John Thompson writes below about the ongoing confusion about whether it is safe to reopen schools. Trump and DeVos demanded that schools reopen without the resources to reopen safely. Now, the debate continues, with a mixture of science, hope, and fear. I am not a public health expert, and I offer no advice. But common sense suggests that teachers should be vaccinated first, along with other essential workers. Teaching in a room with a large group of students all day long, it seems to me, is materially different than shopping in a store where one enters and leaves within 15-20 minutes. If we expect teachers to be frontline workers, they should get the vaccinations and PPE equipment they need.
He writes:
Today we’re in a situation in regard to reopening schools that is similar and different to that of the first six months of the Covid pandemic. Then, it seemed likely that schools could reopen by the fall semester as long as we respected public health evidence, and set smart priorities, such as reopening schools not bars. But Trump and his acolytes politicized the pandemic, even leading the way to super-spreadings by holding crowded political and motorcycle rallies, as well as pushing the premature reopenings of indoor dining and partying.
I’m afraid, however, that we’re also in a situation similar to last November when it should have been obvious that the holidays were coming, bringing super-spreads. Rarely do we face school reopening issues that lead to obvious conclusions. However, it would have been crazy to reopen schools as Thanksgiving approached, prompting the surge which would feed the super-surges of Christmas and New Years. Even so, true believers in the claim that educators were being too cautious often continued to ramp up the blame game. In “When Trump Was Right and Many Democrats Wrong” (Nov 18), Nick Kristof criticized Democrats for failing to learn from Europeans who had safely kept their schools open.
Ironically, Kristof’s editorial was published 6 days after Spiegel International’s “Reevaluating Children’s Role in the Pandemic.” It explained in great detail that “a large study from Austria shows that SARS-CoV-2 infects just as many schoolchildren as it does teachers. Other surveys indicate that while young children may show no symptoms, they are quite efficient at spreading the virus.”
Spiegel explained, “‘Schools are not islands of serenity,’ says study leader Michael Wagner, a professor of microbiology at the University of Vienna. Leaving them open is ‘a significant risk.’” Moreover, “‘Children reflect the infection levels they are surrounded by,’ says microbiologist Wagner. But because they are so often asymptomatic, they are ‘severely undertested,’ leading him to believe that there are a rather significant number of unreported cases.”
In fairness, even if Kristof had read about and contemplated the new situation in Europe, he could not have known that it would foreshadow the most important pandemic challenge we face today. But he no longer has an excuse for sticking with his simplistic attacks on teachers.
As the super-spread that took off in November subsides, and given the fact that President Biden has replaced Trump, it could be argued that we should be able to safely reopen schools over the next 100 days. As was true in the summer and the fall, new scientific research keeps producing evidence that schools can operate safely in person, especially in places where masking, social distancing, and public health guidelines are respected when dealing with community transmissions. Recent studies documented successes in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and European schools. Research keeps confirming that schools for the youngest children are the least likely to spread the virus. And a recent JAMA study concludes “there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.”
On the other hand, the path JAMA describes toward “return primarily or fully to in-person instructional delivery” also requires “steps to reduce community transmission and limiting school-related activities such as indoor sports practice or competition that could increase transmission risk.” For instance, it cites a recent wrestling tournament where, “Among the 130 tournament participants, 38 (30%) had laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection diagnosed, but less than half the participants were tested. At least 446 contacts of these cases have been identified.” These and secondary transmissions are still being studied.
Sadly, we’re also seeing a repeat of the politicization of public health which contributed so much to the super-spreads that made it impossible for so many urban districts to reopen in the fall. One of the worst examples is Derek Thompson’s article published online with the title, “Open Schools, Already.” Thompson began with an oversimplified characterization of the Center for Disease Control’s call to reopen schools “as soon as possible,” and asserted, “the CDC seems to be shouting: Enough! To which, I would add: What took you so long”?
I always follow the links in these reports, and almost always I find a story more complicated than anticipated. But, these reports tend to start with the conclusion about whether schools can reopen safely, followed by a number of disclaimers and warnings. Thompson turned out to be one of the most extreme examples of a respected reporter misrepresenting the complexities documented in the sources he cited.
Rather than get into the weeds of methodology, before addressing Thompson’s misleading arguments, I’ll just mention a few more differences between today’s questions and those of the summer and fall. New research estimates that 59 percent of transmissions, not 35 percent as previously estimated, are by asymptomatic persons. Moreover, we now have evidence that teens are more likely to spread the virus than originally thought. And a new study of infections in Florida and China shows that children may be more likely to be asymptomatic, and they may be 60% more likely than adults over 60 to spread the infection.
