I am getting dizzy from the whipsawing of information and advice about whether, when, and how schools should reopen. They were open in Europe, and we envied Europe; then they were closed in Europe. Schools open, then close, then open again. I am not a scientist so I offer no advice. The scientists agree that schools can open safely if they observe the medical protocols. If I were a teacher, I would want to be vaccinated first, but that is not what the scientists say here. Teachers are in an enclosed space with students most of the day; they are essential workers. Why not prioritize them for vaccination?
This story appeared in the New York Times:
Many of the common preconditions to opening schools — including vaccines for teachers or students, and low rates of infection in the community — are not necessary to safely teach children in person, a consensus of pediatric infectious disease experts said in a new survey.
Instead, the 175 experts — mostly pediatricians focused on public health — largely agreed that it was safe enough for schools to be open to elementary students for full-time and in-person instruction now. Some said that was true even in communities where Covid-19 infections were widespread, as long as basic safety measures were taken. Most important, they said, were universal masking, physical distancing, adequate ventilation and avoidance of large group activities.
The experts were surveyed by The New York Times in the last week. Depending on various metrics, between 48 percent and 72 percent say the extent of virus spread in a community is not an important indicator of whether schools should be open, even though many districts still rely on those metrics. Schools should close only when there are Covid-19 cases in the school itself, most said.
“There is no situation in which schools can’t be open unless they have evidence of in-school transmission,” said Dr. David Rosen, an assistant professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Washington University in St. Louis.
The risks of being out of school were far greater, many of the experts said. “The mental health crisis caused by school closing will be a worse pandemic than Covid,” said Dr. Uzma Hasan, division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at RWJBarnabas Health in New Jersey.
For the most part, these responses match current federal guidance, which does not mention vaccines, and reflect significant scientific evidence that schools are not a major source of spread for children or adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to release new recommendations Friday on how schools can safely operate, and the Biden administration has prioritized opening schools.
But the expert consensus in the survey is at odds with the position of certain policymakers, school administrators, parent groups and teachers’ unions. Some in these groups have indicated that they do not want to return to school buildings even next fall, when it’s likely that teachers will be able to be vaccinated, though not most students. Some districts have faced fierce resistance to reopening, particularly in large cities, where teachers have threatened to strike if they are called back to school buildings.
And some experts concurred that open schools pose risks, particularly to the adults working there, and said that many parts of the country had not yet controlled the virus enough to safely open.
“Just because school opening isn’t causing higher levels of community transmission doesn’t mean that there isn’t individual risk to teachers and staff,” said Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and a visiting professor of health policy at George Washington University. “If we had wanted schools to safely reopen, we should have worked hard as a society to keep transmission rates down and to invest resources in schools.”
About half of the nation’s students are still learning from home, and while a majority of districts are offering at least some in-person learning and more are trying to reopen this spring, many are offering students just a few hours a day or a few days a week.
The mismatch between the experts’ preferred policies and the rules governing school opening in many districts reflects political considerations and union demands, but also changes in scientists’ understanding of the virus. Many school policies were developed months ago, before growing evidence that Covid-19 does not spread easily in schools that adopt basic safety precautions. The guidance could change again, they cautioned: Nearly all expressed some concern that new coronavirus variants could disrupt schools’ plans to be open this spring or fall.
More than two-thirds of the respondents said they had school-aged children, and half had children in school at least some of the time. Over all, they were more likely than not to support their own schools being open. About 85 percent of those in communities where schools were open full time said their district had made the right call, while just one-third of those in places where schools were still closed said that had been the right choice.
The point of most agreement was requiring masks for everyone. All the respondents said it was important, and many said it was a simple solution that made the need for other preconditions to opening less essential.
“What works in health care, masks, will work in schools,” said Dr. Danielle Zerr, a professor and the division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Washington. “Kids are good at wearing masks!”
Half the panel said a complete return to school with no precautions — no masks, full classrooms and all activities restored — would require that all adults and children in the community have access to vaccination. (Vaccines haven’t been tested yet in children and most likely won’t be available until 2022.)
But not everyone agreed that younger children needed to be vaccinated to return to pre-pandemic school life. One-fifth said a full reopening without precautions could happen once adults in the community and high school students were vaccinated, and 12 percent said it could happen once vaccines were available to all adults in the community.
The experts also questioned another strategy used by many districts that are open or plan to open this spring: opening part time, for small and fixed cohorts of students who attend on alternating schedules to decrease class size and maximize distance between people. Only one-third said it was very important for schools to do this, though three-quarters said students should be six feet from one another some or all of the time. Three-quarters said schools should avoid crowds, like in hallways or cafeterias.
Limiting time in school increased other risks, some said, like impeding children’s social development, disrupting family routines and increasing the chance of children’s exposure to a bigger group of people out of school.
