These are points made by Ashish Jha, Professor of Global Health at Harvard in a webinar moderated by Bridget Long, Dean of Faculty at Harvard GSE.
These are complex decisions. It’s not a simplistic question and answer. We have to have open conversations, and keep the audiences understanding how complex the situation is and what trade-offs are required for any decisions.
Communities need to prioritize. If you are prioritizing schools, then you cannot have bars open; that shouldn’t even be a close call. Communities need to be making those decisions a month in advance of school opening.
Local transmissions rates need to be low, probably below 5%, for any type of physical school reopenings to be in the range of reasonable risk.
The most important safety steps for schools are
- Masks when children and teachers are going to be in close proximity; students can take their masks off if the classes can be outside.
- Ventilation: where possible outdoor classes, when inside open windows improve air circulation, even portable ventilation is helpful.
- Social distancing, although 6 feet may not be critical all the time, especially outside or in well-ventilated areas.
- Testing with results in 24-36 hours. There are two key numbers, the number of new cases, and the percent tested positive.
- Prioritize in-person for K-5 children, pediatrics point out that they need face-to-face interaction the most, and they are the ones least likely to contract and spread disease.
If the main thrust of a state or district back-to-school policy is based on kids maintaining social distancing, it is going to fail.
Understand that children are not the only people in the school. Whatever the policy, it must face up to the risks and trade-offs for the adults, as well.
People of color have been disproportionally negatively affected by the pandemic, and they know from experience how the epidemic has been mismanaged. These parents are less likely to accept simplistic solutions for their children to be sent to schools, and they need to be included in the conversations.
In the past, the CDC was the most trusted source of scientific information. Today, there is a mixture of scientific publications and political ones. A critical reader can tell the difference between a paper that was written to support a political policy and one that has been written by scientists.
Anyone offering a simplistic answer without nuance is someone you cannot trust.
In the US, every mayor, every superintendent, and often, every principal are having to figure this out on their own. We need nuanced national and state guidance or planning, since so many of these issues go beyond community or even state borders. This requires a level of political leadership that has been absent from many areas in our country.
When this is over, as a society, we will need to understand the importance of investments in public health.