From tiny tots to junior wing students, children in Delhi were excited to be back in schools on Monday after a prolonged closure of over 19 months due to COVID-19 pandemic.

While several schools reopened with 50 per cent seating capacity on Monday, majority of private schools have deferred the reopening to post Diwali.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/panic-in-southern-indian-state-of-karnataka-as-32-students-test-positive-for-covid-19-at-residential-school-424685">Also Read:&nbsp;Panic in Karnataka as students test positive for COVID-19 at residential school</a>

Masked students, thermal scanning, and volunteers guiding staggered entry and exit for students was a common sight at the schools which reopened on Monday.

Meanwhile, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia visited the Rajkiya Sarvodaya Vidyalaya in east Delhi's Vinod Nagar and interacted with students.

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This is what kids were missing…. 
 
You must watch this video and see why it was important to open the schools …. <a href="https://t.co/7DCMA5FfzJ">https://t.co/7DCMA5FfzJ</a> <a href="https://t.co/NPBtvpi7eC">pic.twitter.com/NPBtvpi7eC</a>
— Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) <a href="https://twitter.com/msisodia/status/1455052452764340225?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 1, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">×</a></div>

"Finally!! It's time to come back to school. Today children have returned to schools after almost one and half year. It was an emotional movement to see students laughing and enjoying in classrooms. We welcome all students back to school," Sisodia tweeted.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/as-schools-shift-back-to-classroom-teaching-are-students-ready-to-be-reintroduced-to-outer-world-421087">Also Read:&nbsp;As schools shift back to classroom teaching, are students ready to be reintroduced to outer world?</a>

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) had last week announced that schools would reopen for all classes from November 1, even though teaching and learning would continue in blended mode.

The DDMA had also said that schools would have to ensure that there is not more than 50 per cent attendance in a class at one point of time and no student is forced to attend physical classes.

Following a marked improvement in the COVID-19 situation in the national capital, the Delhi government had announced the reopening of schools for classes 9 to 12, colleges and coaching institutions from September 1.

However, this is the first time after March 2020 that schools in Delhi are reopening for classes upto 8.

Physical classes for standards 1-8 also resumed in Tamil Nadu on Monday as children were accorded a warm, traditional welcome with Chief Minister M K Stalin leading from the front.

Stalin, who had earlier called for a cordial welcome for the returning children, visited a Chennai Corporation-run institution at Guindy here and distributed education kits and sweets to the wards.&nbsp;

Across the state, schools reopened for offline classes for the first time in over a year and a half for the students of classes I-VIII, with enthusiastic children being greeted by, in some places, the traditional Tamil reception involving Nagaswaram-Thavil instruments, used during auspicious occasions including weddings.

From tiny tots to junior wing students, children in Delhi were excited to be back in schools on Monday after a prolonged closure of over 19 months due to COVID-19 pandemic.

From tiny tots to junior wing students, children in Delhi were excited to be back in schools on Monday after a prolonged closure of over 19 months due to COVID-19 pandemic. While several schools reopened with 50 per cent seating capacity on Monday, majority of private schools have deferred the reopening to post Diwali. Also Read: Panic in Karnataka as students test positive for COVID-19 at residential school Masked students, thermal scanning, and volunteers guiding staggered entry and exit for students was a common sight at the schools which reopened on Monday. Meanwhile, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia visited the Rajkiya Sarvodaya Vidyalaya in east Delhi's Vinod Nagar and interacted with students. This is what kids were missing…. You must watch this video and see why it was important to open the schools …. https://t.co/7DCMA5FfzJ pic.twitter.com/NPBtvpi7eC — Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) November 1, 2021 × "Finally!! It's time to come back to school. Today children have returned to schools after almost one and half year. It was an emotional movement to see students laughing and enjoying in classrooms. We welcome all students back to school," Sisodia tweeted. Also Read: As schools shift back to classroom teaching, are students ready to be reintroduced to outer world? The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) had last week announced that schools would reopen for all classes from November 1, even though teaching and learning would continue in blended mode. The DDMA had also said that schools would have to ensure that there is not more than 50 per cent attendance in a class at one point of time and no student is forced to attend physical classes. Following a marked improvement in the COVID-19 situation in the national capital, the Delhi government had announced the reopening of schools for classes 9 to 12, colleges and coaching institutions from September 1. However, this is the first time after March 2020 that schools in Delhi are reopening for classes upto 8. Physical classes for standards 1-8 also resumed in Tamil Nadu on Monday as children were accorded a warm, traditional welcome with Chief Minister M K Stalin leading from the front. Stalin, who had earlier called for a cordial welcome for the returning children, visited a Chennai Corporation-run institution at Guindy here and distributed education kits and sweets to the wards. Across the state, schools reopened for offline classes for the first time in over a year and a half for the students of classes I-VIII, with enthusiastic children being greeted by, in some places, the traditional Tamil reception involving Nagaswaram-Thavil instruments, used during auspicious occasions including weddings.

