Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University, has been studying transmission rates at schools that reopen and concludes that they are very low.
Writing in the Atlantic, she says that:
It’s now October. We are starting to get an evidence-based picture of how school reopenings and remote learning are going (those photos of hallways don’t count), and the evidence is pointing in one direction. Schools do not, in fact, appear to be a major spreader of COVID-19.
Since early last month, I’ve been working with a group of data scientists at the technology company Qualtrics, as well as with school-principal and superintendent associations, to collect data on COVID-19 in schools. (See more on that project here.) Our data on almost 200,000 kids in 47 states from the last two weeks of September revealed an infection rate of 0.13 percent among students and 0.24 percent among staff. That’s about 1.3 infections over two weeks in a school of 1,000 kids, or 2.2 infections over two weeks in a group of 1,000 staff. Even in high-risk areas of the country, the student rates were well under half a percent. (You can see all the data here.)
School-based data from other sources show similarly low rates. Texas reported 1,490 cases among students for the week ending on September 27, with 1,080,317 students estimated at school—a rate of about 0.14 percent. The staff rate was lower, about 0.10 percent.
These numbers are not zero, which for some people means the numbers are not good enough. But zero was never a realistic expectation. We know that children can get COVID-19, even if they do tend to have less serious cases. Even if there were nospread in schools, we’d see some cases, because students and teachers can contract the disease off campus. But the numbers are small—smaller than what many had forecasted.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This data should include how many students are remaining at home for instruction and how many are attending In Person. Districts all over the USA have buildings half full of students. That certainly helps keep those infection numbers down.
Oh yeah. Whole lotta data missing here. No links to a “study” either.
I would like to also know what protocols are in place at those schools. Is everyone wearing masks and social distancing? Are they using hybrid models to help mitigate spread? If so, then it would make sense that the spread is lower than expected.
The information makes all the difference.
I looked at the data dashboard and everyone who comments here should do that as well. There is no separations by age/grade level in this data. All reports I have read say that students age 10 and up are more likely to be spreaders of the virus and to have medical problems is infected. All data being collected is not from school principals who are more likely to know the facts than a district superintendent, and to know whether contact-tracing is a mandatory part of the district reporting protocol.
I think also that there are incentives for underreporting cases. Consider the matter of school and district liability and the seemingly unshakeable beliefs that that masks and other precautions are unnecessary. .
I would trust any observations about this data from Mercedes Schneider who is teaching now, reporting in detail about her school’s policies, and also has a Ph.D in applied statistics.
This economist is working with the limited information provided on the current data dashboard. I am also disappointed that the Atlantic is circulating this information, with no distinctions among age/grade levels or potential differences between private and public and charter schools. And there is no evidence that the economist is aware of issues of disclosure of health information for children and staff. One of those issues too rarely discussed is liability.
The Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics has categories for describing schools that this economist seems to be unaware of. Note also that this data dashboard is being constructed under the auspices of a for profit company with some funding from an unnamed foundation, not by an agency that might be expected to have a public health interest in gathering the data.
https://statsiq.co1.qualtrics.com/public-dashboard/v0/dashboard/5f62eaee4451ae001535c839#/dashboard/5f62eaee4451ae001535c839?pageId=Page_1ac6a6bc-92b6-423e-9f7a-259a18648318
My first reaction was also that I was surprised and disappointed that the Atlantic was circulating this.
“Science by media” seems to have displaced traditional journal science in the US.
Any fool who can input numbers into a statistical package can now claim to have “analyzed the data” and get the claims ” published”in a mainstream media outlet.
It means precisely nothing from a scientific standpoint.
As I point out below, Oster has claimed to have gotten an “evidence based picture” in the past (specifically about drinking alcohol during pregnancy) that was wrong– and dangerously so.
She seems to have a bad case of Dunning-Krugeritis ( a disease whose main symptom is not realizing just how ignorant one is)
Thanks for posting this. There have been a bunch of articles making this same point in mainstream press in the last month. And people concerned about student well-being should read the propublica/New Yorker piece from a couple weeks ago by Alec McGuinness.
Cuomo, meanwhile, continues to say at his press conferences that schools are “super spreader” locations without any evidence. The man is loathsome.