The experts expressed deep concern about other risks to students of staying home, including depression, hunger, anxiety, isolation and learning loss.
“Children’s learning and emotional and, in some cases, physical health is being severely impacted by being out of school,” said Dr. Lisa Abuogi, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at the University of Colorado, expressing her personal view. “I spend part of my clinical time in the E.R., and the amount of mental distress we are seeing in children related to schools is off the charts.”
The survey respondents came from the membership lists of three groups: the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the Decision Sciences for Child Health Collaborative and the American Academy of Pediatrics subspecialty group on epidemiology, public health and evidence. Some individual scientists also responded. Nearly all were physicians, and more than a quarter of them had degrees in epidemiology or public health as well. Most worked in academia and about a quarter in clinical settings, and most said their daily work was closely related to the pandemic.
Though their expertise is in children’s health, they cited evidence that with masks and other precautions, in-school transmission was very low, including from children to adults.
“I completely understand teachers’ and other school employees’ fear about returning to school, but there are now many well-conducted scientific studies showing that it is safe for schools to reopen with appropriate precautions, even without vaccination,” said Dr. Rebecca Same, an assistant professor in pediatric infectious disease at Washington University in St. Louis. “They are much more likely to get infected from the outside community and from family members than from school contacts.”
The survey asked experts about various strategies that schools are using to keep students and staff safe. The experts said many such measures would have some merit, but identified two as most important: mask wearing and distancing.
Other widely adopted measures — like frequent disinfection of buildings and surfaces, temperature checks or the use of plexiglass dividers — were viewed as less important. One-quarter said routine surveillance testing of students and staff was very important for schools to open.
“Masks are key,” Dr. Noble said. “Other interventions create a false sense of assurance.”
Many states have tied openings to measures of community spread in the school’s county, like test positivity rates, the rate of new infections or the rate of hospitalizations. But 80 percent of the experts said school districts should not base reopening decisions on infection data in the county at large; they should focus on virus cases inside the school.
Many districts have opened or are considering opening for younger students before older ones. Research has found that for children around adolescence, infection and spread become more similar to that of adults. The Biden administration has shaped its reopening plans around students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
Just over half of pediatric infectious disease experts said fifth grade should be the cutoff, if schools are partly opened. Just 17 percent said eighth grade should be. But despite high school students’ greater risk, many lamented the long-term effects of a year of extreme isolation on teenagers.
Although these experts specialized in children’s physical health, many concluded that the risks to mental health, social skills and education outweighed the risks of the virus. Students’ future opportunities, said Dr. Susan Lipton, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, are “torpedoed without the best academics, interaction with inspiring teachers who become mentors, clubs, sports and other ways to shine.”
“This is devastating a generation,” she said.Schoolchildren Seem Unlikely to Fuel Coronavirus Surges, Scientists SayOct. 22, 2020How 700 Epidemiologists Are Living Now, and What They Think Is NextDec. 4, 2020Monitoring the Coronavirus Outbreak in Metro Areas Across the U.S.
Claire Cain Miller writes about gender, families and the future of work for The Upshot. She joined The Times in 2008 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @clairecm • Facebook
Margot Sanger-Katz is a domestic correspondent and writes about health care for The Upshot. She was previously a reporter at National Journal and The Concord Monitor and an editor at Legal Affairs and the Yale Alumni Magazine. @sangerkatz • Facebook
Kevin Quealy is a graphics editor and reporter. He writes and makes charts for The Upshot about a range of topics, including sports, politics, health care and income inequality. @KevinQ
confirmation bias: these “experts” want to be able to return to their own careers, without the distraction of children in the house. these “experts” may have their own children in private schools, without the ventilation problems endemic to most public schools. these “experts” accept the conventional wisdom about “learning loss,” and attribute kids mental health issues to not being in school, rather than living through a pandemic.
Exactly!! And although they may know science they have no idea of the logistics of running a school.
For many of these experts “returning to their own careers” means taking care of you and yours. Our medical professionals would have all been safer if they had refused to go to work. WebMD reported that as of November 1, of last year 1,500 nurses died from COVID-19 as they returned to there careers. No doubt the number is now much higher.
This is true which speaks to the need to save lives. However, schools can and should remain remote until it is safe for people to return. My district has the highest incidence of school based infection in Westchester county and the second highest community based infection. We just lost a beloved colleague to COVID. She believed that she got it in school bc she was otherwise vigilant. Another colleague who worked closely with her just lost their elder to COVID. No one knows if this loss is related.
School workers are not medical professionals. We did not sign up to care for patients with infectious diseases nor do we have responsibility for socialization, child care, or the economy. We are responsible for teaching content. We are not called to die for the team and we refuse to pull the long straw in this lottery for who shall have responsibility for normalizing a pandemic.
