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Dr. Rachel Wood has issued a recommendation, with the threat of a mandate, to close schools to in-person learning, against the advice of the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Both consider damage done keeping children out of school as a greater health risk than COVID.
The most illuminating part of her recommendation were the state goals for re-opening. All involve ‘metrics’ based on rates of positive tests. This is a giant flaw. Positive test rates make sense when random samples of the population are tested.
Currently, positivity rates only reflect the ability of the population to self-identify as feeling unwell. Further flaws in her justifications for the closure include citing an Institute for Disease Modeling report that says opening “in-person instruction can put our children and our communities at risk.” Yes, but the same report also states that schools can be opened safely.
She is picking and choosing from a modeling report, which by its very nature is speculative. She also picks and chooses from a Journal of the American Medical Association study that again used modeling, and states that closing schools was associated with lower transmission.
From the study: “However, it remains possible that some of the reduction may have been related to other concurrent nonpharmaceutical interventions.” In other words, lockdowns and stay-at-home orders may have also been an influence! Based on this shaky “associations” logic, we would open schools now as Lewis County had more cases in July while school was out. Just in case there was any question if the health department’s decisions are based on politics instead of medical science, we come to the part of the letter stating that if districts need to provide services to special groups of people, then in-person is OK.
Districts and parents have agonized all summer to prepare plans with measures to protect students, teachers, and the community, while allowing students to be taught in-person per Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction guidance. Schools and parents ,which have communicated with each other and agreed that the benefits outweigh the risks of going to school, should have the right to choose.
For children who have the right to choose not to attend in-person, accommodations will be made. I know no one who found distance learning better than in-person. Few found it even acceptable. The economics of a lockdown are bad, but the social consequences may be far worse.
The fact that politics and not realistic, scientific facts seem to be guiding government officials is simply depressing. Dr. Wood uses questionable data to justify her opinions. Let us consider the complete picture, as much as we currently have one, to find tools to protect ourselves as we move forward, instead of only looking at bits and pieces to scare us into immobility and further isolation.
Katherine Humphrey
Curtis
