Children and the restrictions on gatherings

Schools and athletic organisations carefully organise their schedules to comply with the authorities’ instructions restricting school activities and gatherings, including restrictions on numbers allowed to gather, divisions in schools and use of facemasks. It is extremely important that children’s parents and guardians simultaneously reduce the number of people in their children’s contact network outside of school in order to avoid working against these measures. It is helpful to bear the following in mind:

• Schoolmates who are not in the same group in school (the same class) should not interact closely outside of school.

• If the children are mature enough to obey instructions on reduced contact with friends, it is possible to permit them to play together. If they do so, they must not engage in any play that involves touching one another physically, or sharing toys or equipment that they touch with their bare hands.

• Children and young people should always wash their hands thoroughly, both before they meet their friends and after they come home.

• Families should bear in mind that if children interact frequently with friends or relatives from other schools or school groups, there will be contact between groups that would otherwise remain separate. Such contact should be avoided as much as possible.

• Families are encouraged to use technology to maintain good contact with loved ones who are at increased risk of severe disease related to COVID-19 — particularly elderly people and those with certain underlying illnesses.

• This is also a good opportunity to teach children to write letters, which will help them to practise handwriting and spelling, use their imagination, and think in “problemsolving mode” about interactions with loved ones. Regarding households with children where not everyone is in quarantine:

• If the children in the household are not mature enough or capable of adhering to the measures required for part of the household to be in quarantine, then the entire household should be in quarantine or those that do not need to be in quarantine should go elsewhere. Possibly one parent/caregiver can be in quarantine with a child but the other parent/caregiver keep distance. A parent with a child in quarantine does not need to be registered in quarantine and the parent does not need to go for testing to shorten the quarantine to 7 days from 14 days. It is sufficient that the child is registered in quarantine and goes for testing. This applies to e.g. children in daycare.

• Children who are mature enough to be independent regarding their own hygiene (e.g. separate bathroom) and keep distance from the parents/caregivers (and others) that are in quarantine, as well as their peers at school, can continue to attend school. E.g. 2 November 2020 if a parent is in quarantine a child in daycare might need to be in quarantine as well but an older sibling might not need to be. · Parents of older children in quarantine after exposure in school or free-time who can keep distance from the children during quarantine can continue to attend their workplace if distance working is not possible.