Finally, the contradictory findings regarding school transmission should be included in any consideration of when to open school buildings. They are not included in the propaganda driving the demand to reopen before we can get fully vaccinated. Monsters try to open only months before full vaccination. So, let’s tell the truth shall we? It’s safe enough that only some of school staff will die. We can always say it was community transmission bc kids don’t take off masks to eat lunch in large cafeterias. They don’t walk in crowded halls. They don’t hug each other in full view of administrators who will not stop them. They don’t have sports events even in a pandemic. They don’t go on trips. They don’t come down with covid and get their diagnosis hidden for access to child care. None of that is happening. Just ask any epidemiologist who needs child care. Vaccinate the public including all school workers and their families. Then talk about reopening buildings
ahiill,
I agree that this pandemic has reviewed that teachers and health care providers are in a different category.
Thank you for your common sense intro here. They say common sense is the least common of all the senses.
If schools are so essential to open, vaccinating teachers should be a priority. At least twenty percent or more are older or have preexisting conditions. States could vaccinate school staff members on a Friday after work in their school buildings. I mention a Friday because a few people on the staff may have a reaction the following day. My husband and I just had the second Moderna dose which is more potent than the first. We both just had a little soreness in the arm, and I had a mild headache the following day. It is a small price to pay for being relatively safe from the virus.
Ms. Coodley nailed it. The article bias is obvious and should surprise no one, given the NYT is generally considered a Biden-friendly publication. Nearly all the respondents had kids and a majority are doing some kind of in-person learning. What doctor is going to say, well, yes, my child is back in school (which kind?), but I think it’s a really, really bad idea and they had to twist my arm to make us go back. Why would they ever admit that it’s a bad idea to return to school (given certain conditions) when their own kids are already there?
https://coreyrobin.com/2012/09/12/why-people-do-hate-teachers-unions-because-they-hate-teachers/–everybody, read this article. bonus credits to Diane at the conclusion!
Enough! Vaccinate the teachers! Install air purifiers! Set up classrooms to have distancing! Wear masks!That’s it!No magic. No formula!Just common sense!!!!!!!!
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
the “magic” is in the fact that there is existing physical plant for most SDs and you cannot use “common sense” to make classrooms and hallways larger and to update antiquated HVAC systems. that takes money, a lot of it, and time.
“between 48 percent and 72 percent say the extent of virus spread in a community is not an important indicator of whether schools should be open, even though many districts still rely on those metrics.”
These are our experts folks
We’re doomed.
48 and 72 are pretty far apart. But all numbers aside, it just doesn’t smell right. Scientists saying it’s safe to open schools with high community spread lets us know they don’t care about science. It’s like your doctor saying tobacco is safe as long as you chew it instead of smoking it. You would want a different doctor.
As the TV ad says “Between 48 and 72% of all oncologists prefer Copenhagen chewing tobacco. The other 68% prefer Kodiak”
The usual NYT/ WaPo “get ‘em open” slant.
The first 1-1/2 paras– more than many people read (beyond the headline)– is directly contradicted by 2nd 1/2 of 2nd para [emphasis mine]: far from the “consensus” claimed in para 1, “ Some said that was true even in communities where Covid-19 infections were widespread, as long as basic safety measures were taken. Most important, they said, were universal masking, physical distancing, adequate ventilation and avoidance of large group activities.” It should also be noted that these pediatricians’ consensus on what constitutes “basic safety measures” goes well beyond that of new CDC guidelines as regards distancing and ventilation.
Para 3 is a backflip, with pediatricians far more lenient than CDC. CDC makes community transmission the #1 reopening factor, with color-coded specific benchmarks on pos rate & #new cases per 100k tied to degree of reopening & level of safety protocols. But is it really an opposing opinion? I’m guessing pediatricians didn’t say “the extent of virus spread in a community is not an important indicator of whether schools should be open” at all, as evidenced by the slippery definition of who says it: “between 48 and 72 percent depending on various metrics.”
Pediatricians say “There is no situation in which schools can’t be open unless they have evidence of in-school transmission.” Oh wait. That was just one pediatrician’s opinion, lined up under pediatricians’ [supposed] consensus on community transmission to hide it. Meanwhile CDC states categorically that community transmission stats must be used, not in-school transmission stats. CDC understands that schools don’t test asymptomatic students, so their transmission stats are bs. CDC has a whole ‘nother set of benchmarks for schools that are testing all students and adult personnel weekly.
“The mismatch between the experts’ preferred policies and the rules governing school opening in many districts”… is fiction concocted by NYT for clickbait. First of all, how are “175 pediatricians mostly focused on public health” experts on school reopening, compared to the infectious disease experts at the CDC? Granted, many of the doctors selected have background in pediatric epidemiology, but that does not make them researchers in whole-population pandemic, adult risks from children, etc. It makes them spokesmen for children’s health/ welfare, which is just part of the picture if we’re going to talk about school systems run by adults.
