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As countries return to school methods by fall, an outbreak of coronavirus in one of Jerusalem’s major schools offers an uplifting narrative.
By Isabel Kershner and Pam Belluck
JERUSALEM – While the United States and other countries fear the reopening of schools, Israel, one of the first countries to do so, illustrates the risks of moving too hastily.
Trusted to defeat the coronavirus and desperate to restart a devastated economy, the Israeli government invited all academics to return by the end of May.
Within days, infections were reported in one of Jerusalem’s major schools, which temporarily spread to the biggest epidemic in a singles school in Israel, most likely in the world.
The virus spread to students’ homes and other schools and neighborhoods, infecting many students, teachers and parents.
Other outbreaks have forced the closure of many schools. Across the country, tens of thousands of academics have been quarantined.
Israel’s recommendation to countries?
“In fact, they shouldn’t do what we did,” said Eli Waxman, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and president of the team that begged the Israel National Security Council for the pandemic. “It’s a primary failure.”
The lesson, experts say, is that even communities that have controlled the spread of the virus will have to take strict precautions when reopening schools. Smaller classes, dressed in masks, keeping offices at a six-foot side and offering good ventilation, they say, are probably very important until a vaccine is available.
“If there are a small number of cases, there is a ghost that the disease is over,” said Dr. Hagai Levine, professor of epidemiology at the Hebrew-Hadassah University School of Public Health. “But he’s a ghost.”
“The mistake in Israel,” he said, “is that you can open the school system, but you have to do it gradually, with safe limits, and you have to do it very carefully.”
The United States faces pressure to absolutely reopen schools, and President Trump has threatened to turn down investment for districts that do not reopen. But the United States is in a much worse scenario than Israel in May: Israel had fewer than a hundred new infections a day. The United States now records an average of more than 60,000 new cases according to the day, and some states continue to set alarming records.
First, Israel’s control of the pandemic was seen as a success. The country of nine million people temporarily closed its borders, closed schools in mid-March and brought distance learning to its two million students. In April, Easter and Ramadan were held under lock and key.
By early May, infection rates had increased from more than 750 cases shown consistent with the day to double digits. The youngest scholars, 3rd and scholars, and the elder scholars who took the final exams returned in small groups, sharing the week in turns in the classroom.
Then, emboldened by the drop in infection rates, the government absolutely reopened schools on May 17, the day a new government took office.
In his inaugural address, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a new budget that would bring 3 things: “Jobs, jobs, jobs.” His new education minister, Yoav Gallant, said the “immediate mission” of the school system is to allow parents to repaint calmly.
Inna Zaltsman, a Ministry of Education official, said directors also sought to “get young people back into the regime as much as possible, for their emotional and educational well-being.”
Shopping malls, open-air markets and gymnasiums had already reopened, and soon so did places of worship, restaurants, bars, hotels and wedding halls. Netanyahu told Israelis to have a beer and, while taking precautions, “go out and take some time.”
In retrospect, this recommendation is incredibly premature.
On the same day, a mother phoned an instructor from the historic Gymnasia Ha’ivrit High School in Jerusalem. His son, a seventh grader there, had been tested for the virus.
The next day, the school showed another case in grade 9. In the end, Israeli officials said, it was discovered that 154 academics and 26 members were infected.
“There was widespread euphoria among the audience, the feeling that we had treated the first wave well and that it was us,” said Danniel Leibovitch, director of Gymnasia. “Of course, that wasn’t true.”
The Ministry of Education had issued protective instructions: fourth graders and older students had to wear a mask, windows remained open, hands washed, and students kept at six feet whenever possible.
But in many Israeli schools, where up to 38 young people sneak into study rooms of about 500 square feet, physical distance has proved impossible.
Unable to abide by the rules, some local governments ignored them or simply did not reopen to full capacity.
Then he hit a heat wave. Parents complained that it was inhumane to force young people to wear masks in smoking study rooms where open windows canceled air conditioning.
In response, the government exempted everyone from wearing a mask for four days and schools closed the windows.
The resolution proved disastrous, experts say.
“Instead of canceling school at the time, they just told the kids, ‘OK, well, they have to stay in the classroom with the air conditioner on and take off their masks,’ so they don’t have ventilation,’ dr. Ronit Calderon.- Margalit, professor of epidemiology at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health. “You have the ideal cases for an epidemic.”
