including in Missouri, Texas, Louisiana,
Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, New York
and Florida. Organizers of at least one of the
camps said they were following guidelines
issued by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
That’s why it’s so important, experts say, to
consider the wider community and not think of
schools as closed systems, unaffected by what
the virus is doing outside their walls.
Children are less likely to become seriously ill
than adults, and there’s not much evidence that
children are driving transmission, said Jennifer
Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins
University’s COVID-19 Testing Insights Initiative.
Still, there is a risk they could transmit the virus
to others, including teachers or vulnerable
people they live with.
“That is a reason to think about how to
improve safety and to reduce the risk in school
environments,” Nuzzo said. “Those measures and
the move to reopen schools should proceed
before the higher risk environments” like bars,
restaurants, gyms and other indoor spaces
“where adults are packed together and they
have a hard time social distancing.”
If transmission can be reduced in the wider
community, she said, it will make it safer for
schools to reconvene.
“We should be prioritizing the reopening of
those public spaces that have known benefits
and low risks,” Nuzzo said. “And we think that
schools are one of those.”
Even before Trump’s push this week, Democrats
and public health experts were already talking