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THREAD: I want to talk for a minute about stories like these.
Let's start here: Any death is awful. My heart breaks for these families & school communities.
The problem: Articles like this tie the deaths to school *with no evidence* they are connected. https://www.al.com/news/2021/01/multiple-montgomery-schools-deaths-prompt-aea-call-for-remote-learning-sports-limits.html
Let's start here: Any death is awful. My heart breaks for these families & school communities.
The problem: Articles like this tie the deaths to school *with no evidence* they are connected. https://www.al.com/news/2021/01/multiple-montgomery-schools-deaths-prompt-aea-call-for-remote-learning-sports-limits.html
If a media source is going to make the implicit/explicit connection between a death & schools, they have an obligation to do due diligence. It's obviously very difficult w/o good contact tracing/genomic sequencing, but if they're not going to attempt it, don't write the story.
Simple questions: Was the person at the school with a confirmed positive? Were there other known exposures?
Again, I get these are sensitive questions! But don't report on it if you're not willing to ask.
This article can't even confirm how many died of COVID vs. other causes.
Again, I get these are sensitive questions! But don't report on it if you're not willing to ask.
This article can't even confirm how many died of COVID vs. other causes.
A note here: I think it would be absurd to imagine that across all of the U.S., no teacher or school staff has caught COVID at school and subsequently died. By sheer probability, that has almost certainly happened. But that fact says nothing about any given case.
Indeed, it's important to remember that school staff often make up a *large* percentage of workers in any given community. I checked, and in Montgomery, the public schools are the third-largest employer. Many places, they're #1 or #2.
https://www.montgomerychamber.com/mgm-employers
https://www.montgomerychamber.com/mgm-employers
Probability would again dictate, then, that in any given set of COVID cases, a significant proportion will be employees of the public schools.
That, again, says nothing about whether or not they are contracting the virus at school -- or whether they were even IN schools.
That, again, says nothing about whether or not they are contracting the virus at school -- or whether they were even IN schools.
Now, there *are* studies and data that find teachers are at moderately higher risk during in-person instruction when community spread is high; there are also conflicting studies, and then there's messy data that shows *REMOTE* teachers at higher risk. Confusing!
This is all a long way of pleading w/media (particularly local/regional papers & TV, which is where I see most of this) to be *extremely* careful when reporting on teacher deaths. It is very easy to give an unsupported impression, & that has real consequences on public opinion.
