COVID-19と学校の再開校：政策立案者のジレンマ

COVID-19 and the re-opening of schools: a policy maker's dilemma.

• Maria Pia Fantini
• Chiara Reno
• Giovanni Battista Biserni
• Elena Savoia
• Marcello Lanari

抄録

2019年12月に中国の武漢でコロナウイルス病2019（COVID-19）の流行が勃発し、急速に世界中に広がった。この流行に対抗するために、いくつかの国が学校の閉鎖や全面的なロックダウンなど、さまざまな制限的な措置を講じました。しかし、この病気に関する知識が進むにつれ、臨床的には子どもたちは主に無症状または軽症であることが示され、ウイルスを拡散させる可能性も低いことが示唆されてきました。さらに、ロックダウンや学校閉鎖は、子どもたちの社会生活や教育、精神的健康に影響を与え、子どもたちに悪影響を及ぼす可能性があります。多くの国では、すでに社会的距離の維持、小グループへのクラス編成、空間、家具、玩具の適切な衛生管理、学校環境における感染者の迅速な特定とその追跡など、安全に実施するための措置を講じた上で、保育園や小学校の再開校を復興の初期段階で実施すべき政策と考えるのが妥当であると思われます。したがって、政策立案者は、子どもとその家族にとっての心理的、教育的、社会的な影響を考慮に入れながら、学校再開戦略の長所と短所のバランスをとる必要がある。考慮すべきもう一つの問題は、学校の閉鎖によって増幅される可能性のある社会経済的な格差や不平等である。

The epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) broke out in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and rapidly spread across the world. In order to counter this epidemic, several countries put in place different restrictive measures, such as the school's closure and a total lockdown. However, as the knowledge on the disease progresses, clinical evidence showed that children mainly have asymptomatic or mild disease and it has been suggested that they are also less likely to spread the virus. Moreover, the lockdown and the school closure could have negative consequences on children, affecting their social life, their education and their mental health. As many countries have already entered or are planning a phase of gradual lifting of the containment measures of social distancing, it seems plausible that the re-opening of nursery schools and primary schools could be considered a policy to be implemented at an early stage of recovery efforts, putting in place measures to do it safely, such as the maintenance of social distance, the reorganisation of classes into smaller groups, the provision of adequate sanitization of spaces, furniture and toys, the prompt identification of cases in the school environment and their tracing. Therefore, policy makers have the task of balancing pros and cons of the school re-opening strategy, taking into account psychological, educational and social consequences for children and their families. Another issue to be considered is represented by socio-economic disparities and inequalities which could be amplified by school's closure.