These findings, combined with the lack of testing and contact tracing in many places, call into question the previously understandable conclusions by some that schools aren’t major contributors to community transmission.
Also, there are new reasons to worry about the unknown, but potentially serious, harm done by Covid to asymptomatic persons.
Getting back to Thompson’s article as a case study in misrepresenting complex science, North Carolina and Wisconsin offer just two of many examples of studies of small samples of committed school systems that are not representative of many other districts. In “Incidence and Secondary Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Infections in Schools,” Duke University researchers found that infections were rare in “35 North Carolina schools that offered in-person teaching for at least some of the 9 weeks, with only 17 staying open to students for the entire quarter.”
The researchers acknowledged that the sample of schools “may select for school districts that enforce adherence to preventative measures, emphasize transparency, and cooperate with peers.” These characteristics “are likely associated with greater adherence to masking, reduced secondary transmission, and lower risks.” And, when two districts faced reduced compliance with masking and distancing, a nonprofit stepped in to reinforce those policies.
In response to my questions on methodology, co-author Daniel Benjamin volunteered that the key to success:
Is that there is 99% mask compliance for every person in the mainstream curriculum that steps on school property. It’s the mitigation strategies—distancing, masking, hand hygiene that are crucially important. If a school district does not do these things, they will likely make the pandemic worse by being open. This is why we don’t advise “you should open” or “you should go remote”…. It’s all about the public health measures.
And while we’re reading more optimistic reports by reliable researchers like JAMA and the CDC, let’s not forget their qualifying statements, such as the CDC’s summary of Wisconsin infections from Sept 3 to Nov16. Schools were the 4th largest source of infections, following long term care and corrections facilities, and colleges; an estimated 14% of infections were linked to schools.
These are just a few of the new pieces of evidence that schools may not be super-spreaders, but they are spreaders. But, how fast do we want to reopen those spreaders as the virus variant comes to the United States? The New York Times cites the CDC and other institutions that predict the more contagious U.K. variant will be predominant by March. If so, will it make sense to not reclose the schools that contribute to spread, even if they don’t drive the increase in infections?
The reopening of schools in 100 days is a reasonable goal, but decisions on the pace of reopenings and when it is necessary to reclose schools, should not be politicized. My sense, however, is that more of the press, and public health and education advocates are now discussing politics more, and complicated science relatively less. For instance, there has been a steady increase in charter school advocates implicitly or explicitly blaming shutdowns on unions. Robert Pondiscio’s “How Anger Over Covid Closures Can Fuel the School Choice Movement” is just one recent example.
At the same time, more journalists are focusing on the differences between statements by some of Biden’s public health experts, and his apparently more balanced approach, as well that of teachers and unions, than the nuances of medical science conclusions. Moreover,, the Washington Post explains, “CDC researchers looked to Europe’s experience in the fall to inform their conclusion that ‘there has been (emphasis mine) little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.’”
But new research from Europe leads towards a new conclusion, articulated by Celso Cunha, director of the medical microbiology unit at Nova University of Lisbon’s Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, “By themselves, schools are not the main problem, but it makes sense to close them when the numbers are so high that anything can have an impact on the health system as a whole,”
The Wall Street Journal also reports:
A consensus is emerging in Europe that children are a considerable factor in the spread of Covid-19—and more countries are shutting schools for the first time since the spring.
Closures have been announced recently in the U.K., Germany, Ireland, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands on concerns about a more infectious variant of the virus first detected in the U.K. and rising case counts despite lockdowns. …
The Journal quoted the director of the University of Geneva’s Institute of Global Health, “In the second wave we acquired much more evidence that schoolchildren are almost equally, if not more infected by SARS-CoV-2 than others.”
And as Spiegel reported in November, Europeans have had to ask, “Might children, in fact, be mini-superspreaders running around without so much as a sore throat as they pass the virus on to classmates, parents and siblings?”
I sure can’t anticipate the answer to that question, but unless we can discuss it in a non-ideological manner, we might fail at both the reopening of schools within 100 days, and contribute to a resurgence of Covid.
“Might children, in fact, be mini-superspreaders running around without so much as a sore throat as they pass the virus on to classmates, parents and siblings?”
The answer is probably yes. That is why teachers in my district are double masking and wearing KN95 masks (which are plentiful on Amazon). And we all wonder what the effects of double masking for 6 hours a day for a year will be.
I guess I am a little tired of this debate – it looks at US public schools as a monolith with a one size fits all answer and is not focused on the concrete solution of making schools safer based on the context of the community.
