CDC director: Keeping schools closed greater health threat to children reopening
thehill.com
thehill.com
But there isn't really a choice in many parts in the US unless you're willing to let the pandemic run its course and kill as many people as it takes to get to herd immunity. The only way to safely reopen schools is to suppress the virus enough that you can contain it with contact tracing. If you can't do that, there's no way to safely reopen schools in full. You can try alternatives like e.g. teaching outside, using masks, but they're not entirely safe, difficult to do and can't really work at 100% capacity.
Hence the ongoing conversation about striking the right balance which is very much going to be regional and fluid.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm all for schools reopening and getting kids back to learning in such an environment.
But this virus is a Big Deal. Assumptions we'd have before covid-19 are not the ones we can have now.
Assuming that schools reopen for the 2020-21 school year is, I'm afraid, one of those assumptions.
The reality is we have no good options so we have to pick the least bad one.
Covid-19 is particularly deadly for a flu. It may yet evolve into a more form. I also may evolve into a less deadly form. We just do not know. Still, either case is unlikely, I admit.
If it became more deadly, then, well, no, we're not going back to schools until it is over. No one is going to send their kids to die.
Even as deadly as it is, we're unlikely to keep schools open if an outbreak occurs within the student body.
I agree that it's not good to keep the kids from learning, but keeping them and their families from dying is much more important.
The key to getting kids back to school is to get rid of covid-19. Everything other plan keeps the virus going and prolongs the pain.
More harm is killing children. Distance learn if possible. If not, then yes, we're not going to be teaching them like we should. Killing them and their families isn't a realistic alternative.
Does this situation suck? Of course. Massively so.
Without other alternatives (like a vaccine or a massive reduction in cases that can allow for contact tracing) I'm not seeing how sending them to avoidable death is acceptable.
Per the politicians, call them and demand change. Write in local papers about them. Do something other than giving up. It;s a lot easier to call their offices than to attend zoom funerals.
Evidence continues to mount that immunity to Covid-19 is time limited. There will be no herd immunity. Of course, it's not like we have ever achieved herd immunity to any disease before vaccines.
Evidence also continues to mount that systemic damage occurs even in people who are weakly symptomatic. I suspect that this is true for viruses, in general, but Covid is basically allowing us to collect data that would be unethical to collect from an experiment.
> The only way to safely reopen schools is to suppress the virus enough that you can contain it with contact tracing. If you can't do that, there's no way to safely reopen schools in full.
New York will be the exemplar. They seem to have it contained and have 100% contact tracing. They should be able to reopen--we'll see how it goes.
Sure we have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus
There are only seven known strains of coronavirus that infect humans, all discovered in recent decades. It's likely we've gotten and fought off many others in our millions of years of evolutionary history.
Did he name these consequences?
I couldn’t spot that in the article. Did someone find that or does anyone have a quote from elsewhere?
Preferably no speculation; a direct quote or a summary of his statement would be ideal.
My brother, a teacher, was telling me about socialization and brain development in adolescents. There is a definite impact that we have very little understanding of.
In my earlier comment I asked about his reasoning.
As far as I'm concerned the intellectually honest debate is whether the unknown negative consequences of opening schools trumps the very well known and very broadly observed negative consequences of closing the schools.
Big picture, neglect and associated psychological harms.
It’s interesting that data show the flu to be about 100x worse for young children than COVID.
But, as is usual through history, the value of children pale in comparison to the value of adults.
Just because it might be lower risk to children still means that they bring it back home which gives you a near ideal vector to reinfect a large portion of the population.
"Almost 6 months into the pandemic, accumulating evidence and collective experience argue that children, particularly school-aged children, are far less important drivers of SARS-CoV-2 transmission than adults. Therefore, serious consideration should be paid toward strategies that allow schools to remain open, even during periods of COVID-19 spread. In doing so, we could minimize the potentially profound adverse social, developmental, and health costs that our children will continue to suffer until an effective treatment or vaccine can be developed and distributed or, failing that, until we reach herd immunity."
https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2020/07...
Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who directs the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Hospital, and is the editor-in-chief of JAMA Pediatrics, shared concerns about abuse and about children's mental health:
> Mental health and social-emotional development, Christakis argues, have been less discussed: "The social-emotional needs of children to connect with other children in real time and space, whether it's for physical activity, unstructured play or structured play, this is immensely important for young children in particular." A new study in JAMA Pediatrics, he says, documents elevated depression and anxiety among children under lockdown in China.
> A third major risk, says Christakis, is child abuse. With schools closed and activities canceled, adults who are mandatory reporters, such as teachers, are less likely to catch wind of abuse or neglect. Hospitals around the country are reporting a rise in admissions for severe child abuse injuries and even deaths — a rise that coincides with lockdown orders. And a sex-abuse hotline operated by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network reported that half its calls in March came from minors, for the first time in its history.
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/14/855641420/with-school-buildin...
And in another article, a former Secretary of Education also shared his concern that not all homes are safe:
> I'm heartbroken about the kids for whom school is the place that provides structure and support and a sense of security that don't have that. I mean, for me, as a kid, after my mom passed when I was 8, I lived with my dad. My dad had an undiagnosed Alzheimer's, and so home was this place that was scary and unpredictable and unsafe. But school is the place that was reliable and consistent, where I had positive relationships with adults and peers. And I wouldn't be alive today without those school experiences.
