Covid surge forces schools to close and bring back pandemic-era measures- and more are at risk as millions head back to class next week

Schools in two states experiencing a rise in Covid cases announced they were closing facilities and switching to remote learning. 

Alabama and Tennessee announced the closure of two schools — affecting more than a thousand children — just days into the new academic year, with officials saying the virus had forced them to shut and carry out a 'deep clean.'

At one of the schools, children had to abandon their desks and revert 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 more disruption could be in store for students in the coming months — with many schools, in states like New York, New Jersey and Michigan, returning after the Labor Day weekend. 

Johnson-Abernathy-Graetz (JAB) high school in Montgomery, Alabama, which has 1,500 students in grades 9 through 12, made the decision to switch to virtual classes just four days into its new academic year after 15 teachers caught Covid. There was no data on how many students were infected.

Staff and children were told to stay home on Wednesday, August 14 and Thursday, August 15 and attend lessons via remote learning while a deep clean was conducted in the school buildings.

The school has now re-opened with masks and disinfection wipes available in every classroom. Masks have not been made mandatory.

At Stigall Elementary, part of the Humboldt school system in western Tennessee, a one-day closure was announced just a week into the new term amid an 'uptick' in cases.

The 246 students through first grade had to stay home on Tuesday, August 13 as their school was cleaned, with parents forced to either skip work or hire a babysitter.

A spokesperson for the school did not reveal how many staff or children had tested positive, only saying they had recorded an 'uptick.'

Jessica Williamson, a mother of a first grader at the school, told FOX13: 'Everyone is like, "Covid is back, Covid is back."

'Those are little kids. They're most prone to put things in their mouths, to touch each other, to just share germs.'

She had to find a babysitter for her daughter for the day, but said she preferred that to her child catching Covid — which could lead to her being at home for multiple days.

Teachers will now also be required to wipe down desks and desktop surfaces with disinfectant every time students move from class to class. 

Masks have not been made mandatory, and no other pandemic-era policies — like social distancing — have been brought back.

Covid cases have increased across the US in recent weeks, thought to be driven by summer travel and gatherings.

Eighteen percent of swabs were positive for the virus in the week to August 17, the latest available — up 40 percent from a month earlier.

But these levels are far below those from the most severe days of the pandemic, when the proportion of tests detecting the virus surged over 30 percent.

Hospitalizations and deaths are also much lower than at earlier periods of the pandemic, although rising slightly — with experts saying most people now only suffer from a mild illness because of previous immunity from vaccines or infections.

The Covid hospitalization rate - 4.4 per 100,000 people - is also far below the peak of 35.4 per 100,000 people in 2022 when the Omicron variant was spreading.

It is also lower than the of 10.9 per 100,000 and 7.7 per 100,000 at the start of 2024.

Data also shows there were 696 deaths involving Covid 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 fatalities were being recorded every seven days.

Several studies have been published since the pandemic warning how remote learning harmed children's development.

They include the Education Recovery Scorecard paper from researchers at Harvard, Stanford and Johns Hopkins among others — which analyzed data from 7,800 school districts to determine the impact of remote learning.

It found students in districts where remote learning was in place for most of the 2020 to 2021 school year fell, on average, more than half a grade behind in math.

For comparison, those who had remote learning in place 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 children were performing worse in math and reading in 2020 and 2021 than before the pandemic began — after analyzing the results of 7.3million exams.

In the UK, experts have come forward to say lockdowns caused 'long-lasting and era-defining' harm to the education of children — which could have been prevented.