Context matters. Community spread……… type of building and ventilation…. are there windows in the all classrooms where student will be…….. ability to decrease class size….. availability of PPE for staff. Staffing. Can schools in low income districts provide masks to students? Community response….. is the school in a community where parents monitor symptoms and keep kids home when they are sick?
Schools should open when it’s relatively safe to do so and the proper measures and protocols are put into place.
And at the end of the day…… all of this is going to lead to a shortage of good, experienced teachers for many years to come.
Absolutely correct!
“Context matters. Community spread……… type of building and ventilation…. are there windows in the all classrooms where student will be…….. ability to decrease class size….. availability of PPE for staff. Staffing. Can schools in low income districts provide masks to students? Community response….. is the school in a community where parents monitor symptoms and keep kids home when they are sick?
…
“And at the end of the day…… all of this is going to lead to a shortage of good, experienced teachers for many years to come.”
What matters is that a) all adults in schools be vaccinated and b) all students be provided with N95 masks.
That will take months. It takes time to get both doses….. and time for the vaccine to work.
This school year only has 3-4 months left…. maybe vaccination could be effective for most teachers by May? maybe? So until then…
Lower class size, PPE for all paid for by gov., proper ventilation (which should be standard regardless of covid) and the surrounding community being responsible…… is what will more quickly get kiddos back in school. Those things matter.
It’s hard to understand what it’s like to teach in-person during covid unless you are doing it.
States could give all teachers the first dose of the vaccine in a week if they really wanted to.
Biden has talked about administering 100 million vaccines in 100 days — an average of 1 million a day.
There are just less than 4 million k-12 teachers (public and private)
The second dose is given 3 weeks after the first, so it’s reasonable to think that they could vaccinate all teachers within about a month.
Would that take a major effort? Of course, but it could be done .
But will it? I doubt it. There seems to be no interest on the part of Biden or the CDC.
Exactly, SomeDAM
Back in 1947, there were a few cases of smallpox in NY city and public health officials feared there might be an outbreak so they mounted a massive campaign to vaccinate 6 million people in less than a month.
And much of the health infrastructure (hospitals, clinics, etc) that exists today did not exist back then.
So it’s just not credible that it can’t be done now.
If our leaders (eg. Of the CDC) ars not capable of making it happen, they should get out of the way and let someone who is capable do so.
I used to work as an engineer and my experience is that there are always people who say things can’t be done when they can be.
The naysayers tend to drag everyone else down.
yup
SomeDAM: That is why I thought bringing the vaccines to the workplace would solve the mass problem of trying to get an appointment. One of my childhood memories was going to my elementary school on a Saturday with my mother to get the polio vaccine. It was a fast easy solution.
Yes. Retired teacher,
That makes good sense.
And that may be the problem😀
Huge differences between NYC’s 1947 smallpox outbreak and global pandemic of a novel virus.
Practicalities: the program was local, eliminating the bureaucratic complications of finessing fed-state legalities, and coordinating among a number of fed agencies. The required # of doses was a fraction of what’s needed for national inoculation. NYC, after using up everything immediately available from local and Army/ Navy sources, worked with vaccine mfrs to divert to itself virtually all vaccine stores earmarked for other national locations. They were dealing with a vaccine that had long been regularly produced and disseminated.
Trust: the populace was immersed in the polio epidemic, and the 1918 flu pandemic was in the living memory of most of the population. Public health dept & epidemiologists were in the news, respected, listened to. Tons of just-returned WWII vets for whom multiple vaccinations were routine. No anti-vaxxer movement. And this particular vaccine had long been approved; most New Yorkers had received it as children.
But I’m guessing the biggest difference accounting for comparatively slow govt roll-out of covid vaccine: smallpox kills 3 out of every 10 who catch it—within 7-10 days—and survivors are left disfigured &/or blinded. Substitute ‘smallpox’ for ‘covid-19’ & you’ve got a known, vicious enemy that would have been stomped out before it ever left Wuhan– no politics, no uncertain science.
As I said above
There are always naysayers.
And always will be.
Undertaking a program to vaccinate as many teachers over the next month as is possible is not only a reasonable but a very worthwhile goal, even if some refuse to get vaccinated* and even if the goal of vaccinating all is not met.
What is not reasonable is not even making the effort, while at the same time requiring teachers to go back to the classroom without at least giving them an opportunity to get vaccinated.
*if people oppose getting vaccinated, they are not going to be vaccinated regardless of the time frame, unless, perhaps, that is specified as a requirement for teaching in the schools.
And if it takes two months or even three so be it. But unless there is a clear program that has made getting teachers vaccinated a top priority, it will not get done with the due speed that is justified.
And it is very unhelpful for the CDC to be saying it’s oK for teachers to go back to the classrooms without vaccinations.
