School in the Time of the Coronavirus by Emily Mazzulla

The study says it’s not just about what is happening in schools, though.

More conservatively, they say, school opening led to at least 43,000 extra COVID-19 cases (out of 373,000) and 800 additional deaths (out of 4,800) during that time period - still a substantial increase.Ī spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services said the office typically doesn’t comment on external research but noted “we haven’t seen large outbreaks associated with on-campus learning.” “The magnitudes are huge,” said Dan Goldhaber, a University of Washington professor who has studied COVID and schools in Michigan and Washington.īut the study warns not to take these numbers as gospel since there is still a large range of possible effects. Their best estimate is that a remarkable 45% of cases and nearly two thirds of deaths in Texas in nine weeks following reopening were the result of the direct and indirect effects of school reopening. Over several weeks, school opening triggered a large jump in COVID cases and deaths, researchers said. The results, researchers said, were striking. Researchers effectively compared districts to each other based on when they reopened, controlling for other factors, including politics and existing COVID spread.

The paper, which has not been formally peer reviewed, examines school reopening in Texas starting in fall 2020. Regardless, experts emphasized that the results have less relevance moving forward because vaccines are now prevalent and thus COVID risks are lower. The finding offers a significant - although contested - data point for understanding whether states and districts appropriately weighed risks related to COVID and schools, a debate that consumed the country for months.

School in the Time of the Coronavirus by Emily Mazzulla