Interesting. Cuomo tried to override DeBlasio when he shut down NYC schools originally. And this is the man that some liberals want as president.
Cuomo likes to show deBlasio who is in charge. It’s a male game of chicken, and Cuomo always wins. He is my candidate for retirement.
“And this is the man that some liberals want as president.”??? What are you talking about? Which “liberals” want him as president?
That is as nonsensical as me pointing to something homophobic or racist said by Joe Rogan and writing “this is the man that some progressives want as president?”
I haven’t seen the “rabid liberals for Cuomo as president” groups that you seem to see popping out in every “liberal” town and city and place where “liberals” gather. Where do you live that all the “liberals” you know are demanding we elect Cuomo as president?
If anything, Cuomo is one of the politicians most despised by many people here.
A governor usually wins over a mayor. 😁
” And this is the man that some liberals want as president.”
Apparently someone liked him since he has been governor since 2011. I, too, heard the presidential rumors a while back. I’m sure SOME liberals (as you noted, dienne) would still like to see him rise, but I think and hope that ship has sailed.
speduktr,
And someone who hated progressives could claim with the same truthfulness that “some” (even if that means 2 in the whole world) progressives would be happy to see Trump as president over any Democrat. But it would be quite gratuitous for someone to post, whenever Trump is mentioned, “and this is the man that some progressives were fine with as president”. Clearly the only reason to post that would be to try to gratuitously insult progressives.
“liberals” never wanted Cuomo as president — in fact, “liberals” wanted Cynthia Nixon as Governor instead of Cuomo and were disappointed that Bernie Sanders didn’t endorse Nixon over Cuomo!
So was that gratuitous smear of “liberals” was even true or necessary?
You take everything out of dienne’s mouth as a gratuitous swipe at “liberals.” On most occasions, I would agree with you, but on this occasion dienne’s comment was actually validated yesterday morning on a CBS Sunday Morning segment on Cuomo where this very question was proposed. Yesterday is not the first time a presidential run has been discussed with “liberal” support. Apparently, Cuomo has a book out that addresses the issue. I haven’t read nor do I know what he writes about it, but I would guess the discussion would have to be in response to some interest in his candidacy.
I should add that, to his credit, De Blasio has refuted Cuomo’s assertions by pointing to the actual data.
Good morning Diane and everyone,
I’m teaching in a school with a hybrid program (It’s another story about how that’s going.). Kids are in school in my school 2 days on and 2 days off. There’s really no social distancing in the hallways. Students are required to wear masks except at lunch. The masks often slip below their noses and I have to give them reminders about proper mask wearing. They are supposed to get mask breaks although I never suggest one. I keep my door to the outside courtyard and windows open. I take the kids outside to do some activities but this will become more problematic as the weather gets colder. I don’t go into the faculty room except to grab my mail. I try to get in and out of the bathroom. When I get home, I leave my shoes in the garage and undress in the garage. I just saw a doctor on CNN or MSNBC saying that the virus can travel on shoes and in urine and feces. I already knew that but he reiterated it. I often think about this as I flush the toilet in tiny little faculty bathrooms which are connected to student bathrooms where the windows are never open unless I open them. So, I am doing everything I can to stay healthy. We haven’t even started the cold weather yet when we will have less ventilation in schools and when colds and flus will be prevalent. I’m hoping you’re right about schools not being super spreading environments but we haven’t been through a winter with this virus yet. 😦
Similarly, the teachers at my schools are also doing what you describe. Children are wearing masks and we are attempting as much as possible to keep them socially distanced while inside. We avoid the teachers room, take children outside as much as possible, have windows open and must be outside for our lunch and planning time. This is unsustainable when the weather is colder, although I do plan to keep windows open.
And I wonder if 2 weeks is enough time for this study to arrive at these conclusions. But I truly hope she is right.
How long has your school been open?
Students started at my school on September 14. Grades and student cohorts were staggered.
I do exactly the same things. And winter is coming on fast here. I worry this winter. I have to fight a few (not most, but a few) kids on masks. Those kids tell me “it’s a hoax.” Ay yi yi
and likely the message that it is nothing more than a little ‘flu’ is going to be getting stronger as the election nears
Yep. I had a kid tell me he won’t have to wear a mask after the election. I told him the virus doesn’t care who wins.
