Opening schools

[raspberry_hunter]

Both of the studies cited in the NYT article don’t seem to show anything to me.

One of the studies has been talked about (I think on this thread, but I’m too lazy to go back and check) before – at least some children seem to have as much viral load as adults. Okay. I agree that it is plausible that this means they are as infectious. But it does not show that, and in fact one would think that if they had as much viral load that they’d also show as many symptoms (or more). They don’t, so we know something else must be going on.

The other study shows (if the NYT is reporting correctly) that children are about a third as likely to be infected and have three times as many contacts. This says nothing about how likely they are to pass it on to any individual contact! I mean, sure, maybe they pass it on at the same rate as adults, but this isn’t at all clear to me.

Let me be clear: I am not denying that these studies suggest that children may be effective transmitters. But they don’t show it, and as far as I can tell the actual evidence with schools that have reopened seems to be that kids don’t transmit it that much, it’s the adults in the schools that are more likely to transmit it to each other and to the kids (which I agree is a problem and may by itself make reopening schools not such a good idea).

[GIGObuster]

And that is why I mentioned the example of Israel, it does match with what the studies reported just by using their epidemiology tools and previous research.

I will have to say that I forgot to cite in this thread what they encountered when they opened their schools.

After Reopening Schools, Israel Orders Them To Shut If COVID-19 Cases Are...

Two weeks after Israel fully reopened schools, a COVID-19 outbreak sweeping through classrooms — including at least 130 cases at a single school — has led officials to close dozens of schools where students and staff were infected. A new policy orders any school where a virus case emerges to close.

The government decision, announced Wednesday evening, comes after more than 200 cases have been confirmed among students and staff at various schools. At least 244 students and school employees have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Ministry of Education. At least 42 kindergartens and schools have been shuttered indefinitely. More than 6,800 students and teachers are in home quarantine by government order.

It’s an abrupt reversal of the post-pandemic spirit in Israel as officials lifted most remaining coronavirus restrictions last week. With fewer than 300 deaths in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had declared victory in early May over the pandemic and last week told Israelis to go to restaurants and “enjoy yourselves.”

Yeah, it is just by luck that schools were not opened here in America due to the summer break, as a staff member on a couple of schools here in Arizona, I can tell you that we would not have been ready and some schools IMHO would have been not very responsible as many businesses were when the governor decided to open the state again and now the results are bad, but would be worse if the schools had been open IMHO.

[GIGObuster]

BTW, notice that not all schools are closed in Israel, the reason is that schools with detected cases are the ones that close, but there is a reason why I mentioned that we are not ready in the USA, in Israel testing is used a lot, and specially in schools.

Many schools in the USA are not prepared to ramp up testing in their locations and regarding testing many states or the federal government are pitifully prepared for what would be needed to open the schools properly.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/science/children-as-likely-to-spread-covid-as-adults-says-new-study-adding-to-confusion/ar-BB16fmse

Adding to this series of contradictory findings is a new study from Geneva University that states that children can transmit the SARS-CoV-2 virus as easily as adults can. The researchers, belonging to the university’s medical school and hospital in Switzerland, analysed virus cultures from infected children and found that they shed or release the virus from their bodies as much and as frequently as adults do, indicating that transmission from them is possible.
. . .
No conclusive evidence, studies contradict each other

Research on whether children can spread the novel coronavirus or not is ongoing across the world with no conclusive results yet. Most studies vacillate between saying they transmit as much as adults and that they transmit minimally to not at all.

Another study finds that children can transmit the novel coronavirus. Studies on this topic have been contradictory.

[barkodogo]

@Heffalump_and_Roo

That’s an interesting reading of my post. I’ll try to make it more explicit. The people who were doing well under the school system before Covid-19 are eager to get back to that system. The people who were not doing as well under that system will take more to convince. Those people are generally low-income people and people of color, as was highlighted in the poll.

The virus also disproportionately impacts minorities and lower-income people, which is likely another reason they might be more hesitant despite needing public school as child care so they can work.

Personally I’m eager to get my kids back in school because it’s really stressful to work and care for small children… but I am definitely hesitant. Luckily here in the north cases are still falling in most places, but if cases start picking up I won’t send them back. I pulled them out a week before schools officially closed because cases started accelerating, and I don’t regret that for a second. Kids are statistically safer, but there have been a small number of cases that have cause longer term complications and I don’t feel like we know enough to roll the dice on that yet.