Furthermore, a close reading of the actual expert guidance coming from CDC is a mismatch not with districts that haven’t reopened, but with those that have fully or partially reopened with insufficient safety measures, and those that are pushing to do so now.
How many of these pediatricians and psychologists have spent time in our dilapidated, overcrowded urban schools? It’s safe to return “once appropriate safety measures have been taken” is stated in a cavalier fashion without regard to the HUGE increase in funding required to make schools safe in working class neighborhoods (much more than the piddling few billions offered by Biden). Not mentioned is the need for extremely smaller class sizes, like 10 kids per room, to make social distancing practical, nor the need for frequent testing of everybody in the school (twice weekly, for example) to identify the asymptomatic carriers and isolate them. And if we’re gonna reduce class size, we’ll need more classrooms and more adults to work with kids. These are just some of the logistical factors to consider in order to open schools SAFELY.
Pete Farruggio, PhD
retired bilingual teacher (22 years) and professor of education
Right. There is pure science and then there is the reality of what actually happens in schools. I retired early because I was working in a center school for students with severe disabilities. Because of the students’ disabilities, they are allowed, with a doctor certifying their condition, to attend in person instruction.
That put me at risk of bring home Covid to my household. One person just had heart surgery and has several pre existing conditions. Not qualifying for the Federal level of protection, I was allowed to continue working at home by the School District but the principal ordered me to return to in person teaching. I know by having older teachers retire, the system could then employ others at a much lower rate. I felt discriminated against but it was easier to quit than fight. I only hope that the State and Federal governments don’t end up balancing the budget on my pension and Social Security. Though, if it does I hope it also takes the same or more from our Representatives.
The reality of wearing masks, being able to socially distance, and to follow the other suggestions from the CDC are important and work however it’s more of a perception of being safe and being in control than reality proves. Contact tracing seems to be a joke. The building was somewhat modern but due to a low bid contract it has had a history of air conditioning problems. Implementing social distance at the school is dependent on numbers. When it’s not possible due to not having the room, it isn’t done. Yes, the administration, teachers, paraprofessionals, nurses, therapists, interpreters, and interveiners all had contracted to work with this population, a population that needs close contact custodial care and intense behavior interventions at times. However they didn’t contract to become sitting ducks. Currently the number of staff and students that have had documented Covid is high. Determining exactly where exposure to Covid occurred isn’t a perfect science with some people carrying Covid without symptoms so that adds to the challenge and tricky benefit determinations.
I feel for my younger, former colleagues and the parents of my former students due to the difficult choices they were forced to make. Though not part of the curriculum, my elementary teachers shared their knowledge about the 1918 pandemic. It left a long lasting impact and prepared me for our current situation.
I don’t understand why states have decided that people over 65 or so and who are supposed to be quarantining, qualify for the vaccine before people who are classified as essential workers or who are required to go to work. I’m wondering if certain states contracted with drug companies for the data. Then, sorry to even go there, I wonder if the discrimination against certain groups of people is purposefully contrived to manage voting numbers?
I wish public schools the best and marvel at how they can operate against so many odds. Thank you educators for all you do.
These couple of sentences seem to be carrying WAY more weight than the attention they are given.
” as long as basic safety measures were taken. Most important, they said, were universal masking, physical distancing, adequate ventilation and avoidance of large group activities.”
That’s a HUUUUUUUGE “as long as” – what percentage of school districts can go full time full student and still keep kids 6+ feet apart? Of those, how many have “adequate ventilation.”
#theDevilisintheDetails
Who is even tasked with assessing whether schools meet the “as long as ” requirements?
Certainly not the CDC.
In their recent report, CDC made it clear that they were not even suggesting that schools that were not meeting their virus mitigation criteria be closed.
Combined with their wishywashy stance on teacher vaccinations (teachers should preferably be vaccinated but it’s ok for schools to open without all teachers being vaccinated), one really has to wonder what good their report actually will be in practice.
It pretty much gives the states a green light to do whatever they want without even being concerned about a perception of going against the recommendations of the CDC.
‘ “What works in health care, masks, will work in schools,” said Dr. Danielle Zerr, a professor and the division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Washington. “Kids are good at wearing masks!” ‘
That makes me feel so much better! Why is everyone so silly as to stress out over crowding or poor ventilation or cleaning? Just wear your flippin’ mask and you will be fine!
Do you suppose the writers even noticed the contradictions and inconsistencies in their own report?
Kids are good at wearing masks. Just not necessarily at wearing them correctly.
My brother teaches science to elementary school kids and he tells me they are incessantly fidgeting with their masks (eg, wearing them down below their nose)
When professors make those kind of categorical statements it makes me wonder if they ever step outside their ivory tower.
It almost seems like they are trying to convince themselves — especially with the “!”.