The virus cares a lot
Who wins the POTUS spot
Cuz virus spreads at will
When Trump is on the Hill
No institution is a super spreader when infection rates in the population are very low. What happens once infection rates start rising. A couple of hundred students in a town can be monitored and the virus contained. what happens in districts with a million children once rates rise. A 1000 people at a BLM Demo does not cause epidemic level infections .
What do you suppose would happen if 2million people returned to offices in NYC only 1/10 has, 3million returned to mass transit currently down 70%-79% in NYC. 1.4million returned to restaurants all multiplied 5-7 days a week . Do you think 1milion NYC school children would not spread the virus then?
It is the sheer number of contacts that brought refrigerator trucks to Metropolitan areas and then it spreads from there. A virus that is stealth for for up to 14 days starts with a few zoonotic transfers and infects 40 million in months
I don’t know what your benchmark is for “low infection rates in the population,” but bear in mind that the data Oster looking at comes from 47 states, many of which do not have “low infection rates in the population” by many people’s standards.
All it takes is one. Two high school students and a teacher have tested positive for COVID-19 at the high school where Judge Amy Barrett’s kids returned to – in person – after they attended the indoor, maskless event for their mother.
Doesn’t mean they contracted the virus at the high school, though.
Sure, and all the people who happened to be associated with the White House spread got it somewhere else. therefore, no one should wear masks anymore. Because no one can prove that it has anything to do with a bunch of maskless people attending an indoor event and interacting.
It is absolutely true that masks are perfectly useless if there is no super spreader to infect you! And school is perfectly safe as long as there is no super spreader to infect you! The White House is perfectly safe — even if at least 3 people were hospitalized and required significant medical resources out of a small group — because we can’t prove any of those 3 people who needed hospitalization and any of the people who might have lingering effects got it from the White House.
I actually probably agree with you in that I support some re-opening, but I support it being done in a careful way and unfortunately, the only schools being showered with unlimited funding to do so are the schools that are favored by Betsy DeVos — the ones that aren’t real public and don’t have to care whether kids are suffering because they can “choose” to go somewhere else if they don’t like what the charter or private or parochial school is demanding of them.
FLERP: “Doesn’t mean they contracted the virus at the high school, though.” What difference does that make? They bring it in from somewhere else, it spreads among hisch kids, some bring it home to families, some parents or grandparents catch it, some are hospitalized & recover, some sustain lifelong disabilities, a few die.
I don’t understand why we’re looking for schools to reopen fully with these risk factors. My husband’s company isn’t “open fully,” nor are others. Half or fewer of the people are there [most doing biz remotely]; the few there are distanced & masked, don’t congregate in meetings. Same as what I see in every town small-biz. Half or fewer of usual cohort, distanced & masked, online orders & brief pick-ups/ deliveries, lots of alternative outdoor [distanced & masked] gatherings. Like it or not, “fully reopened schools” is about as safe as meat-processing facilities: why would you do it when alternatives exist? They may not—are not—equivalent alternatives, but this isn’t a forever thing.
FLERP!
Well lets put it this way, about 2 million NYC residents it is projected had antibodies by May . Most of that in at risk communities that were in jobs that put them in contact with large numbers of people. People who took Mass Transit to work.
By the time the lock down occurred the hospitalizations and deaths were backed in peaking in early April. The virus spread stealth from mid February on.
Although a state like Florida may have had 12,000 positive tests a day and of course not all symptomatic nor asymptomatic people get tested and behaviors change in the most vulnerable communities. 12k a day is a long way from 2million .
Return to normal levels of human interaction and you own refrigerator trucks. Her data and the medical science seems to disagree . So perhaps one has to question what data is inputted. How many large school systems were open at the time, what was the viral spread in those communities . And why it does not reflect the fact that children may have higher viral loads than an ICU patient.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/08/looking-at-children-as-the-silent-spreaders-of-sars-cov-2/
Spell check: baked in
It would be interesting to compare infection rates in communities that mandate mask wearing by students and staff to those with no mask mandate.