That basically tells the states they can take their merry time.
Beautifully said, SomeDAM. Exactly.
By the way here’s a link to an article about the smallpox vaccination campaign in my city in 1947.
Not incidentally, it was largely due to the vision and persistence of a single public health official — Israel Weinstein — which shows you what can be done if the car is being driven by the right person. I imagine that there were probably lots and lots of people who told him ” it can’t be done.”
From the looks of that line of maskless people, even back in 1947 there were Trump supporters. And if you can get them in line to get vaccinated, you can get anyone.
The discussion over getting teachers vaccinated pronto just sounds like a pipe dream to me here in NJ. Nobody’s getting vaccines in a hurry– getting noplace fast, is what it feels like. Hubby & I (both 71yo) have been registered at multiple sites for weeks & just spent the obligatory hour poring over every one of those and signing up for a few more. Out of about 15 sites we’re checking, only 2 actually said something might happen soon & they’ll email us if it does (FWIW). All the others say simply “not accepting any appointments at this time.” It would appear that whatever puny bunches of doses are dribbling into NJ get snapped up within minutes of being announced. It feels familiar: like trying to get seats for a big rock headliner through Ticketmaster.
Masks worn appropriately on every person every minute. 6-ft distancing everywhere. Ventilation. Limited mixing of groups (keep classes in cohorts: teachers change rooms, not kids). Extra distancing for breakfast and lunch – in classrooms or by class separate in big open space. Rare adult “meetings” and if absolutely necessary, never larger than 10 very and auditorium-spread apart distanced, masked, and time limited.
Extra week off after a “family-gathering” holiday (Thanksgiving, Winter, Spring breaks). Send sniffling kids and adults home asap. Immediate contact tracing.
It works. Find schools enforcing this aggressively and check their dashboards! Minimal cases.
Math, Science, and Responsibility. Apolitical.
As readers here have noted since last March, these so-called “experts” on packing students and teachers back into classrooms should have at it. Go ahead. Spend hours sucking in the air floating around a classroom. Wear one, two, three masks. Hell, put your underwear over your head then stuff an old sock in your mouth. And…just….keep……breathing. (And getting students ready for ridiculous, standardized tests.)
Of course, that won’t happen.
Teacher haters be hating.
P.S. And, isn’t it amazing how the idea of reduced class size gets under their thin skin so much. To think of that!
Lol!! Love your visuals. They couldn’t do it and they know it.
By Friday I am so dehydrated from the winter dry air / dry heat in the buildings / double masking…. little time to hydrate…. because of cohorts/ not mixing students – we have greatly reduced planning time.
The energy of my students and joy of teaching gives me energy when I am in the classroom. But it is draining. Believe me. 6 months of teaching like this….and less time learning outside b/c of winter …. we are worn out
The only thing necessary for the triumph of EXPERTS
is for good men to do nothing, that STOPS them…
Are you suggesting we all quit?
“Expert advice
“A mask or two or three
Is all you need to be
A teacher in the schools
In times when virus rules”
The experts give advice
And often give it thrice:
“Don’t need no stinking vax
To stop it in it’s tracks”
“So suck it up and teach
Inject some household bleach
And quit your endless whining
You’re ruining my dining”
Other countries at least hand out free masks. We don’t even do that. Schools are politicized because everything, including schools, and politics, is corporatized.
I’m not sure about the sock in the mouth. Probably work better if it were someone else’s
My internet has been down sine last Sunday.
I try to shop extremely efficiently, but I can not make it out in 15 or 20 minutes. It is closer to 45 before I am out the door. The majority of the folks shopping in my grocery store these days are there for many hours. They are the folks packing bags to be delivered to those who stay home.
Even with my relatively short stays in the grocery store, the store is the most dangerous environment I am in. The classrooms where I teach my socially distanced mask wearing students is far safer.
You compare shopping in a grocery store to teaching? It takes you a whole 15-20 minutes?
Don’t confuse TE with basic math, Diane.
Like his hero, VAManujan, he is math challenged. That’s why he’s an economist and not a real scientist.
Writing provocative questions to this and other blogs is sport for him.
Someone always takes the bait.
TE’s specialty is sports.
“The economics of sport fishing”
TE perhaps you’ve already thought this through &/or it doesn’t work in your area, but if it’s helpful:
1.Plan to go to major grocery once/month at most: maximize use of your freezer; consider canned goods. It will take no more than 45mins if you have a list & know the store.
2.Schedule your trip for when store opens. That way everything has just been cleaned, & there won’t be many people there. In our area, the first hour is actually reserved for 55yo& over.
