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Thread: State leaders, school leaders, and parents are all wrestling with one core question: Is it safe to reopen schools? Here's a summary of the existing research:
2. The @AmerAcadPeds says "the preponderance of evidence indicates that children & adolescents are less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease" and "may be less likely to become infected and to spread infection." https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/clinical-guidance/covid-19-planning-considerations-return-to-in-person-education-in-schools/
3. The United Kingdom’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) concluded “there is no evidence to suggest that children transmit the virus any more than adults." https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/885631/Overview_of_scientific_advice_and_information_on_coronavirus_COVID19.pdf
4. A meta analysis of 45 studies concluded that children only account for 1-5 percent of all cases and “they often have milder disease than adults and deaths have been extremely rare.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.15270
5. Ireland’s Health Information and Quality Authority analyzed seven studies and concluded, “children are not, to date, substantially contributing to the household transmission of SARS-CoV-2.” https://www.hiqa.ie/sites/default/files/2020-05/Evidence-Summary_Covid-19_Spread-in-Children.pdf.pdf
6. A study of children in South Wales, Australia also found that children seemed to transmit the virus less than other other respiratory viruses, such as influenza. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6877277-NCIRS-NSW-Schools.html#document/p1
7. The Irish Health Service Executive studied school closures in Ireland and came to the conclusion that "children are not emerging as considerable drivers of transmission of COVID-19.” https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.21.2000903
8. Study in @LancetChildAdol found "COVID-19 is generally a mild disease in children, including infants." https://bit.ly/2ZXqEPf
9. Article in @ScienceMagazine Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, and Austria. "Officials say they found no evidence of increased spread of the novel coronavirus after schools reopened." " https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/school-openings-across-globe-suggest-ways-keep-coronavirus-bay-despite-outbreaks
10. A review of 210 transmission clusters around the world found that only eight of them (3.8 percent) involved school transmission. https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-83/v2
11. One study in France analyzing 541 students and 46 teachers found there were no documented transmission events from students to teachers. https://www.pasteur.fr/fr/file/35404/download
12. Another summary of several studies is here with findings: Children appear significantly less likely to acquire COVID-19 than adults; There is reasonable evidence that there are significantly fewer children infected in the community than adults https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/the-missing-link-children-and-transmission-of-sars-cov-2/
13. All of this is good news.
1. Children have less risk to COVID-19 disease severity.
2. It's promising that some studies suggest children may not be the super-spreaders we had feared.
1. Children have less risk to COVID-19 disease severity.
2. It's promising that some studies suggest children may not be the super-spreaders we had feared.
14. It's important to note that this is surprising. When we wrote the Pandemic Preparedness Strategy in 2005 our planning assumptions were: "Illness rates will be highest among school-aged children (about 40 percent) and decline with age." https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/pandemic-influenza-implementation.pdf
15. COVID is playing out in a different way - less risk for students and higher risk for older adults.
16. And that's why we need to have more discussion around the risk for older teachers. @AEIeducation estimates at the low-end that its 646,000 teachers (18%) due to age alone. Obviously larger given other health conditions and all the other staff. https://bit.ly/2ZRIQtj
17. But more important is that none of this was clearly presented during the White House forum this week nor from the press conference held by @BetsyDeVosED and @usedgov
18. So the irony is that in the Administration's desire to reopen schools, they've likely created more confusion and fear among parents who will be less likely to send their child to school.
19. Even before this week's mangled messages - only 27% of parents felt it was safe to send their child back to school in Aug. or Sept. https://bit.ly/38IGkd0
20. Parents of Color are even LESS Likely to want to send their child back to school. https://bit.ly/38IGkd0
21. Same with low-income parents: https://bit.ly/38IGkd0
22. We should be worried. This isn't a single poll suggesting this but multiple ones: USA TODAY/Ipsos poll in May 2020 found if schools reopened in the fall, more than half of parents with a school-aged child are likely to switch to at-home learning. https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/usa-today-teachersparentscovid
23. Another @AEI survey found about one in four (24 percent) parents of children under age 18 say they would feel comfortable sending their child or children back to daycare or school. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AEI-COVID-19-and-American-Life-Survey-Report.pdf
24. Hillsborough County School District released the survey results from 52,800 parents. Only 25% feel very comfortable sending their child back to school. If campuses were reopened, 21% would prefer their child to continue online learning. https://www.smore.com/ymujw-school-shout
25. If you want schools reopened, then we need to a better job helping parents assess the risk and reasons why their child will be safe.
