At the New York Times Apoorva Mandavilli reports on a South Korean study which I fear is sure to pour fuel on the ideological fire over reopening public schools in the fall:
A large new study from South Korea offers an answer: Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do.
The findings suggest that as schools reopen, communities will see clusters of infection take root that include children of all ages, several experts cautioned.
“I fear that there has been this sense that kids just won’t get infected or don’t get infected in the same way as adults and that, therefore, they’re almost like a bubbled population,†said Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota.
“There will be transmission,†Dr. Osterholm said. “What we have to do is accept that now and include that in our plans.â€
From farther down in the report:
The study is more worrisome for children in middle and high school. This group was even more likely to infect others than adults were, the study found. But some experts said that finding may be a fluke or may stem from the children’s behaviors.
These older children are frequently as big as adults, and yet may have some of the same unhygienic habits as young children do. They may also have been more likely than the younger children to socialize with their peers within the high-rise complexes in South Korea.
Some of the limitations of the study are stated more clearly in a Bloomberg story repeated at the Japan Times:
The South Korean study suggests that older children may be particularly contagious, although the researchers point out that household contacts could have contracted the virus elsewhere. Still, given the high rates of infection within families, the study called for more research to understand how to limit the spread of the virus at home.
The Trump Administration has taken the position that public schools should re-open in the fall; teachers’ unions across the country have taken an equally doctrinaire position only remote learning should be proceed. Hence my remarks about “fuel for the fire”. This issue will be a political hot potato, sad from my point of view for a variety of reasons.
The first thing that should be considered is that precisely the same argument could be made for hospitals as is being made for schools. For many students schools are not luxuries but necessities if the pupils are to learn and develop as they should. But for some students they are completely dispensable or even impediments. The “one size fits all” approach favored by bureaucrats because it’s easier to administer needs to be abandoned in favor of a more individualized and empirical approach.
If, during the lockdowns, schools have not been gathering statistics on participation and progress, they have been remiss. At this point districts should be able to assess which students do well with remote learning and which do not.
Again, look to the hospitals. I have heard physicians and nurses say that they feel safer in COVID-19 wards than they do going to the grocery store. If reopening schools in the fall at least for the students who need in-person learning requires that every teacher be fitted with an N95 respirator and trained in its use, then that’s what needs to happen.
One final observation. There is a correlation between closeness and intimacy of contact and transmissibility of disease. That’s why every time I walk my dog and see people jogging or riding their bicycles wearing facemasks, I think “I bet they don’t wear them at home”. While I suppose it’s possible to contract SARS-CoV-2 out of doors from a passing strangers with whom you’re maintaining a substantial distance, the risk of that is a lot lower than contracting the disease from your family members in the home. Despite actual studies suggesting the effectiveness of facemasks in the home, I strongly suspect that their use in that environment is lower than on biking trails.
“The first thing that should be considered ……….One final observation. There is a correlation between closeness and intimacy …â€
I was having a discussion with my all of 22 yr old daughter, about to enter KIPPS as a teacher and decidedly not teachers union material, who made every point you did in those paragraphs, plus “by the standards they are proposing we wouldn’t open in 2021 either,†plus “ it’s the minority kids who will be harmed most, maybe permanently.â€
From start until today this has been politicized for obvious reasons. A pox on them all.
Phonics instructors have expressed concern wearing masks in the classrooms risks our producing an entire generation of mumblers.
Something to ponder.
This seems to support earlier observations. The younger kids are probably at lower risk and arent very good vectors. Older kids can get sick, still lower rates, but are good vectors and active spreaders. Maybe even more than adults but I think that needs better substantiation. So schools opening up middle school and above will be some risk for the kids and a lot of risk for families and teachers. And you shouldn’t forget the risks of teachers to other teachers. I would be that I am the only one to have been inside many teacher’s lounges/lunchrooms and most people dont realize how crowded they can be.
Not sure the analogy to a hospital holds much water. In a hospital you generally know who has Covid or suspected. You work with one pt at a time. Everyone else also knows how to wear PPE and wash hands. Once you leave the Covid ward you can take off the N 95 and wear a much less restrictive surgical mask. Wear would you do that in a school? Plus, the N 95s dont fit everyone. I dont see much success teaching while wearing a PAPR. Only people who dont have to wear an N 95 all day talk glibly about doing so.
I think this is going to be a balance between increased Covid, admissions, long term disabilities and death vs better education and social outcomes for our kids. Under any circumstances the trade offs are difficult but they get worse when politics and ideology influence the decisions. Whatever plan you come up with we probably need a lot more teachers.
Steve
The study traced 59,073 contacts, of which 457 contacts were ages 10-19 (0.77%). Of that 457, 45 contacts tested positive (10%), with 43 from within the home, 2 from without.
https://twitter.com/j_g_allen/status/1284786278094053378
Seems like a lot of games being played by reporters with numerators and denominators. The number of young people testing positive is exceedingly rare, but if slice the pies thin enough their rates are within the range of adults in their homes.
@steve, I do think this is similar, at least to the early Japanese study from contact-tracing, which if I recall found the numbers of young people to test pretty small, but overall the attack rate for adults was about six times that of those under twenty. They pointed out that this was virtually the exact opposite of traditional respiratory illnesses. This is what makes me skeptical of young people being significant vectors because of their snotty, poor hygiene. I don’t think their hygiene has changed; I don’t think its very relevant. But I think teachers do.
I agree with that completely but I would emphasize that the strategic choices shouldn’t be limited to reopen vs. don’t reopen. That’s a false dichotomy.
I think the main issue is that after the schools open there will be an outbreak event at a school somewhere and all schools everywhere will shut down. Perhaps one interpretation of the referenced study is that it depicts super-spreader events. Media coverage has been to report extreme, novel events as “see, nobody is safe.”
My sister is leaning towards homeschooling her twins this year; I think because the quality of on-line education was poor last year and because she lives in a suburban anti-mask area. So its a little bit of both, education is too important to leave to schools that can’t deliver quality under these limitations and there are a bunch of crazy parents that make her feel less confident in having her kids around theirs. In Illinois, the head count in the public schools is an important factor in state and federal funding. Teachers will lose their jobs if the students don’t enroll.
This WaPo article from yesterday though is pretty good on hitting a lot of the uncertainties:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/18/coronavirus-superspreading-events-drive-pandemic/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_virussuperspreader-903pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
A neighboring school board just did a survey of parents between a 100% remote learning option and in-person learning for K-2 and hybrid model for 3-12.
25% were for remote and 75% for in person.
I don’t know how to reconcile this with polls that show the majority of voters are opposed to reopening schools for in-person instruction.
“I think this is going to be a balance between increased Covid, admissions, long term disabilities and death vs better education and social outcomes for our kids.â€
Of course. Tradeoff, not absolutism has been the key concept from day one. But Dave made the point, and interestingly so did my daughter, that it’s not an either or choice. There are a reasonable set of accommodations that can be made to tilt the trade off towards more safety. But nothing is absolute.
I’ve seen two citations for the number of child deaths during last years regular flu season. The smaller one is 166 and comes from the CDC. I don’t recall, ever, in my lifetime, seeing demands to shut down schools, almost indefinitely. Or sensationalist phrasing like death and long term disability.