Gymnasia has a Petri dish for Covid-19.
When the first case was discovered, the student’s classmates, teachers, and other contacts were quarantined. After the case at the time, which was not directly similar to the first case, the school was closed and all were quarantined for two weeks. All students and staff were evaluated, queuing for hours.
Approximately 60% of inflamed scholars were asymptomatic. The teachers, some of whom taught in several classrooms, suffered the maximum and some were hospitalized, the principal said.
The parents were furious. Oz Arbel told Israeli army radio that for a school project, his daughter’s classmates sat at a table and circulated a cell phone with an instructor showing symptoms. His daughter and his wife were infected.
A Gymnasia student, Ofek Amzaleg, told Kan public radio that an instructor who coughed elegantly and joked that he did not have a coronavirus among those who tested positive. Ofek also infects.
Updated August 17, 2020
The latest news on how schools go through the pandemic.
Mr. Leibovitch, the principal, stated that he had no knowledge of any teachers with symptoms.
Seeking to involve contagion, the Ministry of Education promised to close all schools with even a Covid-19 case. It closed more than 240 schools and quarantined more than 22520 teachers and students.
At the end of the school year at the end of June, the ministry said, 977 academics and teachers had Covid-19.
But the Ministry of Health, which lacks infrastructure and resources, has made contact studies a priority. In Gymnasia’s case, Professor Waxman said, no one even knew the buses where the students had been in school.
The dances were cancelled, however, graduates of the central city of Ra’anana still celebrated a night of clandestine dancing. Dozens have the virus.
A kindergarten teacher, Shalva Zalfreund, 64, sent a note to parents saying she thought she had swelled up at her school, where some parents had sent their children out of the homes with virus cases. He died in July.
Outside the walls of the school, the coronavirus returned strongly. Covid’s neighborhoods, which had closed with festive ceremonies in late April, began to fill again, with infections shown that increased to around 800 per day in late June and more than 2000 consistent with the day in late July.
Some have blamed the hasty reopening of the school as paramount at the time of the wave. Siegal Sadetzki, who resigned in frustration last month as director of Israel’s public fitness services, wrote that insufficient protective precautions in schools, such as giant meetings such as weddings, have fueled a “significant part” of momentary infections.
But others said it’s unfair to decide on schools when the real challenge is for everything to reopen too quickly.
“The only occasion of great outreach in Gymnasia only in one school,” said Dr. Ran Balicer, an Israeli fitness officer and prime minister’s adviser on the pandemic. “It may have happened in any other context.”
Israel now faces the same problems as other countries, seeking to be informed of its mistakes in making plans for the school year that begins on September 1.
Public fitness experts around the world have combined around a set of rules for school reopening.
A top tip is to create teams of 10 to 15 students that stay combined in classrooms, during recess and lunch, with teachers assigned to a single organization. Each organization has minimal contact with other computers, which restricts the spread of the infection. And if a Case of Covid-19 arises, one organization may be quarantined at home while others can continue in school.
Other key recommendations come with tiered schedules or online training for older academics, keeping offices several metres away, disinfecting study rooms more frequently, offering ventilation and windowing if possible, and requiring face masks for students age enough to use them correctly.
Israel has already moved in this direction.
The government recently appointed a coronavirus tsar, Dr. Ronni Gamzu, who transferred the duty of testing and virus research from the Ministry of Health to the military. “It’s an operation, a drug,” he said.
On Sunday, the government approved plans to send only time and time grades to school in normal-sized categories in the fall. Young people are less likely to be seriously ill, and some studies recommend that they are less likely than adults and adolescents to pass the virus on to others.
Plans also include dividing older academics into 18 pills and up to online courses for fifth and more classes. Principals will have the opportunity to adjust their school’s policies according to local conditions.
Even such measures would possibly not be enough.
Menashe Levy, president of the Israeli Association of High School Principals, had offices two metres away in a classroom. It can only accommodate 14 students, not 18.
But Israel is moving forward. There is only one option left: the closure of schools.
“This is a long-term pandemic,” said Dr. Nadav Davidovitch, the government’s pandemic policy adviser. “We can’t close schools for a year.”
Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem and Pam Belluck from the United States.
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