Im sorry but Emily Oster is a super spreader of bullshit
Back on May 4, when the data on how the virus spread were extremely limited, Oster was already assuring parents that
“In practice it seems that infection among kids is simply very unlikely. It’s not that they are infected and don’t know it, it seems like they are just not infected very often. And when they are, it may be that the mild symptoms limit their viral spreading (like with the kid in the French example). ”
///
Contrary to what Oster claimed on May 4
Can children get COVID-19? — Children of all ages can get COVID-19 [6-11]. Children appear to be affected less commonly than adults [6-11]. In surveillance from various countries children typically account for 1 to 8 percent of laboratory-confirmed cases [12-17].
In the United States, children <18 years account for approximately 8 to 10 percent of laboratory-confirmed cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) [18,19].
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-clinical-manifestations-and-diagnosis-in-children
And as far as children as spreaders
the most comprehensive study of COVID-19 pediatric patients to date, researchers provide critical data showing that children play a larger role in the community spread of COVID-19 than previously thought.”
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/08/looking-at-children-as-the-silent-spreaders-of-sars-cov-2/
////
My question is why should I go through Oster’s analysis now when she was already drawing policy conclusions back at the beginning of May (quoting extremely limited data including a single anecdotal example!!)
“What does this mean for policy, and for families? Opening schools and day cares and camps (PLEASE!!!) is still very complicated since these all involve congregations of adults. But on the plus side, these results indicate that in those contexts they suggest our primary concern should be adult-to-adult transmission, which may be easier to limit.
For families, I think it’s even more helpful. I know many of us are spending a lot of time worrying about spreading the virus from kids to grandparents. The data doesn’t go so far as to say that can’t happen or we shouldn’t be careful, but it dials that down a lot, in my mind at least. This is, in the end, a personal decision for all of us. Good luck with yours.”
///
Emily Oster needs to learn to hold back on conclusions (even preliminary ones) until she understands the issue.
Personally, I would not give much credence to anything she says.
Oster is not the only one making this argument. She’s one of many.
What happened to your username?
She has a tendency to jump to conclusions just like you do.
You will note that I was referring specifically to what Oster claimed back in early May, which has since been SHOWN to be bullshit.
The claim that school children are not super spreaders may well be correct, but I would not lend ,much (if any) credence to the claim coming from Oster, given her proven track record.
And I don’t have time to waste on looking at her analysis”
Weird, now your username is back to normal.
What does “super spreader” even mean, by the way?
Not weird at all.
I fixed the typo.
So, you need not wonder about it.
Sorry!
And no, I don’t consider a confirmed infection rate of 8 – 10% among children in the US evidence that infection among children is “very unlikely” as Oster concluded back at the beginning of May, particularly when children are often asymptomatic and therefore can go untested even when they are infected.
We must listen to scientists. Oster is an economist.
Exactly.
When did it become ok for economists to make medical predictions? Their research models aren’t designed to answer medical questions. They can’t even make predictions in their own field.
We have economists finding correlations, no matter how minuscule & using their specious findings to make predictions about a pandemic. Are we out of our collective minds?
We have too many economists doing “research” in education. We have too many economists doing “research” in medicine. We have too many economists doing “research” in the social sciences. We have too many economists. Period.
Thank you. Totally agree and don’t believe Oster is working on her own. She is deliberately mis-using data to support dangerous actions that profit a certain sector of society, the monied class. She understands the issue all too well and is the champion not of teachers and children but of hard, cold cash.
“There are three types of lies, lies, damned lies and statistics.”
Four: lies, damned lies, statistics and econometricks
Randomized studies and large sample sizes are what is needed for good decision-making, according to Emily Oster who used an example involving a single individual back in early May to bolster her argument that kids were very unlikely to spread the virus.
Said Oster back in early May
“There isn’t a ton of research on this yet, but where we have it, it again downplays the role of children. In one case, very early in the epidemic, researchers identified a set of cases in the French Alps (all linked to one set of travelers) and the cases included one kid. During the infected period, this kid visited three different schools (it is completely unclear to me why) and had 112 school contacts. None of these contacts were infected.