[romansperson]

One of our local unis did a poll where they asked parents in the state what they thought schools should do - they gave three answers to choose from: 1) all kids physically back in school, 2) all classes done via remote learning (so no kids physically back in school), and 3) a combination of both.

Answers were roughly evenly divided between these choices. I wish the TPTB in our state good luck with figuring out what to do, since parent buy-in is going to be pretty important in making whatever they decide work.

[DSeid]

@Heffalump_and_Roo

The high rate of infection of children under 10 is endangering Oregon’s schools from reopening.

From the article:

State public health officials said the increase is largely due to unidentified transmission within the community … Young children still represent the smallest overall share of cases in Oregon. And young children are among the least likely to need hospitalization, with only eight such patients and no deaths.

Smallest number of cases and clearly school is not the risk environment.

No question. Kids can get infected with SARS-CoV-2 mostly from adults and do, in the community.

@GIGObuster

… staffers and other workers that will be in contact with students will have their risk increased

Like in every other workplace, mainly from other staff. As was cited way upthread, the outbreak in the Israeli High School was traced to a staff member who came in sick and who did not mask. The spread between older children was less than the spread between and from staff. Being on a school grounds won’t protect adults from other adults and from their own stupidity.

Also the article you quoted with “new studies” is two months old. The AAP is not unaware of the now old studies referenced therein. Studies since have been just very convincing of the minimal risk that opening schools with the cautions they advised for each age group would present.

@Heffalump_and_Roo

Another study finds that children can transmit the novel coronavirus.

Actually it doesn’t, even if it is misstated as saying such. It documents what has been established that children can have high viral loads, but it remains the case that every study that has looked has found that despite that being the case, NONE have documented frequent transmission from children (especially under 10 with the 11 to 18 group gradually becoming more adult-like).

What actually is seen to be happening is this.

The novel coronavirus is primarily spread amongst adults who are about the same age. Within families, the virus is mainly transmitted from adults to children. … The results of the study on COVID-19 in Dutch families confirm the impression that children do not play a significant role in the transmission of the virus. They may become ill, but their symptoms are often very mild. This is a marked difference from the seasonal flu (influenza), where we often see children passing the virus to each other or to adults. This appears to occur far less frequently for the novel coronavirus. The findings from the study are in line with the results of research being done in other countries, including studies in China and South Korea. …

(Bolding mine.)
It’s been a very consistent finding without any studies that contradict it.

In Taiwan as schools opened R naught went below 1.

One concern expressed by some experts is that the impact of keeping kids out of school could be INCREASED spread to high risk adults and more deaths. Schools staying closed displaces workers and gets kids (who as being seen in Oregon, will get infected with schools closed, more often in contact with their extended families inclusive of high risk adults, called in by no choice to help provide coverage.

[MandaJo]

@DSeid

Being on a school grounds won’t protect adults from other adults and from their own stupidity.

I don’t disagree with most of your post, but you don’t have to be stupid to pass COVID between adults. If you count support and custodial services, I am sure we have over 200 adults in the building. I am also not sure we will be able to keep parents out (I have been making noise about how we should have a kid-checkout station outdoors, we will see) . I also am concerned we will still gather as adults in faculty meetings and for training, and be told masks are enough.

Teachers (and other school personnel) are being asked to take a real risk here. I don’t mind doing it–that is the job, apparently. But it’s not a non-existent risk, even for the non-stupid.

[GIGObuster]

Like in every other workplace, mainly from other staff. As was cited way upthread, the outbreak in the Israeli High School was traced to a staff member who came in sick and who did not mask. The spread between older children was less than the spread between and from staff. Being on a school grounds won’t protect adults from other adults and from their own stupidity.

As was cited way upthread, the outbreak in the Israeli High School was traced to a staff member who came in sick and who did not mask.

Somehow you missed that it was not a single school:

“[the cases detected] has led officials to close dozens of schools where students and staff were infected.”

Being on a school grounds won’t protect adults from other adults and from their own stupidity.

Funny that you ignore that that is one of the items I pointed as being foolish to ignore. , think about it, it really does not help your case, and in real life, the older the kids, the more reckless and foolish teenagers act towards many adults.

Also the article you quoted with “new studies” is two months old. The AAP is not unaware of the now old studies referenced therein. Studies since have been just very convincing of the minimal risk that opening schools with the cautions they advised for each age group would present.

