The issue with schools is that they're daily large gatherings where the virus can be transmitted. Children can be carriers with schools providing the network effect for spreading covid-19.
The main issue with schools is that the kids catch it, don't suffer with it much but pass it to their parents and potentially grand parents. Schools are just a great nexuses for rapidly spreading covid through communities.
I think it's quite simple, there is good evidence that younger children (U14s) get covid less than adults, and spread it less when they do have it. So schools - especially primary schools are not the issue.
Reopening universities was - students do get it, and they all live together in shared accommodation so as soon as one got it lots of them did.
> Schools can be considered continuous super-spreader events.
Where is the data to support this? Duke University released a peer reviewed study[1] in January that showed the opposite (when schools take appropriate measures).
> Duke and UNC researchers evaluated the secondary transmission of COVID-19 in 11 North Carolina school districts that held in-person instruction in the first nine weeks of the 2020-2021 school year and identified minimal COVID-19 transmission in the schools -- much lower than the rate of community spread.
The CDC have also published this[2] helpful overview about the susceptibility of children to the virus/disease (low) and the risk of transmission (also low).
I'd also urge you (or anyone) to read this very helpful article in the BMJ[3] about the risks of covid-19, but for those worried about their children it may help alleviate some concerns:
> The second row of table 2 shows that three deaths from covid-19 have been recorded among over 7 million schoolchildren aged 5 to 14 (around 1 in 2.4 million), an extremely low risk that represents only 2% of the average normal risk faced by this group. This amounts to around two days’ extra risk of dying during the 112 days of the epidemic. In the same period this age group experienced 138 deaths from other causes.
The CDC report gives a clue as to where the focus should be:
> Underlying medical conditions are also more commonly reported among children who are hospitalized or admitted to an ICU
In short, schools aren't providing super-spreader events.
Maybe the issue lies more in your first statement that children need to go somewhere. That's a fairly modern notion. If we've created a society where we rely on strangers to care for our kids, then maybe that's something that needs to be looked rather than creating additional covid hotspots?
While we're doing that, maybe a compromise with A/B school days to limit student numbers, with online participation for whichever group is at home. Schools also need to create strict rules as far as cafeterias, masks, etc... With clear consequences for violations.
The school I am at has dividers in the cafeteria and staggered lunches with no talking while eating. Masks at all times. Temperature checks at the doors and such. This is countrywide (not US) and there has been no spread in schools.
While schools might be a major vector for many diseases, the evidence suggest children do not spread COVID very well to teachers. Opening schools is not a joke, it following the evidence.
"Findings from several studies suggest that SARS-CoV-2 transmission among students is relatively rare, particularly when prevention strategies are in place. An Australian study of 39 COVID-19 cases among 32 students and seven staff traced contacts across 28 schools and six early childhood centers and found only 33 secondary positive cases (28 students and five staff members) out of 3,439 close child contacts and 385 close staff contacts.58, 59 Several contact tracing studies have found limited student-to-student transmission in schools."
The facts are that COVID-19 is still out there actively infecting people
As are many other viruses.
Many a school has opened under the rationale of "we can't just hide from it forever", only to go into shutdown again because of the inevitable outbreak that occurs when a bunch of kids are packed like sardines into a hallway or classroom environment.
It's now well established that schools are not significant drivers of infections. Which is actually rather surprising; it's a reasonable hypothesis that lots of kids would get infected and then pass it to vulnerable family members. But the results from schools around the world show that that's not happening to any significant degree.
It is far better to be overly cautious than not cautious enough in such a case, even if it comes at the expense of inconvenience.
You can't make that general statement without quantifying the harms on both sides. Denying education and socialization to children, throwing millions of people out of work, and telling people they can't visit family or friends for an indefinite duration goes well beyond "inconvenience".
What has been shown however, is that for sars-cov-2 that young people are asymptomatic carriers at much higher rates than for other infections. And what has also been shown is that the R0 for other respiratory infections is tremendously higher in schools than in the general population.
Though it has not been proven that schools are a hotbed of contagion for sars-cov-2, there is a lot of reason to expect them to be and little reason to expect that they aren't.