Obviously this is a single example, but it is worth noting that in the case of adults we have a number of examples (i.e. the Biogen conference in Boston, some family gatherings in Chicago, one epic party in Westport, CT) where one infected adult spread the virus very widely.”
https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/can-kids-transmit-the-virus
////
Well, that proves it.
Ha ha ha.
Emily Oster can take her percentages & shove them where the sun don’t shine. She needs to read this New England Journal of Medicine editorial- the stats are just horrific.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812?query=featured_home
“The National Institutes of Health have played a key role in vaccine development but have been excluded from much crucial government decision making. And the Food and Drug Administration has been shamefully politicized,3 appearing to respond to pressure from the administration rather than scientific evidence. Our current leaders have undercut trust in science and in government,4 causing damage that will certainly outlast them. Instead of relying on expertise, the administration has turned to uninformed “opinion leaders” and charlatans who obscure the truth and facilitate the promulgation of outright lies.”
“Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”
I’d question the data she’s using and point out this is pretty premature. For example: “School-based data from other sources show similarly low rates. Texas reported 1,490 cases among students for the week ending on September 27, with 1,080,317 students estimated at school—a rate of about 0.14 percent. The staff rate was lower, about 0.10 percent.”
The local NPR affiliate reported that the Texas COVID school data is running 2-4 weeks behind. This data came out before any of our large urban districts (places with the highest rates) had in-person school. We’ve only had students on campus 1 or 2 weeks. In Dallas, we are on track to have thousands of cases in the district in the next couple of months.
If you look at the linked data only 26% of the schools are in person, full time. I would guess that many of those schools require masks.
A full 25% of this data is from schools with remote only options (yup – I agree – remote schools probably are not super spreaders 😉
Half are hybrid or at reduced capacity. I am again assuming that these schools also require mask wearing, social distancing and careful monitoring of symptoms.
It’s helpful to look at the data that is linked.
It may be more accurate to…. “if you provide a mix of remote, hybrid and some in person instruction (depending on the infection rates in your community) and require all students to social distance, wear masks, have a school nurse to carefully monitor symptoms, have students stay home if they have symptoms, and requires students and families to quarantine if they test positive…….. schools are less likely to be super spreaders of infection.”
All these things that are necessary for schools to be safer: remote options, hybrid options, masks, social distancing, thorough cleaning, outdoor learning, nurse monitoring . . . . are costly and time consuming if done correctly.
There is so much more to the story than the title implies. Schools are not so called “super spreaders”……. IF . . .
And the “if” part is huge – and needs to be implemented carefully.
Exactly!. Oster’s %ages tell us nothing that can be generalized into policy because it’s trash data. Calling her data cherry picked si too kind- it’s fraudulent & it’s going cost people their lives.
The problems with COVID isn’t what we know about it now, but what we don’t know about it now & its future effects on people’s health. This is the reason medical researchers examine the outliers who have contracted a disease. If they want to find treatments, they need to study both large groups of infected individuals and the tiny percentages who have been seriously impacted.
Children & adults are showing neurological damage, heart disease, gastrointestinal disease, and long term lung damage that have baffled scientists. The last thing we need is the advice from economist on how to manage our health decision during this deadly pandemic.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Low transmission rates are not a answer to reopening schools. We need no transmission of this virus until there is an effective vaccine as we have for influenza. The real question is what the long term effect is on the health of a child during their lifetime along with pupil and staff infections, illness, and death. Are you willing to take a chance with your life and health, with your pupils, with your children and grandchildren? There will be numbers and who wants to volunteer themselves and family members to enhance the data. Years from now, remote learning will be a memory for our children, just as you have memories of your past. The current ruling though minority Republican party will not lift a finger to help make sure every child and family has what they need to get through this. They will obstruct. Right now, VOTE. Vote everyone of them out of power. Don’t let the data presented in this study endanger our children.
Well said!
Agreed!
Here’s praying that this will prove to be true.
My suspicion is that a couple years from now, after the terrible tragedy of the second wave of infection in the U.S. has been analyzed, people will be blaming the transmission leading to that dramatic surge on the fact that a lot of asymptomatic but infected people were back at work and AT SCHOOL. But I pray that I’m wrong about this.