And this line just shows that you missed the point spectacularly, read it again, I already granted that for the students it will not be much harmful, what you and the AAP miss still is the reality that having teachers, staff and others at risk or to die too is not going to lead to most schools working with a full crew, leading to less support for the things that are needed to be done.

Lots of testing will be needed to be on place, and a significant number of students and parents that will actively protest any cautions advised is not going to be conductive to opening schools yet, schools can open IMO until testing is available for all schools and more concerted efforts to discourage the politicization of things like masks or testing is in place.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@DSeid

@Heffalump_and_Roo

The high rate of infection of children under 10 is endangering Oregon’s schools from reopening.

From the article:

State public health officials said the increase is largely due to unidentified transmission within the community … Young children still represent the smallest overall share of cases in Oregon. And young children are among the least likely to need hospitalization, with only eight such patients and no deaths.

Smallest number of cases and clearly school is not the risk environment.

No question. Kids can get infected with SARS-CoV-2 mostly from adults and do, in the community.

Nothing you quoted contradicts what I posted. School hasn’t been the risk environment because it’s not open yet. The article doesn’t say that the kids got infected from adults. It just says that there was community transmission.

@DSeid

Actually it doesn’t, even if it is misstated as saying such. It documents what has been established that children can have high viral loads, but it remains the case that every study that has looked has found that despite that being the case, NONE have documented frequent transmission from children (especially under 10 with the 11 to 18 group gradually becoming more adult-like).

What actually is seen to be happening is this.
[snipped quote]
It’s been a very consistent finding without any studies that contradict it.

You link didn’t work, so I searched for your quote.

Initial results on how COVID-19 spreads within Dutch families | RIVM

I hope that’s not the gold standard of medical studies. It was a study of 54 families.

RIVM collected data on 54 families in the Netherlands that were contacted via the municipal public health service in Utrecht (GGD Utrecht) to take part in the study.
. . .
Many of the participating households were the families of healthcare workers who had tested positive.

They started with people participating in the study who were healthcare workers who had tested positive for the virus. Then surprise finding. . . . the first person in the family to get the virus was an adult who was probably a healthcare worker who had already tested positive for the virus. They had the family members record their symptoms after the initial tests. Since their country was in a strict lockdown at the time, it was pretty unlikely for the children to get the virus from an outside source while it was much more likely for an adult who was a healthcare worker to get the virus and pass it on to the family. From that scenario, they concluded that children don’t pass the virus to adults because they didn’t in those 54 families of mostly healthcare workers.

The findings would be difficult to contradict because unless you have parents who primarily stay at home and children who go out without their parents, it’s hard to prove that children pass it to adults. But since it’s proven that asymptomatic transmission occurs and children can have the same viral load as adults, it’s highly possible that it happens. It’s just not easy to prove because the parent would have to be in quarantine while the child was being exposed. Since that so rarely happens, it’s difficult to prove.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@DSeid

In Taiwan as schools opened R naught went below 1.

Taiwan is beating COVID-19 without closing schools or workplaces. Can Canada...

Taiwan only closed schools for break. When they went back, they had these measures in place:

After an additional two weeks off during winter break, schools reopened in Taiwan.

But every morning, Chang says she and her husband take their daughter’s temperature and report it to her school before she goes. Their daughter, like all the kids, wears a mask all day — except at lunch. At lunch, when she takes off her mask, she is protected from infection by a plastic barrier that sits atop her desk and helps separate her from other students.

“We have protective barriers for everyone,” said Chang, “During mealtime, they take it out to eat their lunch.”

Chang says her daughter’s school was one of the first in Taipei to introduce the dividers. “The school also teaches them how to wash their hands, every day.” said Chang.

Schools didn’t really close except for an extended winter break for two weeks. If R0 went below 1 at the time, it could have been coinciding with the rest of the country taking extra measures.

@DSeid

One concern expressed by some experts is that the impact of keeping kids out of school could be INCREASED spread to high risk adults and more deaths. Schools staying closed displaces workers and gets kids (who as being seen in Oregon, will get infected with schools closed, more often in contact with their extended families inclusive of high risk adults, called in by no choice to help provide coverage.

If children don’t transmit the virus at all, it wouldn’t matter if schools are open or closed, no one would be in danger from being exposed to a child. If you’re arguing that children do not spread the virus at all, then your argument that high risk adults would get it from them doesn’t follow.

