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.
