School openings across globe suggest ways to keep coronavirus at bay, despite outbreaks: When Science looked at reopening strategies from South Africa to Finland to Israel, some encouraging patterns emerged. Together, they suggest a combination of keeping student groups small and requiring masks and some social distancing helps keep schools and communities safe, and that younger children rarely spread the virus to one another or bring it home. But opening safely, experts agree, isn’t just about the adjustments a school makes. It’s also about how much virus is circulating in the community, which affects the likelihood that students and staff will bring COVID-19 into their classrooms.

How Trump's push to reopen schools could backfire: “They’re sort of asking schools to do the undoable — ‘just make it work, get all the kids back, and get them in five days a week, and keep their distance and do all the hygiene…but if you can’t do it, that’s not our fault, that’s up to the locals,’” said Anita Cicero, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.