We really REALLY need to talk about this study. Because it’s kind of a big deal. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/study-shows-covid-19-case-rates-schools-higher/story?id=77193309&fbclid=IwAR2bfGXie4toX-9IA1Zd0XU4Lvp2D1iPlurMvf70FP03t8-lRJjzV6jUmRM

Up until now, most all the studies published in the US about Covid and school related transmission have been the sort of studies where researchers take the existing data that’s already out there, and simply go over what it says to draw their conclusions.

That means their findings will have the same potential limitations as the data itself. And in the US, we have a pretty big potential issue with our data: low testing rates that consistently miss the majority of asymptomatic cases.

Which is why this new study is so important. This was the first of its kind in the US. This one actually tested everyone regularly, rather than waiting for someone to report possible symptoms. And do you know what they found?

*The actual numbers of Covid infections in the staff was more than double (2.5 times) what was being found through the normal reporting methods
*For the students, the actual infections were a whopping 6.5 times higher!

But there’s more...

*They found that when they compared the rate of Covid in their participants to the rates in the surrounding counties who were using the traditional methods of reporting, the number of cases was 10 times higher overall.

AND...

*The study stated that as many as 9 out of 10 student cases, and 7 out of 10 staff cases, were ones that would have been missed with the conventional reporting methods.

So why is this all such a big deal?

B/c we’re told that US schools haven’t been linked to much transmission, we need to talk about the ways our current data may be skewed by our lack of testing. When we aren’t actually testing students regularly, we don’t actually know for sure how much Covid is happening.

For another recent example of this playing out we can look to Michigan. The state started noticing a major upward trend in pediatric Covid cases that they linked to kids playing sports, but they didn’t report similar increases in other kids returning to in person learning. BUT...

Here’s the thing: it turns out the kid’s who were playing a lot of these sports had actually been required to get tested in order to play, so they were catching way more cases that would otherwise go undetected.

Look, I get that the choice to send kids to school right now is a difficult one for many, and some parents with specific job & life circumstances don’t feel they have any choice. My heart goes out to every family who has agonized over choices where there seem to be 0 good options

(While I landed on the other side of this choice, we’re still in the same boat! We don’t WANT our kids to be home, and there have been serious harmful effects of that decision. There just weren’t any better options on the table for us.)

None of me sharing this info is about judging parents who have opted to return their kids to in-person learning.

But parents deserve to have ALL the info, and there has been such a concerted effort in the US to push the “schools are completely safe” and “kids don’t really get/transmit Covid much” narratives.

And there is strong economic incentive for that, and to stick with that narrative at all costs. I think it’s helpful for us to be aware of that when we consider our options.

Other countries with better testing rates have shown data sets that DO show increases/decreases in Covid transmission lining up closely with increases/decreases in school attendance during the same time period.

Here’s just one example:

This is a chart from Quebec, Canada. The grey section where the lines stop says “missing quality data during/after school break.” The school’s holiday break took place during that period. Orange is teachers, blue is students, and grey is the general population.

In fall when school begins, all three are about similar in numbers, and then students and teachers immediately start to climb disproportionately to the rest of the population.

Then comes that winter break, where there is no school.

Notice how much lower the rates are for students and teachers on the the other side of that break when the data picks back up again. So we know there was a plunge in cases there.

But look at the general population. THATS where we see something really significant.

They did NOT experience a similar rate of drop yet. In fact that group actually sees pretty big INCREASE during that gap. And that’s really significant, because it means the trends in increases/decreases of cases can’t simply be attributed to other community trends/behavior.

It’s specifically contained to this group. Then school starts back up, and while cases in the general population actually start to fall at last, teachers and students are once again on the increase. Which again supports the correlation between transmission & school attendance.

So the question becomes, is the US not seeing these same correlations b/c we somehow managed to actually be safer in school than other countries - despite those countries having lower transmission rates than we do overall, & almost identical safety protocols in their schools?

OR is it more likely because our data is lacking in a way that theirs is not, so we simply can’t SEE what’s actually happening as clearly? W/o regular testing, regardless of symptoms or known exposures, we don’t actually know for certain how much Covid has happened in our school.

Or is CURRENTLY happening.

For some families, that’s a risk that will still be worth taking. And that’s 100% their choice to make. But we deserve to be given ALL the facts necessary to make a fully informed choice.