3.Use small convenience stores for replenishing eggs, milk, juice, yogurt, bananas in between times. In our area they’re also stocking a lot of other packaged grocery items & pharmacy items now. I like them because they rarely have more than a few customers in there & are strict about masking/ distancing. And of course if you actually have a veg store/ farm stand (I am lucky that way) so much the better.
Bethree5,
Thank you for the advice. I value fresh ingredients, so I take the risk of shopping about twice a week (weather was forecasted to be bad this week so I did buy a weeks worth of food last Friday). I do have a list prepared before I shop but no doubt like you I have to substitute for things when I discover that ingredients are not available. I also know where I have to go in the store, but those that shop for others have a harder time and are often, to be frank, in the way.
I do take advantage of my freedom to shop at down times, so I seldom have to stand in line outside my grocery store. Unfortunately the first hours of shopping in my area are reserved to those over 65, so I can not shop during that time. My grocery store is very strict about masking and distancing, but I do worry about the people who spend their day shopping for those who stay home.
My local convenience store is someplace I shop for a few items (tonight it was chocolate truffles), but it generally involves a longer combined time in the store than I would spend by purchasing it in my local grocery store.
Glad you answered, TE, I was afraid that might have come across as condescending. I find the ins & outs of shopping in different locales fascinating. Who would have guessed before they opened 3 yrs ago I’d have a by-god farm stand here in densely-populated central-N NJ? Front & back big rolling doors are closed in this weather, & she gets in vegs from the South, but farm-fresh eggs/ milk/ butter/ cheese, & a fridge stocked with home-made meals for two!
Shut down every school building in the country for the rest of the school year to stop the spread and allow for everyone to get vaccinated. Everything else needs to shutdown as well and be paid handsomely to remain shut.
Agreed. But that would require a diversion of funds from corporations and the MIC. It would also require the billionaire class to contribute more to society.
In our state they have had us in hybrid or other in-person variations since September once they decided they could drop the requirement for all K-12 students to 3 ft.
Our state CDC director was at least honest when asked last week why it was ok to disregard that CDC advice: it as a calculated risk that had to be made in order to allow schools to at least open in hybrid.
We were then told that we were not currently prioritized for vaccines and to be patient.
Of course the webinar ended with how much he & and our governor appreciated our hard work. Grateful, too.
School shootings we are given “thoughts and prayers.” Having others decide that long term health issues or death is an acceptable calculated risk has earned us “gratitude & appreciation.”
Pay equity, dignity & safe working environments? I’m no longer willing to be Charlie Brown falling down kicking Lucy’s football.
Exactly.
At the elementary level (where I teach) we are full time and 3ft distance rather 6ft. We were told it really doesn’t make a difference (oh – ok…. b/c the admins aren’t the ones in the room).
And we too are being deluged with “great job” and “our staff is amazing” and other similar emails from admin and others who are not actually in a classroom.
Well in modular arithmetic with modulus 3, 3 actually equals 6, with both equating to 0
So, you can get down to zero distance and still be ok.
You can’t argue with math.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_arithmetic
By the way, modular arithmetic is not only used by Principals to prove that 3 = 6 so their teachers have no choice but to have students seated at 3 feet apart, but it is also regularly used in cryptography.
For example, the RSA algorithm that forms the basis of much of the public key cryptography uses modular arithmetic.
http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptography/RSA/RSA.html
Mathematicians are very good at tricking people with numbers.
And good at hiding things with numbers.
They are also very good at circular logic.
The tragic fact now is that the big lie has usurped the search for truth.
Politics has become just that, politics. The lust for power. Money more important than people.
Yet again, how can any society continue to exist when truth gives way to lies as its foundation?
People, so very many, now are conned into viewing sources which are the real false, fake news, but upon which they have absolute trust. Building on sand.
Meanwhile, Utah, which has opened and closed school ad nauseum, has legislators pushing bills to up the infection rate to 2% before closing a school, and another bill where there would be no mask mandate. Why did the CDC never look at Utah’s overcrowded, criminally underfunded schools? Because that would have ruined their preconceived notions that it’s “fine” to open schools.
The first rule of science is to acknowledge everything that conflicts with your claims.
The first rule of politics is not to acknowledge anything that conflicts with your claims.
In fact, that’s the best way to distinguish between what is science and what is not.
And what drives science forward is quite specifically the conflicting evidence.
If you ignore conflicting evidence and/or don’t acknowledge the uncertainty associated with the evidence you have*, you are not doing science
*as so many are now doing when they report covid test “positivities” like 0.2% or even 1% that are lower (in some cases much lower) than the false negative rate of the most accurate covid test performed at peak viral load)
“The first rule of science…” Perfectly said!