'We welcome all students': Schools reopen after 19 months

Returning to school this fall, children should be <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus-vaccine">vaccinated</a> if eligible, wear masks or prepare to risk getting <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus">Covid</a>.

Big questions loom over the upcoming back-to-school season: Should children be required to wear masks? Should children go to in-person classes at all?

If we send children to school without masks, we increase their risk of acquiring <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus">COVID-19</a>. Some could suffer illness or die. If we close schools, millions of children will suffer learning loss, and many of them may suffer lifelong effects on their physical and mental health.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/study-suggests-that-children-may-have-a-weaker-immune-response-to-covid-404487">Study suggests that Children may have a weaker immune response to Covid</a>

For more than a year, we’ve worked with North Carolina school districts and charter schools, studying the rate of new Covid cases, the efficacy of mitigation measures such as masking and the increased risks of participating in school-sponsored sports. We have learned&nbsp;a few things&nbsp;for certain: Although vaccination is the best way to prevent COVID-19, universal masking is a close second, and with masking in place, in-school learning is safe and more effective than remote instruction, regardless of community rates of infection.

Vaccination is the strongest method for preventing the ill effects of Covid, but students under 12 years of age are ineligible for the vaccines. Masking, then, is one of the best, most readily available methods to protect them from the disease, with universal masking being one of the most effective and efficient strategies for preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission in schools.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/children-at-risk-of-long-covid-symptoms-new-study-finds-381039">Children at risk of long-Covid symptoms, new study finds</a>

Universal masking in schools can save lives. Voluntary masking in schools will likely be much less effective and could lead to school closures and community transmission. This summer, we’ve seen that voluntary masking has failed in some schools&nbsp;in Missouri&nbsp;and&nbsp;North Carolina, which saw increases in COVID-19 cases and days missed because of quarantines, prompting several districts to reinstate mask mandates.

How do we know that masking helps prevent spread among unvaccinated people in schools? In July 2020, we and our colleagues developed the&nbsp;ABC Science Collaborative&nbsp;to pair scientists with school and community leaders to make sure that school leaders had the most up-to-date, scientific information pertaining to COVID-19 and K-12 schools. In conjunction with North Carolina, the ABC Science Collaborative collected data from more than one million students and staff members in the state’s schools from March to June 2021. Certain school districts in North Carolina were required, by bipartisan legislation, to submit infection data to the ABC Science Collaborative as a trusted third party.

During that time, more than 7,000 children and adults acquired the coronavirus and attended school while infectious. Because of close contact with those cases, more than 40,000 people required quarantine. Through contact tracing and testing, however, we found only 363 additional children and adults acquired the coronavirus. We believe this low rate of transmission occurred because of the mask-on-mask school environment: Both the infected person and the close contact wore masks. Schools provided this protection without expensive screening tests for the coronavirus or massive overhauls in ventilation systems.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/british-study-finds-almost-one-in-seven-suffer-long-covid-symptoms-374862" hreflang="en">British study finds almost one in seven suffer long Covid symptoms</a>

Because North Carolina had a mask mandate for all K-12 schools, we could not compare masked schools to unmasked schools. To understand the preventive impact masks can have, we looked outside North Carolina for comparisons. Data from our research and from studies conducted in&nbsp;Utah,&nbsp;Missouri&nbsp;and&nbsp;Wisconsin&nbsp;shows that school transmission rates of coronavirus were low when schools enforced mask mandates. By contrast, one school in Israel without a mask mandate or proper social distancing protocols&nbsp;reported&nbsp;an outbreak of COVID-19 involving 153 students and 25 staff members.

Recent outbreaks at youth camps in&nbsp;Texas, Illinois and Florida show how quickly COVID-19 can spread among adolescents and adults who are largely unmasked and mostly unvaccinated, with the possibility of spreading into surrounding communities. The potential for this kind of community spread was the reason schools closed their doors in March 2020.

With the evidence now clear that universal masking is linked to lower spread, why not require universal masking? Why seek to gather hundreds of unvaccinated, unmasked individuals in an enclosed space for several hours a day, five days a week?

