A script for the face-to-face school emerges – Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Difficult and unpopular decisions

But despite the time, effort and care that they devoted to the return of face-to-face classes, we decided to wait and see. Some outbreaks of great repercussion in schools and summer camps at the beginning of the pandemic and the level of community spread in our area at the time sealed the deal for us.

Also, remember that schools closed in mid-March, when there were less than 3,300 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the U.S. and just over 60 deaths. As schools were starting to reopen for the fall, the numbers were much worse and there was a real concern that the opening of schools could make the situation even worse. For me, there was a lot of uncertainty. And while it was increasingly clear that young people were less likely to become seriously ill, I worried that one of my daughters might still inadvertently spread the virus to their teachers or parents at home.

I must say that it was not a popular decision among minors under 18. My kids love school. For them, remote learning is a pale imitation of real business, in person – and almost as important, they love being with their friends. But since my home is a benign dictatorship and not a democracy, distance learning via virtual school has become the law of the land.

Then, in October, when we had another opportunity to send them back to campus, my wife and I changed directions. At that time, despite the increase in dissemination in the community, we saw how well the girls’ school was doing and decided to put them back. The mitigation strategies in place were not only symbolic, but were also taken very seriously at school. In addition to masks and physical distance, the school took an extra step by requiring Covid’s test weekly. Although many schools have unfortunately never had this option, the testing program’s insights have given me more comfort.

Liz Ball, the associate vice president for strategic communications at our school, confirmed the school’s success. In an email, she told me that, from the beginning of the school year until February 7, the average weekly positivity rate has been less than 0.5% – a number that is much lower than the average positivity rate weekly for Fulton County, Georgia, during the same period (which was at least 3.3%), according to PCR test data from the Georgia Department of Public Health. Ball estimated that more than 45,000 tests were done weekly, between October and February, on approximately 2,400 members of the community.

I recognize that my daughters’ school has more resources than many public (and private) schools to keep Covid-19 disease to a minimum, including the extra space for physical distance, the warm climate of the South to allow them to have lessons at home. outdoors and especially the ability to test extensively.

Roadmap for successful reopening

But the test is really the proof – not the reason – that these mitigation efforts work.

“Consistent application of our COVID-19 security protocols, including quarantine, has proven successful in preventing the virus from entering the campus and transmitting on campus,” wrote Ball.

“With the launch of this operational strategy, the CDC is not forcing schools to reopen. These recommendations simply provide schools with a long-needed roadmap for doing this safely at different levels of disease in the community,” said CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky when she announced the guidelines in February.

And the few studies that analyze transmission at school seem to confirm this, showing that disease rates in schools are lower than in the community. A study of 17 Wisconsin schools found that the Covid-19 rate at the school was 37% lower than in the surrounding community. Another study looking at schools in New York City found a positivity rate of just 0.4% from October to December, despite the increase in cases in the community. And a study of 11 North Carolina school districts found only 32 cases of transmission within the school among nearly 100,000 students and staff – none of which involved a child infecting an adult.

In fact, a new report that analyzed 130 studies on the reopening of schools found that schools can reopen safely if they follow mitigation strategies, including masking and social detachment. The report – Is it safe to reopen schools? An extensive review of the research, authored by education and political expert John Bailey – found that when it comes to physical distance, 1 meter and not 2 meters can be enough.

Bailey notes that school districts in Indiana, Virginia and Massachusetts have adopted a 3-foot pattern instead.

And, according to a federal official, the CDC is reviewing new data – including a study published last week that shows “no significant difference” in Covid-19 rates in Massachusetts public schools that have implemented 90 cm social spacing rules compared to those who kept 6 feet – to see if the rules of physical distance in schools should be changed. This is in line with the school guidelines of the World Health Organization, which suggests a minimum of 1 meter (just over 3 feet) in schools.

The slow return of personal learning

Some of the nation’s largest public school systems – including Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta – are either preparing to restart face-to-face learning or have already done so. And the money that the Biden administration has promised K-12 will allow school districts to begin implementing CDC mitigation measures. This money, for example, could be used to purchase and, in some cases, install PPE, such as plastic table dividers, hand hygiene stations, classroom air fresheners and masks for students and teachers, as well as for pay the costs related to all extra cleaning and disinfection.

To put all school districts on the same page and updated, Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told CNN Jake Tapper on Friday during the CNN special “Back to school: kids, Covid and the fight for reopening “, that a national summit on the reopening of the school was scheduled for” before the end of March “.

“We will have experts and we will have, as you mentioned, districts that have been successful in doing this, talking to other districts and sharing their best practices, but also sharing the challenges they faced so that we can learn from these districts,” explained Cardona. He also noted that his department is creating a clearinghouse with best practices around the reopening, including providing social and emotional support to students and educators who “went through a lot of trauma in the past year”.

Dependence on science, government funding and the ability of teachers to be vaccinated pleases Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the largest teacher union in the United States. During the same CNN special, she said that teachers “want nothing more than to be personally with their students. This is how they were trained to teach and work with them, and they miss them. They want to be back in people”.

But, said Pringle, teachers want it to be done safely. “What we’ve been saying for a year, it’s been a year, we’ve been asking for the resources we need to do just that,” she said. “And the smile you see on my face now, Jake, is the light at the end of this very dark tunnel.”

My wife and I spent the night talking about this article, and it expanded into a discussion with all three of our girls about the last few months of school. Interestingly, my youngest daughter (now 11) never really entered the virtual learning life, while my oldest daughter (now 15) sometimes preferred it. My middle daughter, always pleasant, told me that she could go anyway.

I was worried that last year would be an interrupted childhood – it has been one of my biggest concerns – but on the whole the girls seem to have prospered and perhaps even gained some resilience through the challenges they faced. They are also well aware of how fortunate they are to have had options on several occasions in the past year that were simply not offered to many other students across the country.

It will be a long time before we know the full impact of this pandemic on their lives and mental health, but if history is any indication, it was young people who were most adaptable after previous outbreaks and pandemics, as well as those who seriously embraced some new normal state when it was finally safe to do so.