THREAD: Are Schools SAFE during Covid? A Collection of Research, Science, and Data on Schools: Risks to children, teachers, and comparisons within the community.

Sources: Academic, institutional or governmental. I will summarize conclusion and cite link.

Let's begin..

1/

European CDC:

"Investigations of cases identified in school settings suggest that child to child transmission in schools is uncommon and not the primary cause of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children ..

2/

https://t.co/SKIyCVCTsv
whose onset of infection coincides with the period during which they are attending school."

3/
"Educational staff and adults within the school setting are generally not seen to be at a higher risk of infection than other occupations, although educational roles that put one in contact with older children and/or many adults may be associated with a higher risk."

4/
Public Health Netherlands:

"The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is mainly spread between adults and from adult family members to children. The spread of COVID-19 among children or from children to adults is less common."
5/

https://t.co/4P6uWzj5EH
International Journal of infectiousness Diseases:

"The intervention of school closure did not appear to decrease the incidence of coronavirus infection."

(Because its not the primary SOURCE of where it happens)

6/

https://t.co/Lq8bNnKOJ3
University of Dresden: "Schools did not become a hotspot after reopening"

7/

https://t.co/5xsdXhhpAN
AAP: “No evidence of child care being a significant contributor to COVID19 transmission to adults—finding consistent with previous studies showing lack of assoc btwn school closures & transmission rates”

8/

https://t.co/lZcu52PhWN
Gemelli University Hospital (Italy)"

"Available evidence shows School Closures added little benefit to COVID-19 control whereas the harms related to SC severely affected children and adolescents...9/

https://t.co/JalN3BhK8K
This unresolved issue has put children and young people at high risk of social, economic and health-related harm for years to come, triggering severe consequences during their lifespan"

10/
Swedish Public Health Agency:

"The relative risk of intensive care at covid-19 was 0.43 for primary school teachers(CI 0.28; 0.68) (57% lower risk compared to other occupational groups)"

11/

https://t.co/pbv4hHG0OL
Public Health Scotland:

" Compared to working-age adults who are otherwise similar, teachers and their household members are not at increased risk of hospitalisation with COVID-19 and are at lower risk of severe COVID-19."

12/

https://t.co/KSMiHutwzC
National Center of Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH):

"We found no evidence that reopening schools in-person or in a hybrid form increased COVID hospitalizations in the 75 percent of counties that had low COVID hospitalization rates during the summer...

13/
prior to reopening schools."

14/

https://t.co/oLxh4D0ZQA
UNICEF:
"Schools are not a main driver of community transmission, and children are more likely to get the virus outside of school settings"
https://t.co/sMExab3gGd

15/
In addition to these studies, here are some medical professionals/PH experts who have studied schools and Covid and are must follow if you want to actually "follow the science"

@TracyBethHoeg @VPrasadMDMPH @MonicaGandhi9 @ProfEmilyOster @apsmunro @sdbaral

16/
There are many other reports, studies and medical papers that confirm this over and over again. It's not just possible to open schools safely, it's actually already happening. It must happen.

16/
The idea that the CDC's new guidance and a stimulus bill is a pre-requisite to opening schools is a complete farce, and amounts to negligent ignorance of the myriad science and data that say its already safe AND possible to do so.

/END

More from Education

Time for some thoughts on schools given the revised SickKids document and the fact that ON decided to leave most schools closed. ON is not the only jurisdiction to do so, but important to note that many jurisdictions would not have done so -even with higher incidence rates.


As outlined in the tweet by @NishaOttawa yesterday, the situation is complex, and not a simple right or wrong https://t.co/DO0v3j9wzr. And no one needs to list all the potential risks and downsides of prolonged school closures.


On the other hand: while school closures do not directly protect our most vulnerable in long-term care at all, one cannot deny that any factor potentially increasing community transmission may have an indirect effect on the risk to these institutions, and on healthcare.

The question is: to what extend do schools contribute to transmission, and how to balance this against the risk of prolonged school closures. The leaked data from yesterday shows a mixed picture -schools are neither unicorns (ie COVID free) nor infernos.

Assuming this data is largely correct -while waiting for an official publication of the data, it shows first and foremost the known high case numbers at Thorncliff, while other schools had been doing very well -are safe- reiterating the impact of socioeconomics on the COVID risk.
OK I am going to be tackling this as surveillance/open source intel gathering exercise, because that is my background. I blew away 3 years of my life doing site acquisition/reconnaissance for a certain industry that shall remain unnamed and believe there is significant carryover.


This is NOT going to be zillow "here is how to google school districts and find walmart" we are not concerned with this malarkey, we are homeschooling and planting victory gardens and having gigantic happy families.

With that said, for my frog and frog-adjacent bros and sisters:

CHOICE SITES:

Zillow is obvious one, but there are many good sites like Billy Land, Classic Country Land, Landwatch, etc. and many of these specialize in owner financing (more on that later.) Do NOT treat these as authoritative sources - trust plat maps and parcel viewers.

TARGET IDENTIFICATION AND EVALUATION:

Okay, everyone knows how to google "raw land in x state" but there are other resources out there, including state Departments of Natural Resources, foreclosure auctions, etc. Finding the land you like is the easy part. Let's do a case study.

I'm going to target using an "off-grid but not" algorithm. This is a good piece in my book - middle of nowhere but still trekkable to civilization.

Note: visible power, power/fiber pedestal, utility corridor, nearby commercial enterprise(s), and utility pole shadows visible.

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