> Although children can be infected with SARS-CoV-2, can get sick from COVID-19, and can spread the virus to others, less than 10% of COVID-19 cases in the United States have been among children and adolescents aged 5–17 years (COVID Data Tracker). Compared with adults, children and adolescents who have COVID-19 are more commonly asymptomatic (never develop symptoms) or have mild, non-specific symptoms.
> Some studies have found that it is possible for communities to reduce incidence of COVID-19 while keeping schools open for in-person instruction.
> Evidence suggests that staff-to-staff transmission is more common than transmission from students to staff, staff to student, or student to student.
> A study comparing county-level COVID-19 hospitalizations between counties with in-person learning and those without in-person learning found no effect of in-person school reopening on COVID-19 hospitalization rates when baseline hospitalization rates were low or moderate.
SF has some of the lowest infection rates in the country. So there is no scientific reason to keep schools closed when you see the harm it is causing disadvantaged families.
> A part of me thinks we should open school for the younger ones, halve class size, require masks, introduce daily disinfecting,
Younger children are not very likely to maintain distance from one another nor will they keep their masks on. They're also likely to talk loudly or scream which would increase the likelihood of viral transmission. Unfortunately, distance learning is not a realistic option for younger children.
> Note I am assuming kids can spread it as well as adults
I have not kept up with research about how likely covid-19 is transmitted between people when comparing adults versus children. But looking at historical data in terms of viral transmission between children in school and daycare settings and the fact that children tend to be less fastidious compared to adults, it stands to reason that their will be viral outbreaks regardless of what measures the school takes.
Something that is often overlooked in these conversations is the elementary schools should perhaps be considered completely differently from high schools. There were zero transmissions between students at my kids elementary school this whole year, despite the school opening as quickly as possible and despite several kids with asymptomatic COVID showing up at school and only being detected belatedly. I don’t think the same outcome would necessarily be expected at a high school.
This is relevant because younger kids need more supervision and are less likely to spread COVID, while older kids need less supervision and are more likely to spread; therefor keeping older kids home and sending younger ones in might be totally rational. But it doesn’t seem like this gets brought up.
Schools are indeed quite safe. The younger the safer, but generally children get sick less and are vanishingly unlikely to end up in the hospital or die. There's also evidence that schools haven't been a big transmission sites for covid probably because while teacher to teacher transmission is as big a problem as anywhere teacher <-> student and student <-> student transmission isn't that likely. The other side is that closing schools has had big negative impacts on children especially poor children.
If it was observed that, for instance, dogs were a transmission vector of COVID-19 but rarely suffered severe effects, it would be critically important to shut down all the dog parks. Not to protect the dogs, or even the dog owners (in my very limited experience the people who tend to take their dogs to dog parks tend to be younger) but simply to curtail the spread of the disease.
If the schools are open, COVID will be rampant in the larger population, even if few kids are getting seriously ill.
And the teachers. I know 2 teachers that are terrified that the kids will get them Covid-19, since they already get sick from the petri dishes that are children.
a) There is evidence of children spreading COVID-19, "children under 15 were about half as likely as adults to be infected, and only half as likely as adults to transmit the virus to others". [1]
b) In order to have children at school, you need teachers at school. In order to have teachers at school, you need public transport. Suddenly, you have a significant amount of people moving around spreading the virus.
This paper[1] on a Lancet sister publication disagrees, on the basis of literature review, that in this specific case the schools are a major part of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Of course there are many caveats in the discussion section.
Schools are a huge transmission vector for every communicable disease. Gathering a bunch of people from different households causes diseases to jump between households. It doesn't matter if the kids aren't harmed, it's communicating the disease through the population.
I think elementary/high schools are how this will spread through communities with the most efficiency. Collect a person from each family, mix them together with the poorest respect for hygiene, then send them home, 5 times a week.
Here's the perspective of a San Jose public high school [1] proving that containment isn't a concern:
> Oak Grove High School officials said they were not considering school closures because “children have not been shown to be a high-risk group for serious illness from this virus.” The Centers for Disease Control said last week that limited reports showed child COVID-19 patients in China had generally presented with mild symptoms.
> “As much as possible, children should be allowed to carry on with their education and normal activities,” school officials said.
Related, a family member received a "exposure notice" from her child's school that one of the students tested positive. No closure.
There's no attempt for containment in the US. My hunch is that it's not needed as much as is being suggested by some. I guess we'll see.
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