By RICHARD SKOLNIK
Los Alamos
Much of the US is excited, if not thrilled, by media reports that a CDC study released this week said that “schools are safe and can reopen”. Despite the excitement, this is actually not what CDC said.
The CDC study did report that schools in the US have generally not been associated with the kind of viral spread that one sees in congregate settings like nursing homes and high-density worksites.
However, the study also said that schools can safely reopen only when they have fulfilled several important conditions.
- The first is that communities must reduce the spread of the virus. This should be done through measures like limiting indoor dining at restaurants, closing bars and gyms, and continuing to engage in mask wearing and social distancing. Vaccinating as large as share of the population as rapidly as possible, of course, will also reduce transmission of the virus.
- The second is that schools must continue to work hard to reduce spread within classrooms and other school facilities. Mask wearing and social distancing must continue. In-person learning also requires sound hand washing and hygiene practices, good ventilation of classrooms, and expanded testing of teachers, staff, and students.
- In addition, the report indicated that some school-based activities, such as many sports, are associated with increased risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2. Thus, some extracurricular activities must continue to be limited until the rate of transmission in local communities has decreased to a much lower level.
When it comes to our schools, the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) released January 26 some new guidelines for school reopening. These appear to fit well with the emerging evidence and with CDC guidelines.
As the new CDC Director said yesterday, the key to safely reopening schools is to reduce transmission of the virus. Over the last seven days, Los Alamos saw an average daily number of new cases of 24 per 100,000 population. This is substantially higher than the rate at which some leading epidemiologists suggested earlier in the outbreak was safe for school reopening.
The CDC study was not a license to open schools immediately. Rather, it provides a set of actions that we must take if we want to reopen our schools safely. Achieving this goal will require that every member of our community continues to take measures that reduce the risk of new infections. If not, school “reopening” will be followed, in short order, by school closings.
Editor’s note: Richard Skolnik is the former regional director for health for South Asia at the World Bank. He was the director of an AIDS treatment program for Harvard and taught Global Health at the George Washington University and Yale. He is the author of Global Health 101 and the instructor for Yale/Coursera’s Essentials of Global Health.