Praying that an economist is right is like praying that a ball thrown out a window will NOT fall.
Suspension of critical thought
What if grass were blue?
What if night were day?
What if economists knew
About the things they say?
Well, yes. I should have said, I hope that I’m wrong about this.
By the way, why is it that economists believe they are qualified to weigh in on things that are far outside their area of expertise?
They seem to have so much damned confidence in their abilities in all fields of endeavor.
Is this passed on by their econ professors or something?
I have always wondered about this.
And economists have soooo much certainty that they are right.
The old joke was that if you laid all the economists end to end, you would not reach a conclusion. But I don’t think that’s quite right. It’s more like this: What economist should you hire? It depends. What conclusions do you want?
That said, the fact that economics is a quasi-science, in that murky area between actual science and pseudoscience, should not blind us to the fact that there are economic facts, like this one: the rich have gotten, in the last few decades, an increasingly larger share of the pie.
The thing that really bothers me about this is the heedlessness of drawing conclusions based on clearly preliminary and incomplete data that, if taken seriously by policy makers, could lead to people DYING. That doesn’t seem at all ethical.
In matters of life and death, and this is one of them, the precautionary principle applies. This is not something a person wants to have been wrong about. Oopsy won’t cut it.
Before you know it, economists will be using VAM to estimate the value of human life. How many dollars and cents is one life valued at in the current market, I wonder?
Devalue Added Model
The value of economist?
It isn’t worth a DAM
De-value’s what they are, in gist
De-value Added spam
Bob
As I pointed out above, Oster has been implying that “kids are not significant spreaders” since early May, when almost nothing was known about how the virus was spread and who was spreading it.
At a bare minimum, Oster has already shown herself to be grossly irresponsible by weighing in (on policy for schools, no less!!) at that point.
Why anyone would pay any attention to what she claims now is a total mystery buried in an emema wrapped in a condom.
She’s also an expert on pregnancy and parenting, in case anyone is thinking of having a family.
What’s next on her agenda, a (physics) Theory of Everything?
Might be a good idea to go so far as to call them not economists, but Economologists, as Scientologists are to scientists.
Actually, the term is already apt.
Mist is german for manure.
And , of course in English mist means fog, which hides and obscures things.
So economist is literally economanure
Bob S, at 12:36pm: exactly– that’s the bottom line! Well said.
And yet, New Jersey currently has 16 covid outbreaks in schools. And schools in my county are sending students back to the classroom next week. God help us.
Perhaps elementary schools aren’t but in my area of northern Utah, there are a LOT of cases and quarantined from secondary schools.
Oster was sure back at the beginning of May that kids are not significant spreaders (“very unlikely” is how she put it), so it’s not surprising she is now claiming what she is.
Some might call it motivated reasoning.
These kinds of articles often feel like people who don’t care one iota what happens to poor kids in this country citing them when demanding a return to school. (Not saying this is the case with Emily Oster, but I’ve seen it by other advocates)
In fact, anyone who really supports a return to school “for the kids” would be offering up plans for how this can be done safely, and be willing to address the myriad of problems that are unique to the US, a country where healthcare is a privilege and not a right, and not compare it to western democracies where people who get sick have easier access to healthcare.
Just once, I’d like to hear one of these “open up all the schools, stat, and don’t require anyone to wear a mask if they don’t want to” advocates addressing some questions. Citing private schools as a model without promising to provide public schools the same resources and class sizes shows you how little they care about kids.
To wit, what happens to all the families who have vulnerable grandparents living with them, or parents or siblings? Do their kids just stay home? And will you spend the money to provide for them, or do we get to criticize your “plan” for demanding they just stay home or die and then failing to provide them with high speed internet and good computers?
It is the hypocrisy I don’t like.
My challenge: Everyone who advocates a full return to school should have their family forbidden from being treated by any medical professional for any illness or injury – except for lifesaving emergencies – if there is an outbreak and hospitals are at all stretched dealing with COVID patients.
I want to call the bluff of the privileged like Trump and Christie who demand first class treatment for themselves when their policies have bad outcomes, but expect regular Americans to shut up and die to help create “herd immunity”.