Schools that do not require masks will have more coronavirus transmission. And while mortality from Covid was only&nbsp;two per 100,000 school-age&nbsp;children&nbsp;as of April, with more than 50 million public school children in the United States, that could still mean many avoidable deaths of children in a year.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/covid-surge-continues-to-make-alarming-inroads-across-us-404473/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Once vaccination is available for all children, districts can serve their students best by creating incentives to encourage masking and vaccination. For example, if universal masking is enforced or a student is vaccinated, it’s reasonable for schools to decide not to require quarantining or testing after exposure for asymptomatic children and adults. Similarly, schools may consider allowing vaccinated students who participate in extracurricular activities to continue even if they’ve been exposed to someone who tested positive. School districts that do not have universal masking should keep using strategies like ventilation and social distancing and continue to perform routine testing for unvaccinated students.

In schools that choose to open without mask mandates and with limited vaccine uptakes, increased Covid is likely. Until all children can get vaccinated, masks remain a well-researched solution for lowering the risk of getting Covid. Children should be in school, and we should embrace the measures that can keep them safe.

Returning to school this fall, children should be vaccinated if eligible, wear masks or prepare to risk getting Covid. Big questions loom over the upcoming back-to-school season: Should children be required to wear masks?

Returning to school this fall, children should be vaccinated if eligible, wear masks or prepare to risk getting Covid. Big questions loom over the upcoming back-to-school season: Should children be required to wear masks? Should children go to in-person classes at all? If we send children to school without masks, we increase their risk of acquiring COVID-19. Some could suffer illness or die. If we close schools, millions of children will suffer learning loss, and many of them may suffer lifelong effects on their physical and mental health. Also read | Study suggests that Children may have a weaker immune response to Covid For more than a year, we’ve worked with North Carolina school districts and charter schools, studying the rate of new Covid cases, the efficacy of mitigation measures such as masking and the increased risks of participating in school-sponsored sports. We have learned a few things for certain: Although vaccination is the best way to prevent COVID-19, universal masking is a close second, and with masking in place, in-school learning is safe and more effective than remote instruction, regardless of community rates of infection. Vaccination is the strongest method for preventing the ill effects of Covid, but students under 12 years of age are ineligible for the vaccines. Masking, then, is one of the best, most readily available methods to protect them from the disease, with universal masking being one of the most effective and efficient strategies for preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission in schools. Also read | Children at risk of long-Covid symptoms, new study finds Universal masking in schools can save lives. Voluntary masking in schools will likely be much less effective and could lead to school closures and community transmission. This summer, we’ve seen that voluntary masking has failed in some schools in Missouri and North Carolina, which saw increases in COVID-19 cases and days missed because of quarantines, prompting several districts to reinstate mask mandates. How do we know that masking helps prevent spread among unvaccinated people in schools? In July 2020, we and our colleagues developed the ABC Science Collaborative to pair scientists with school and community leaders to make sure that school leaders had the most up-to-date, scientific information pertaining to COVID-19 and K-12 schools. In conjunction with North Carolina, the ABC Science Collaborative collected data from more than one million students and staff members in the state’s schools from March to June 2021. Certain school districts in North Carolina were required, by bipartisan legislation, to submit infection data to the ABC Science Collaborative as a trusted third party. During that time, more than 7,000 children and adults acquired the coronavirus and attended school while infectious. Because of close contact with those cases, more than 40,000 people required quarantine. Through contact tracing and testing, however, we found only 363 additional children and adults acquired the coronavirus. We believe this low rate of transmission occurred because of the mask-on-mask school environment: Both the infected person and the close contact wore masks. Schools provided this protection without expensive screening tests for the coronavirus or massive overhauls in ventilation systems. Also read: British study finds almost one in seven suffer long Covid symptoms Because North Carolina had a mask mandate for all K-12 schools, we could not compare masked schools to unmasked schools. To understand the preventive impact masks can have, we looked outside North Carolina for comparisons. Data from our research and from studies conducted in Utah, Missouri and Wisconsin shows that school transmission rates of coronavirus were low when schools enforced mask mandates. By contrast, one school in Israel without a mask mandate or proper social distancing protocols reported an outbreak of COVID-19 involving 153 students and 25 staff members. Recent outbreaks at youth camps in Texas, Illinois and Florida show how quickly COVID-19 can spread among adolescents and adults who are largely unmasked and mostly unvaccinated, with the possibility of spreading into surrounding communities. The potential for this kind of community spread was the reason schools closed their doors in March 2020. With the evidence now clear that universal masking is linked to lower spread, why not require universal masking? Why seek to gather hundreds of unvaccinated, unmasked individuals in an enclosed space for several hours a day, five days a week? Schools that do not require masks will have more coronavirus transmission. And while mortality from Covid was only two per 100,000 school-age children as of April, with more than 50 million public school children in the United States, that could still mean many avoidable deaths of children in a year. Once vaccination is available for all children, districts can serve their students best by creating incentives to encourage masking and vaccination. For example, if universal masking is enforced or a student is vaccinated, it’s reasonable for schools to decide not to require quarantining or testing after exposure for asymptomatic children and adults. Similarly, schools may consider allowing vaccinated students who participate in extracurricular activities to continue even if they’ve been exposed to someone who tested positive. School districts that do not have universal masking should keep using strategies like ventilation and social distancing and continue to perform routine testing for unvaccinated students. In schools that choose to open without mask mandates and with limited vaccine uptakes, increased Covid is likely. Until all children can get vaccinated, masks remain a well-researched solution for lowering the risk of getting Covid. Children should be in school, and we should embrace the measures that can keep them safe.

