COVID Transmissions for 2-17-2021
School reopening guidelines from the CDC
Good morning and welcome to COVID Transmissions.
It has been 457 days since the first documented human case of COVID-19. We have spent 19 days longer with COVID-19 than cosmonaut Valery Polyakov spent in space. At 438 days, Polyakov is the current record holder for longest consecutive time in space.
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Now, let’s talk COVID.
CDC guidance for school reopenings
I want to start by saying that the CDC is not ordering anything to happen—or not happen. However, last week, the CDC issued clear guidance for how schools may safely reopen while mitigating risks of COVID-19.
When, some weeks ago, new CDC head Rachelle Walensky made some comments that vaccination of teachers was not a prerequisite for the safe reopening of schools, there was a lot of backlash, which I understand because this is a dangerous time and people’s lives are at stake. However, I did not focus on the same part of the statement as most folks. Instead of the part about vaccination, I wanted to know what “safe” means.
Safe is a hard word to define. When you go to work, there is some chance you will die every time. Car accident, train derailment, or even a crane collapse are all very real risks of going outside in most environments. There’s also the chance that you get a commonplace illness, like influenza virus, that can kill unexpectedly. So let’s just establish that even before COVID-19, it was never perfectly “safe” to have schools open.
So what does “safe” mean? To me, safety in the context of COVID-19 should mean that only a marginal risk of death or injury is added onto the preexisting risk background. So I had to ask myself—without vaccination, is it possible to reduce the COVID-19 risk that much that we get down to that level of risk?
Without the CDC’s plan, this was hard to evaluate. There is no standard-issue child and there is no standard-issue school. However, we now have that plan and its details, which are described in this NPR story: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/12/967033554/cdc-offers-clearest-guidance-yet-for-reopening-schools
Something that reassures me about this plan is that it considers the type of school that may be open and contextualizes that with the COVID-19 risk in the surrounding geographic region. Not all schools can be open if the numbers in the area are very bad; the schools that pose the greatest risk are recommended to close. “Essential” mitigation strategies include distancing, masking, handwashing, testing, tracing, and having good data on the surrounding community. While vaccination is not listed as essential, the CDC strongly encourages it “as soon as supply allows” and recommends that teachers should be prioritized for vaccination. This strikes me as a balanced view, and I do believe that it is possible for schools to be open i the circumstances that are listed in this plan.
One thing the document doesn’t do is clearly spell out the definition of a “safe” reopening. However, the color coding system does indicate the range of COVID-19 epidemiology that the CDC takes seriously. Blue, the least severe scenario, is the one I have my eye on. As the CDC document points out, control of COVID-19 in schools can lead to control of COVID-19 in their surrounding communities. With that in mind, I must presume that the goal of the guide is to get as many communities as possible into the “blue” zone. Here’s what that looks like:
From this, we can learn that the CDC is targeting fewer than 10 cases per 100,000 people and lower than 5% test positivity as a “low” transmission rate. In places with this situation, by the way, the CDC does not recommend you can take off your masks and start hugging people. All of the essential strategies must be observed in all of these conditions. What the more serious colors change is which schools—and which school activities—may be open in a given region.
I won’t go through all the details, but it’s important that we recognize the care and thoughtfulness put into this guide from the CDC. This is a well-researched document that balances the benefits to society from schools being open against the harms, or tries to at least. Even if you disagree with it in principle, I think it’s worth an attentive read through if this is an issue that is important to you.
For me, I think it’s a good working list of recommendations. It’s better than what we had before. I’m still not sure how ready I am to endorse it, though. The months of a dysfunctional CDC have left me a little shy.
What am I doing to cope with the pandemic? This:
Hunting: an Apartment
Our lease is coming to an end, and we’ve decided it’s time to find a place that will make it easier for two people to work from home comfortably. We’re not planning to go far—not even really outside of our neighborhood—but we need something new. Almost all my waking moments in the past few days have either been dedicated to work, this newsletter, or seeing apartments.
I think we’ve found one we like! Now to play the game of trying to get it.
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See you all next time.
Always,
JS
The school opening arguments tend to be about motivated reasoning more than anything else, I think. People who want the schools open can always come to that conclusion if they try hard enough, and vice versa.