> And I worry about the kids who are in homes where there is abuse, where there is addiction, where family members - as you say - have lost jobs, where family members are sick or passed away.
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/24/844562989/the-long-term-effec...
> Since May, the C.D.C. website [link to 1] has cautioned that full reopening would be “highest risk,”
And from that site, we can see that it's not the highest risk among all possible ways of spreading COVID-19, it's simply the scenario with the highest risk of COVID-19 spread among 3 scenarios for schools: full reopening, virtual-only instruction, or:
> Small, in-person classes, activities, and events. Groups of students stay together and with the same teacher throughout/across school days and groups do not mix. Students remain at least 6 feet apart and do not share objects
I believe the CDC director is recommending something like that middle risk plan, and saying that the risk of spreading coronavirus under this plan is outweighed by the risks of having schools closed.
1: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-...
> The American Academy of Pediatrics' guidance "strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school."
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
> The American Academy of Pediatrics once again plunged into the growing debate over school reopening with a strong new statement Friday, making clear that while in-person school provides crucial benefits to children, "Public health agencies must make recommendations based on evidence, not politics." The statement also said that "science and community circumstances must guide decision-making."
> The AAP is changing tone from the guidance it issued just over two weeks ago. Then, the organization made a national splash by recommending that education leaders and policymakers "should start with a goal of having students physically present in school."
Hahaha. Have you seen kids? Who's going to remind each kid six times a minute to maintain distance and not share?!
Source: I've spent 100s of hours in K-4 classrooms
As a parent, with enough privilege, my kid is doing remote next year.
It's sad that the administration is willing to sacrifice the teachers, misc school staff, parents and children for short term gains.
Not only are we endangering human lives, but we are risking prolonging this disease which will continue to ravage the economy. If you think it's bad now, imagine what it will be like in 2021 if we continue at this rate.
Why can't we continue with e-learning for the first half of school and reassess the situation as we approach 2021?
Working parents tend to send them to summer camp... which have also been closed.
In the US, about ~20% of children attend summer camp in a given year (that includes both day camps and overnight camps). For children from poor families it's down around 7%. 38% for children from affluent families.
Also, of those who do go to camp many of them go to camps that do not last the entire summer.
Lots of parents are willing for their kids to backslide a little, especially since most kids backslide together, rather than an emerging narrative of kids spending their summers cramming for placement tests. But a year? Some kids will be racing ahead because they're still experiencing personal math tutoring.
And what have Americans been doing in the time during lockdown? Have they purchased time? For example, in what ways is TX more prepared for the year ahead?
I guess we'll see which kids deserve to place into the best seats.
Lots of teachers. Janitors. Chefs. Administrators. Support staff.
A few teachers I follow are being asked to name someone who can "replace" them if they contract covid. I can't wrap my head around putting people in harm's way like that willingly when we don't have any control over the outbreak.
Kids needs should come first; they outnumber staff 25 to 1.
How much running are you imagining happens in a classroom? No one’s going to go from obese and diabetic to fit and healthy in two months.
> What about the threat to all the adults? Lots of teachers. Janitors. Chefs. Administrators. Support staff.
They walked this back on Friday.
https://www.wbur.org/npr/889848834/nations-pediatricians-wal...
Great. How about their teachers and school staff, parents and extended family? What are the consequences of watching you’re teachers get seriously ill or die, losing a grandparent, or your mom or dad? Also, novel disease so we don’t actually know the long term consequences for children or anyone else.
3 teachers in Arizona tried to be extra precautious and do in person instruction over the summer. Now, one of them is dead from COVID:
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education...
Honestly, a big part of this is the social pressure of 21 other classmate sitting there paying attention.
Teachers have been demonized for decades now so hardly anyone is going into the field.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-america-demonizes-its-tea...
It may be a good decision, BUT it hasn't been justified, as far as I can tell.
Moreover, the article quotes school administrators, teachers, and their representatives stating in no uncertain terms that schools in the US do not yet have the resources necessary for reopening safely.
What the heck?
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/state_2004_19.asp
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.0015...
Kids that don’t have caretakers during the day go to reduced attendance classes
Kids that have someone to look after them can do online or go a couple of days a week
Fortunately decisions like this are up to the local school districts and parents - adjustments have to be made
> Robert Redfield is a sloppy scientist with a long history of scientific misconduct and an extreme religious agenda.
https://cspinet.org/news/cspi-urges-administration-not-appoi...
I'm not saying that the pediatricians are wrong, or even that the headline of "Keeping schools closed greater health threat to children reopening" is false in a vacuum. The problem is the narrow emphasis, ultimately to support a counterproductive political agenda. The pediatricians' quote includes the caveat "wherever and whenever they can do so safely", which will surely be ignored, especially in underfunded school systems.
The fact is that the US is basically still at the beginning of our dealing with COVID-19, due a lack of societal and political will to confront the challenge. I too hope that it does magically go away due to a vaccine, silently-growing herd immunity, etc. But it's foolish to adopt hope as a plan of action, as opposed to acknowledging the problem and doing the hard work to address it.