Let me try that again:
Trump must be angry that the public schools did not become super-spreaders of the viruslike he wanted them to be explaining why he trying to be the biggest super spreader of them all to make up for that failure.
The Stuperspreader
Trump’s a Stuperspreader
Spreading stupid tweets
He’s metter than a Hetter
With stupid tweeting feats
Oster also thinks it’s OKey dokey for women to drink alcohol during pregnancy.
Here’s an retort to Oster’s claims from Susan J Hemingway (formerly Ashley), professor of Epidemiology and Pediatrics and fetal alcohol expert at U of Washington
Click to access astley-oster2013.pdf
“The Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Right—Do NOT Drink while Pregnant.
Once again, here comes a book “Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong—And What You Really Need to Know” where the author Dr. Emily Oster, a professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, reassures pregnant women that drinking just one alcoholic drink a day during pregnancy is safe. To the contrary, The conventional pregnancy wisdom is Right—and here is what you Really need to know.
First, a little history to set the stage… The year 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the coining of the term fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in the medical literature. But 1973 was not the year we discoveredthe dangers of alcohol use during pregnancy. Clear reference to this danger dates back to biblical times
“Behold, thou shall conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine or strong drink…Judges 13:7”. Individuals with FAS have severe, lifelong brain damage caused by their mother’s use of alcohol during Pregnancy. Although we have made tremendous progress over the past 40 years educating women and medical professionals about the dangers of alcohol use during pregnancy, the challenge continues.
The latest challenge is coming from women pushing back against public health notices like the Surgeon General’s Advisory “There is no known safe amount of alcohol to drink while pregnant”. Apparently we, the medical profession, have taken all the fun out of pregnancy. Surely this public health message Is too conservative, too overly protective. After all-how much damage could a single drink a day possibly do? Helping to fuel this pushback are headlines from two recent studies out of Denmark and Ireland claiming drinking is safe. Add to this the release of Dr. Oster’s book in August 2013 and you
have the perfect storm
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Oster reports “When I looked at the data from hundreds of studies, I found, basically, no credible evidence that low levels of drinking (a glass of wine
or so a day) have any impact on your baby’s cognitive development”. She goes on to report “The key to
good decision making is evaluating the available information—the data—and combining it with your own estimates of pluses and minuses. As an economist, I do this every day.” Well, as a Professor of Epidemiology and Pediatrics, director of an FAS diagnostic clinic that has diagnosed over 2,550 individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) over 20 years, and creator of one of the largest FASD databases, I too do this every day. As an economist, Dr. Oster concludes a drink a day during pregnancy is safe. As a pediatric epidemiologist, I conclude a drink a day is not safe. So which of us is
correct?
I had an opportunity to speak with Dr. Oster the other day. We have a bit in common. We are both professors. We both crunch numbers for a living. And I do believe we both care deeply about the well-being of children. In preparation for our conversation, I had my FASD database open, ready to answer any question she may have.
She asked me “What proportion of children born with FAS were exposed to only 1 drink per day?” I think she expected me to say a drink per day cannot cause FAS. But my answer was “1 out of every 14 children we have diagnosed with full blown FAS over the past 20 years had a reported exposure of just 1 drink per day”. In fact, one of these children was reported to have been exposed to just 1 beer per day for the first 4 months…”
End of quotes
Personally, i would not believe a word Oster says.
Not a single one.
Unless she said “I’m full of it”
Then I’d believe her.
But I’m very confident that she would never admit that.😀
Scientific ignorance can be a very dangerous thing.
Begs the question:
Is thalidomide also OK for pregnant mother’s as long as they do it in moderation?
If beer a day
Is A OK
Can mom’s abide
Thalidomide?
Excellent post, thank you.
Why on earth would one listen to an economist on health matters??
Europe and the United States are both seeing surges in infections.
Gee. Wonder why.
Following the advice of nitwits?
Nailed it, SomeDAM
These days I’m a carpenter*
So nailing is my thing
But in the past the sharpener
Of pencils made me sing
*No joke. I just finished a 12 by 20 shed
As someone posted earlier, Oster used data from mid September. But many schools did not start until mid September and states have been behind by two weeks in reporting their positive cases (Remember the labs were overwhelmed and got behind).