We studied one million students. This is what we learned about masking.

Students across the United States have begun to head back to school, starting in Atlanta this week. But parents’ hopes for a return to normal instruction in the fall have begun to evaporate as the highly contagious <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/delta-is-the-fastest-covid-19-variant-and-will-pick-off-the-most-vulnerable-who-393278">delta variant</a> drives up cases and hospitalizations.

With policymakers from local school boards to the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/the-white-house">White House</a> scrambling to balance public health and children’s learning needs, a patchwork of <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus">coronavirus</a> rules is emerging nationwide, provoking debates, division and anxieties among families, teachers and education officials.

Some large school districts like Los Angeles are requiring all staff members to get tested for the virus each week. States led by Democrats, including New Jersey, California and Illinois, have imposed statewide mask mandates in schools.

Also read |&nbsp;Delta variant fuels concerns for children's health in Florida

Meanwhile, states with Republican-controlled governments, such as Florida, Arizona and Arkansas, have forbidden districts to impose mask rules, casting mandates as an infringement on personal freedom and parental rights.

New York City will retain its school mask requirement, but the state of New York has not imposed a statewide policy.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">President Joe Biden</a> and federal health officials have emphasized that remote learning should not be used as a strategy to counter the delta variant surge. Even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised their guidance last week and called for universal masking in schools, the agency stressed the need for students to return to class.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/covid-19-schools-begin-reopening-in-the-us-403746/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

“We can and we must open schools this fall, full time,” Biden said recently. “It’s better for our children’s mental and emotional well-being, and we can’t afford another year out of the classroom.”

But with mask rules varying from state to state, and even within states and counties, the long-awaited return to school has many parents confused and unnerved.

Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an expert on infectious diseases at the University of Southern California, said certain mask mandates make sense, but interventions “should be tied to the metrics.”

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/long-term-covid-symptoms-very-rare-in-children-study-confirms-402937">Long term Covid symptoms very rare in children, study confirms</a>

Cases may rise as school gets underway, he said, but severe illness in children from Covid&nbsp;is rare. In the last year and a half, about 64,700 people in California have died from the virus. Klausner said just 23 deaths were of children between 5 and 17 years old.

Students across the United States have begun to head back to school, starting in Atlanta this week. But parents’ hopes for a return to normal instruction in the fall have begun to evaporate as the highly contagious delta variant drives up cases and hospitalizations.

Students across the United States have begun to head back to school, starting in Atlanta this week. But parents’ hopes for a return to normal instruction in the fall have begun to evaporate as the highly contagious delta variant drives up cases and hospitalizations. With policymakers from local school boards to the White House scrambling to balance public health and children’s learning needs, a patchwork of coronavirus rules is emerging nationwide, provoking debates, division and anxieties among families, teachers and education officials. Some large school districts like Los Angeles are requiring all staff members to get tested for the virus each week. States led by Democrats, including New Jersey, California and Illinois, have imposed statewide mask mandates in schools. Also read | Delta variant fuels concerns for children's health in Florida Meanwhile, states with Republican-controlled governments, such as Florida, Arizona and Arkansas, have forbidden districts to impose mask rules, casting mandates as an infringement on personal freedom and parental rights. New York City will retain its school mask requirement, but the state of New York has not imposed a statewide policy. President Joe Biden and federal health officials have emphasized that remote learning should not be used as a strategy to counter the delta variant surge. Even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised their guidance last week and called for universal masking in schools, the agency stressed the need for students to return to class. “We can and we must open schools this fall, full time,” Biden said recently. “It’s better for our children’s mental and emotional well-being, and we can’t afford another year out of the classroom.” But with mask rules varying from state to state, and even within states and counties, the long-awaited return to school has many parents confused and unnerved. Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an expert on infectious diseases at the University of Southern California, said certain mask mandates make sense, but interventions “should be tied to the metrics.” Also read | Long term Covid symptoms very rare in children, study confirms Cases may rise as school gets underway, he said, but severe illness in children from Covid is rare. In the last year and a half, about 64,700 people in California have died from the virus. Klausner said just 23 deaths were of children between 5 and 17 years old.

Delta variant fuels anxiety and mask debates as students return to school