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Denmark has been used as a talking piece for those suggesting school reopening has minimal risks. Let& #39;s clarify what exactly Denmark did to achieve minimal risk:
First, some context. Denmark& #39;s population is under 6M ppl and schools reopened in Mid April, when daily cases where below 70 and going down. There were ~3,500 active cases in the country at the time.
Only K-5 classes were opened. Older kids had virtual class from home. Kids cohorted in groups of 10/12 with one teacher throughout the day. Government asked families to keep children home when one or both parents did not work, to reduce the number of kids in school.
Staggered entry times, no contact between cohorts. Parents cannot enter school. Different school doors used for entry when possible. Reserved playground space, with no cross-cohort use of the same area. Most classes held outside whenever possible.
Public Parks were reserved exclusively for children during school hours (8:00-3:30). When seating distance of at least 2 meters, classroom materials cleaned twice daily. Initially, no masks required, but recently cloth masks introduced.
Handwashing every 1.5 hours - in addition to: when arriving at school in the morning, After each break, Before going home from school, and again when arriving home, After using toilet, Before and after eating, if touching nose or coughing/sneezing on hand.
Hotels, libraries, museums, conference centres available for schools to allow accommodation of smaller cohorts. Massive community engagement to make this possible. Government working with teacher& #39;s unions to ensure safety.
"And our minister of education - she was very, very clear. She said, these conditions are not negotiable. They need to be in place before we reopen." Dorte Lange, vice president of the Danish Union of Teachers https://www.npr.org/2020/08/01/898184566/how-denmark-is-thinking-about-reopening-schools-safely">https://www.npr.org/2020/08/0...
Still, with all these measures in place, and very low community transmission, Rt went up following the reopening of schools on April 15th. Not concerning, still low (and did not cross 1.0) https://www.thelocal.dk/20200430/reopening-denmark-has-increased-rate-of-infection-spread-ssu">https://www.thelocal.dk/20200430/...
https://files.ssi.dk/COVID19-epi-trendogfokus-11062020">https://files.ssi.dk/COVID19-e...
Another interesting thing - positive tests/100,000 by age groups:
V2 - Cases by age - Denmark - with summer holiday line in blue.
Lots more information and corrections here. Thanks @Goldammerfeder for the detailed additions https://twitter.com/goldammerfeder/status/1295089554697977856?s=21">https://twitter.com/goldammer... https://twitter.com/Goldammerfeder/status/1295089554697977856">https://twitter.com/Goldammer...