If you look at the data now – just the number of positive cases (and not the age breakdown) :
Oct. 4: 33,972
Oct. 5: 41,599
Oct. 6: 44,666
Oct. 7: 49,356
Oct. 8: 56,653
Oct. 9: 60,558 –> The most cases in 2 months
So what caused the spike? White house (38 +), *rump rallies, stupid people not wearing a mask(WH staff included), schools opening.
Well done.
Emily Oster says ““Cities have recognized the need for child care for parents who cannot afford to quit their jobs to supervise their kids, but this has led to a haphazard network of options. Houston, for example, has opened some schools as learning centers. L.A. has learning centers set up for low-income students in alternative locations. These spur the questions: If school isn’t safe for everyone, why is it safe for low-income9 y students? And if school is safe for low-income students, why isn’t it safe for everyone?”
This completely ignores the covid safety protocols of such childcare centers. In NYC centers operating right through since mid-March, e.g., proper ventilation is paramount; kids are organized into ‘pods’ of 9 max students + 1 teacher each, no mixing with other cohorts, staying in their assigned classroom or taking a distanced, staggered turn outside—distancing & masks. Older kids who have remote ed from their districts do it there, aided by child-givers. These childcare centers do not resemble haphazardly reopened US schools. They resemble the successfully reopened schools in Denmark.
Emily Oster: prof of economics at Brown U, who according to Bloomberg’s 10/8 article is homeschooling her 5 & 9yo children… Yuh, tell it Emily. Cashing in on the pandemic: collecting data from home & dialing it in.
Not a word about cases among adult staff– hmm. Also exactly where are these 200k subjects located? And how long have they been in session? By me [central NJ], they’re doing hybrid—with some hiccups [hisch had to shut down for two of the last four weeks]. Let’s get a look at red-state fully-reopened schools in areas where covid is 5% (or worse).
Bethree5,
The data set she links to does report that .27% of staff have confirmed infections and that .76% are confirmed plus suspected. Did you not bother to click on the link?
What about the TEACHER’s Database? Who is looking at this?
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/coronavirus/teacher-creates-national-database-of-covid-19-related-school-closures
We have been open since August 3. Some cases, but no general outbreak. Every appendage of my body is crossed. I am hoping that the general rural character of our area and the natural tendency of families to live as dispersed units might tamp down the spread of the virus locally. What else can I do?
A student whose family was hit by the virus managed to live through the infection. This makes me also hope that subsequent mutations of Covid might be less hostile than early versions due to our shut down and prevention measures in the spring. I know there is no,science here, but a guy can hope for the best, even as we confront the worst.
I am not positive that this article gives the whole picture. We had all students go back F2F for 2 weeks. At the end of that 2 weeks, community spread was back up to what it was prior to schools reopening. I don’t think this article addresses asymptotic transmission. Just my thoughts on watching the local data.
To NYC up there, 10/10, at 2:25 PM: Yep. We MUST believe it45 when he says that the WH visit of the Gold Star families was where he got the virus–& from the Gold Star families as spreaders. Because it45 just could not NOT “hug them,” Would it45 “push them away?” NO, because it is so admired & loved–ESPECIALLY by Gold star families & veterans (even ones in wheelchairs & dead ones).
One of my neighbors has a big Biden/Harris lawn sign, &, next to it, a gold sign proclaiming “Proud Veteran.”
Yes, I couldn’t believe it when Trump said that about Gold Star families. That man always looks for scapegoats.
Also, I didn’t know that an economist knew more than an epidemiologist
(I’m surprised there’s no comment from Teaching Economist.)
Stick to…well…the economy! There’s plenty to look at/study in your own area of expertise.
This article is SO MISLEADING! Don’t get me wrong, I love data, but that is NOT the whole story. Nowhere does it mention the safety protocols being taken in Texas schools. For example, in my district, the few students who are back in school are in PODS. meaning they are in the same room all day, not moving about the school. They are effectively online learning at their desks with masks on. Plus the teachers are sanitizing throughout the day. As a result of this kind of DATA the district is planning on fully opening back up in November, with students moving about campus. This is irresponsible at best.