Coronavirus cases are surging in this country and worldwide, yet in many places, schools remain open. Why?
Whether or not to send students to school has been a continuous balancing act. Children miss out if they stay home. Their health, education, and safety could be in jeopardy. But they can also get sick by going to school, sometimes seriously.
Determining what’s safe for students, teachers, families, and the community when community cases are low is tedious. But when Covid-19 is surging, shouldn’t schools close? Won’t students mingling together mean that they will pass the virus into the community?
Here’s information about the surge and what various countries are doing about school openings.
Do Students Pass the Virus to the Community?
On October 9, The Atlantic reported that Brown University Economist Emily Oster said Covid-19 school transmission into the community was low.
Predictions about school openings hurting the broader community seem to have been overblown… In places such as Florida, preliminary data haven’t shown big community spikes as a result of school openings. Rates in Georgia have continued to decline over the past month. And although absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, I’ve read many stories about outbreaks at universities, and vanishingly few about outbreaks at the K–12 level.
The New York Times reported “Schoolchildren Seem Unlikely to Fuel Coronavirus Surges, Scientists Say” on October 22, stating that research CONTINUE READING: Covid-19 Surges Worldwide While Schools Stay Open