Close bars and keep schools open, Fauci says. Has that worked in other countries?

A surge in new coronavirus cases has gripped the U.S. as school officials weigh spring semester reopening plans against the backdrop of a global pandemic.

The decision to bring students back for in-person instruction is chief among their concerns. But even as case numbers climb, infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is in favor of keeping schools open. In an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Fauci said to “close the bars and keep the schools open,” Business Insider reported.

“Obviously, you don’t have one size fits all,” he said. “But as I said in the past, the default position should be to try as best as possible within reason to keep the children in school, or to get them back to school.”

Fauci’s take is similar to the approach public health officials have taken across much of Europe.

Grade schools in the United Kingdom started reopening in June for in-person instruction as the government scaled back COVID-19 restrictions. At the time, the country’s rate of new coronavirus cases was “on a downward trend,” NPR reported. A report by the government’s public health agency later found the few cases linked to schools that reopened were among teachers — not students, The Washington Post reported.

“The re-opening of schools was associated with very few COVID-19 outbreaks after easing of national lockdown in England,” Public Health England and other experts wrote in the report, according to the Post.

A study issued in August by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control found something similar.

Citing the study, The New York Times reported children accounted for fewer than 5% of all coronavirus cases reported in the European Union and Britain. The agency also said shutting down schools would be “unlikely to provide significant additional protection of children’s health.”

That’s in-part why schools in England stayed open when an influx of new COVID-19 cases prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnson to institute a second nationwide lockdown in October. The lockdown expires Dec. 2.

Germany, which was looked to as a leader in COVID-19 testing and virus containment early in the pandemic, has done the same with its schools.

More than 150,000 German students returned to school in August for in-person instruction, Time magazine reported. Students were split into “cohorts” designed to keep outbreaks confined to smaller groups, and they were required to wear face masks and wash their hands regularly. Classrooms were also rearranged “to allow for social distancing and better ventilation,” according to Time.

The Institute of Labor Economics determined in an October report that schools reopening after summer vacation in Germany didn’t contribute to an uptick in coronavirus cases across the country.

Chancellor Angela Merkel opted to keep schools open when she announced a new round of pandemic restrictions that shut down bars, restaurants and entertainment venues in October in Germany, The New York Times reported. Merkel cited “dramatic social consequences” associated with keeping students at home when issuing her decision.

Leaders in France and Ireland have echoed that sentiment in keeping schools open while putting other restrictions in place.

“We cannot and will not allow our children and young people’s futures to be another victim of this disease,” Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said, according to the Times. “They need their education.”

But not everyone is on board.

The National Education Union — one of England’s main teachers’ unions — called schools “an engine for virus transmission” in a statement opposing Johnson’s decision to keep schools open amid a second coronavirus lockdown. The union added “it would be self-defeating for the government to impose a national lockdown, whilst ignoring the role of schools as a major contributor to the spread of the virus.”

German teachers have also expressed concern over schools following the multitude of restrictions designed to keep students and educators safe.

“We say, yes keep schools open, and keep following the rules for the levels of infection,” said Heinz-Peter Meidinger, president of the German Teachers Association, according to the Times. “But do not keep schools open at any price.”

Henrik Saalbach, an education professor at the University of Leipzig, told the Pulitzer Center that German officials should consider shutting schools down again if the numbers don’t change.

“I think and hope they are better prepared to do that,” he said.

Some experts also say the pandemic has played out differently in the U.S. and Europe, making it difficult to compare public health decisions.

“All of us have read the studies and experiences in Europe. And they seem to have been pretty positive,” Kathryn Edwards, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told Time. “But the burden of disease in European communities is much less than what we’re seeing. Europe has controlled the outbreak in most places more effectively than we have.”