Recent guidelines for reopening schools highlight six key dimensions to consider:

• Policy

• Financing

• Safe operations

• Learning

• Reaching the most marginalised, and

• Wellbeing and protection.

Schools should consider the following when deciding on whether to open or close:

• Current understanding about COVID-19 transmission and severity in children

• Local situation and epidemiology of COVID-19 where the school or schools are located, and

• School setting and ability to maintain COVID-19 prevention and control measures.

Additional factors include:

• Assessing what harm school closure might provoke (e.g. risk of non-return to school, widening disparity in educational attainment, limited access to meals, domestic violence aggravated by economic uncertainties, etc) and

• Evaluating the need to maintain schools at least partially open for children whose caregivers are ‘key workers’ for the country.

WHO reference number: WHO/2019-nCoV/Adjusting_PH_measures/Schools/2020.1 - Annex to Considerations in adjusting public health and social measures in the context of COVID-19. 10 May 2020