On 30 July, as the debate of whether or not to reopen schools was heating up, The New York Times published the article, “Older Children Spread the Coronavirus Just as much as Adults, Large Study finds.”
The article stated,
“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.”
But ProPublica, the non-profit, independent investigative news group, published an article on 28 September, “The Students Left Behind by Remote Learning,” which cites evidence that the study the NYT used as the basis for creating fear and anxiety over reopening U.S. schools was flawed.
Joseph Allen, a Harvard Professor of Public Health, in reviewing the study, stated, “It had methodological flaws that several of us pointed out… But the headline took off.”
Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist and Associate Professor of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, tweeted, “I personally know parents who changed their whole next year because of the NYT article… The takeaway people got was 10-year-olds can transmit as much as adults.”
The ProPublica article then provides further data to show a very different picture than the one created by the South Korean study used by The New York Times:
“The direct risks to children were, in fact, blessedly limited. By mid-July, of the roughly 3,200 people known to have died of COVID-19 in Maryland, only one was under the age of 19.
Nationwide, fewer than 100 children had died of the virus, roughly comparable to the number of those who die from the flu, which children are far more likely to transmit than they are COVID-19. But it was not hard to see how parents could have got the impression that children were at great risk. Towns and cities had closed playgrounds, wrapping police tape around them.”
Despite ample data showing schools are not risky environments for the coronavirus (see our two articles in this issue, “KIDS DON’T SPREAD COVID” and “DATA CONFIRMS SCHOOLS AREN’T SUPER-SPREADERS”), nonetheless, teachers and parents across the U.S remain anxious about allowing kids back in school, which has made reopening schools more difficult.
As Reuters reported on 2 October,
“Over 700 primary, middle and high schools that have at least partially reopened, reported that 0.07% of students and 0.14% of staff had a confirmed coronavirus infection in the first half of September, according to data collected by Brown University.”
Reuters pointed out that in a number of sites around the U.S., political leaders and their health officials were still not willing to fully reopen public schools:
“In response to criticism that poorer students were being hurt the most in the Los Angeles area, county elected officials this week agreed to consider reopening early grades for a limited number of schools and expressed caution. Barbara Ferrer, public health director for the LA area stated, ‘We have to remember that with every re-opening there is increased risk for COVID-19 transmission.’”
The 2 October Reuters report also cited,
“Florida’s Miami-Dade County, the fourth largest school district, plans to return students to classrooms, but only on a staggered basis. The state required its public schools to reopen in August, but areas where the virus was too prevalent, such as Miami, were exempted.”
Adding to the problem of reopening schools in the U.S., last July, Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second largest teachers union in the U.S, threatened “safety strikes” if stricter measures weren’t implemented in schools: “As our executive council voted last week, nothing is off the table – not advocacy or protests, negotiations, grievances or lawsuits, or, if necessary and authorized by a local union, as a last resort, safety strikes.”
The AFT initiated a lawsuit last summer in Florida to stop schools from reopening there due to the “imminent threat to the public health, safety and welfare.” They lost that suit.
TRENDPOST: Despite the growing data showing schools are not super-spreaders, a national survey of parents and teachers conducted by Hart Research Associates between 26 August and 1 September showed just how high anxiety levels over reopening schools had become in the U.S.
The survey revealed 76 percent of teachers voiced serious concern they would get infected if they returned to the classroom, and 77 percent of parents worried about their kids getting infected if schools reopened.