Situations in which no scientific consensus has been reached due to either insufficient, inconclusive or contradicting findings place strain on governments and public organizations which are forced to take action under circumstances of uncertainty. In this chapter, we focus on the case of COVID-19, its effects on children and the public debate around the reopening of schools. The aim is to better understand the relationship between policy interventions in the face of an uncertain and rapidly changing knowledge landscape and the subsequent use of scientific information in public debates related to the policy interventions. Our approach is to combine scientific information from journal articles and preprints with their appearance in the popular media, including social media. First, we provide a picture of the different scientific areas and approaches, by which the effects of COVID-19 on children are being studied. Second, we identify news media and social media attention around the COVID-19 scientific output related to children and schools. We focus on policies and media responses in three countries: Spain, South Africa and the Netherlands. These countries have followed very different policy actions with regard to the reopening of schools and represent very different policy approaches to the same problem. We analyse the activity in (social) media around the debate between COVID-19, children and school closures by focusing on the use of references to scientific information in the debate. Finally, we analyse the dominant topics that emerge in the news outlets and the online debates. We draw attention to illustrative cases of miscommunication related to scientific output and conclude the chapter by discussing how information from scientific publication, the media and policy actions shape the public discussion in the context of a global health pandemic.

中文翻译：

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危机时期科学输出在公共辩论中的作用：以COVID-19大流行期间学校重新开放为例

由于发现不足，结论不足或相互矛盾而未能达成科学共识的情况给政府和公共组织施加了压力，这些政府和公共组织被迫在不确定的情况下采取行动。在本章中，我们重点讨论COVID-19的情况，其对儿童的影响以及有关重新开放学校的公众辩论。目的是更好地了解面对不确定和迅速变化的知识格局的政策干预与随后在与政策干预相关的公开辩论中使用科学信息之间的关系。我们的方法是将期刊文章和预印本中的科学信息与它们在包括社交媒体在内的流行媒体中的出现结合起来。第一，我们提供了不同的科学领域和方法的图片，正在研究COVID-19对儿童的影响。其次，我们围绕与儿童和学校有关的COVID-19科学成果确定新闻媒体和社交媒体的关注度。我们专注于西班牙，南非和荷兰这三个国家/地区的政策和媒体回应。这些国家在重开学校方面采取了截然不同的政策行动，对同一问题采取了截然不同的政策方针。通过关注辩论中对科学信息的引用，我们分析了围绕COVID-19，儿童和学校停课之间的辩论的（社会）媒体活动。最后，我们分析了新闻媒体和在线辩论中出现的主要话题。