or carers are not able to ‘appropriately supervise their children at home should continue to attend school.’ What circumstances are deemed ‘not able to appropriately supervise’ is not clear, not to mention, the laws and subsequent sanctions were imposed after large crowds gathered on various beaches, choosing to ignore the social distancing advice and demonstrating that at least some people cannot be trusted to make the judgement of what is appropriate. Or as another example, the education minister, Dan Tehan, has repeatedly stated that it is safe for schools to be open. He has gone as far as mandated private schools be opened, arguing that there needs to be options for children of essential service workers. On the other hand, the Victorian Department of Education states that it is only for those children who are vulnerable or in Child Protection Services. (This seems to be a product of Victoria being more cautious than the Federal government. Ultimately, it needs to be decided and communicated clearly whether it is just the most vulnerable students or all children of essential service workers). Further, Mr. Tehan, how is it possible that putting a bunch of kids in a school is safe but eating a kebab alone on a bench or driving with your mother is not?

I’ll take this time to acknowledge that there is a problem that needs a solution. We want our essential workers – doctors, nurses, and even those responsible for producing and transporting food – to be able to do their jobs; and that becomes difficult when the schools are not open. However, it is not an insurmountable challenge, after all, for the past two weeks, (and for approximately ten weeks every year), children are out of school and parents need to make accommodations. Nevertheless, I’ll further acknowledge, there is a difference between having to plan and modify your work arrangements for a couple weeks, rather than many months, in order to make do. This is also made considerably easier when other programs like day camps are available, which they currently are not.

Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that it is a terrible solution to put a bunch of kids together. After-all, what happens when one of them spreads it to the other children of essential workers, which ultimately will be brought back to all the parents – the parents who are the essential workers and need to remain healthy!

What we’ll likely see is that people will still be reluctant to send their kids to schools and that will be the saving grace here. However, we will see some kids go to school and then undoubtedly a few cases of infection. This will result in that school being closed and perhaps some of the surrounding schools as well. It will also scare people, causing an outcry, and I am willing to wager we’ll see Dan Tehan walk-back and/or qualify his remarks (EDIT: On May 3rd, a Melbourne public school was closed after a teacher tested positive as Victoria recorded its biggest daily increase in cases in a fortnight. Dan Tehan also “issued a statement saying he had “overstepped the mark” and retracting his comments.”)

I’ve always been taught that while it is important to be able to criticise an idea, it’s not very useful if you don’t have a better one. To be honest, it is a tough situation and until there is a vaccine or much better testing, any time the schools re-open, these problems will need to be faced. Nevertheless, here’s my attempt and suggestion at a better idea (I will acknowledge it is a little abstract and the exact details would need to flushed out):

Another problem facing the country (and the world) as a result of COVID-19 is unemployment. It seems then that the ‘simple’ solution that helps resolve both of these problems, is to develop and encourage a massive ‘individual based child-care’ service. Now, of course, this involves trusting the ‘child-care workers’, both in terms of them not carrying the disease and general trust that they will look after the children. For the latter problem, most of the children that need to be ‘looked after’ will be old enough (e.g. 10+) that they generally just need to be supervised to ensure that they don’t get into any trouble and/or that they focus on their online-based education. I’ll acknowledge it’ll be a bit more challenging for those with very young children (e.g. those in daycare) as more specialized individuals with some experience caring after small children may need to be found and vetted, but that does not seem like a problem that cannot be overcome. For the former problem, it definitely is an issue, but single household infections seem to be a much better option than an entire school being at risk of infection.

At the very least please ensure that whatever kids go to school are isolated from one another. My understanding at this point, is that the plan is to put all the kids in one room – like a gymnasium, which feels like adding gasoline to a fire. A gymnasium may be big enough to keep students far apart, but it really depends on how many students go to school, where and how students can go to the bathroom, play outside, etc., not to mention their interactions with the staff. These staff are not healthcare workers and the children may not fully comprehend the implications, so ensuring specific but relatively easy and manageable guidelines will be vital (in a literal sense). Considering splitting up the students into multiple large rooms may be required.

Ultimately, Australia has done a relatively exceptional job flattening the curve. However, this has been, in large part, due to tough ‘physical distancing’ guidelines – minimizing the amount of contact that we have with one another. Presumably, it may have also been assisted by the fact that we just went through the school holidays, keeping children, who seem to be relatively asymptomatic but possible carriers away from each other. Correlation is not causation, but the curve started flattening just as the break was beginning and I’d be willing to wager that if these guidelines are relaxed and many students go back to school, we’ll begin to see the curve accelerate again. (Edit 2: The curve did drop and level off at the end of term 1 March 27, but then shortly after the beginning of term 2 (April 14th) we have now seen an acceleration (see image below), Once again, correlation is not causation, but it was predicted.)

As noted, I am hoping that the saving grace here will be that many parents opt to keep their kids home. However, at some point, students will likely return to school, and unless something changes, it will be inevitable that we will see entire schools get shutdown as cases emerge and then the decision will be about whether to restart this whole thing all over again.

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