[DSeid]

@MandaJo

I don’t disagree with most of your post, but you don’t have to be stupid to pass COVID between adults. …

This responds to @GIGObuster as well.

No, but it helps. The teacher who came into work knowing he was sick and who did not mask? “Stupid” is a nice word for that person. A superspreader comes in and triggers an event among others, 130 in the single school system. (Across all of Israel’s other schools there have been 114 other cases among staff and students, with individual small one to several cases in a school leading to shuttering of complete schools due that “abundance of caution”.)

Adult staff respecting social distancing and masking rules from each other is very doable in a school setting. Like all adults who work with other adults, school personnel are being asked to take real risk here. But since they have more easily controlled close adult to adult contact if anything LESS risk than many others adults who work.

@Heffalump_and_Roo across the world schools have opened. Across the world the same thing has been found: very little transmission from children, especially those 10 and under, to each other and to adults; few kids getting COVID-19 as well. No studies have found kids transmitting frequently to other children or to adults.

You also miss the points regarding the concerns that schools being closed may lead to INCREASED risks to high risk adults. And you also awfully misrepresent what I have said.

The more contacts higher risk adults have with other adults the more at risk they are. A high risk grandparent interacting daily with their own adult children in hand-off who are going out and about in the world every day, and possibly more adults as they do things as a result of that, is at much more risk than a high risk adult who is having many fewer of those contacts.

No where have I stated that there is evidence “that children do not spread the virus at all” … in fact I have stated explicitly that I am sure they spread it to some degree, just apparently very little. Still high risk people cuddling together watching TV on a couch for hours, singing together, and hugging many times a day, building block towers together, with someone who is of little but not no risk of transmission is at more risk than not.

The recommendations for school re-opening do not encourage staff members to cuddle with the kids on couches, or even to have schools re-open with no risk mitigation strategies in place. Low risk is not none. Risk mitigation tactics should be present and should be ones that are likely effective and likely to cause the least harms in each student age group.

[GIGObuster]

Well, that reply really ignores most of the points mentioned already.

Yes, mitigation tactics should be present, but until they are (and if we had a cure against families that will come to school fully loaded with the also ongoing endemic misinformation in America), the opening of schools in the USA is a reckless thing.

[RealityCheck71]

Well, they aren’t going to open schools in July but not opening the schools in September is ignoring the science.

[romansperson]

I’m wondering how schools are going to get substitutes for teachers who are out sick/needing to quarantine. My husband’s school district has trouble getting enough subs even under normal circumstances. What if kids come to and there’s no one there to teach them?

[GIGObuster]

What romansperson said.

One more thing that Dsaid also mentioned but applies to you too:

You also miss the points regarding the concerns that schools being closed may lead to INCREASED risks to high risk adults.

As logic and studies did tell us, In Italy the evidence showed that closing schools was a very significant way to contain the contagion. Of course science has to be looked at, but ignoring the current weaponizations of ignorance that are endemic in the USA and the inadequacies on items like testing, opening schools is still reckless.

[suranyi]

That’s a big issue. Most substitutes are retired teachers, older vulnerable people. Many are planning to refuse to go.

[suranyi]

Fundamentally opening schools requires teachers to believe the situation is safe enough. At the moment, many do not. They are refusing to show up.

[nelliebly]

@RealityCheck71

Well, they aren’t going to open schools in July but not opening the schools in September is ignoring the science.

And what science is that? If there are epidemiologists or public health specialists who are claiming COVID will be less of a threat in September, please cite.

By the way, not arguing schools should not open in August (which is when most schools traditionally do–few wait until September). I haven’t decided one way or another yet.

Questions:

What about school buses? Will districts have to run more buses and hire more drivers to allow distance between kids? Imagine the costs to rural districts…

What about passing periods in high schools and middle schools? I’ve heard some schools will stagger passing periods, but there would still be a lot of students in the halls, and the multiple disruptions would be an issue. Also, the logistics must be mind-boggling. Some classes have students of various grade levels, so you can’t do it just by class year.

Kudos and my sympathies to teachers and administrators!

[RealityCheck71]

@nelliebly

And what science is that? If there are epidemiologists or public health specialists who are claiming COVID will be less of a threat in September, please cite.

I didn’t claim that so you can just cite that yourself if you wish. The science I’m talking about is the same science that convinces the American Academy of Pediatrics to urge school openings. My regional children’s hospital has also recommended in person school starting back up.