The New York Times - USA (2020-08-01)

A8 Y THE NEW YORK TIMES, SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 2020

Tracking an OutbreakPlanning for the Fall

Millions of families face an ex-
cruciating choice this fall: Should
their children attend if local
schools reopen their classrooms,
and risk being exposed to the co-
ronavirus? Or should they stay
home and lose out on in-person in-
struction?
No single factor can settle such
a fraught decision. But new esti-
mates provide a rough gauge of
the risk that students and educa-
tors could encounter at school in
each county in the United States.
The estimates, from re-
searchers at the University of
Texas at Austin, range from so-
bering to surprisingly reassuring,
depending on the area and the size
of the school.
Based on current infection
rates, more than 80 percent of
Americans live in a county where
at least one infected person would
be expected to show up to a school
of 500 students and staff in the
first week, if school started today.
In the highest-risk areas — in-
cluding Miami, Fort Lauderdale,
Nashville and Las Vegas — at
least five students or staff mem-
bers would be expected to show
up infected with the virus at a
school of 500 people.
The high numbers reflect the
rapid spread of the virus in those
areas, where more than 1 in 70
people are estimated to be cur-
rently infected.
At the same time, smaller, iso-
lated groups of students face a

much lower risk. Some schools

are considering narrowing

classes down to small “pods,” with

students who mainly come in con-

tact with their teacher and each

other. While the chance of having

an infected person at the school

would stay the same, the risk of

exposure within those pods would

be much lower.

If they remain isolated from the

rest of the school — a tall order —

10-person pods in every part of the

country would be unlikely to in-

clude an infected person in that

first week.

Education experts and disease

researchers said information that

reflects local conditions could be

critical in shaping decisions by

parents, teachers, administrators

and political leaders.

“It’s meant to guide schools so

they can anticipate when it might

be safe, or easier, to open and

bring kids in,” said Lauren Ancel

Meyers, an epidemiologist at the

University of Texas at Austin who

led the research team.

The projections are rough

guidelines based on the estimated

prevalence of the virus in each

county, which is drawn from a

New York Times database of

cases, and estimates that five peo-

ple may be infected for each

known case. Those estimates re-

flect current levels of infection

around the country and are likely

to change, improving or wors-

ening in individual communities

over the next weeks and months.

The estimates assume that chil-

dren are as likely to carry and

transmit the virus as adults — “a

large assumption, given the un-

knowns about children,” said

Spencer Fox, a member of the re-

search team.

“This is meant to be a rough

guide, a first step,” Dr. Fox said.

Some preliminary studies have

suggested that children are in-

fected less often, or that young

ones do not transmit the disease

as readily, which could reduce the

risk, said Carl T. Bergstrom, a pro-

fessor of biology at the University

of Washington. But those ques-

tions remain unresolved, he said.

Many districts will start the

school year remotely. Those that

do open buildings will hedge the

risks by taking various measures,

such as requiring masks and so-

cial distancing, holding classes

outside when possible or bringing

students to school on alternating

schedules.

Plans announced by some of the

nation’s largest school systems al-

ready show the range of choices in

play. Districts in San Diego and

Los Angeles, citing the risk of

crowded classrooms, said they

would operate online in the fall, as

will the vast majority of schools in

California under guidelines issued

by the state. New York City,

though, is planning a partial re-

opening, allowing classroom at-

tendance one to three times a

week.

But decisions on remote learn-

ing come with their own concerns,

said Greg J. Duncan, an education

professor at the University of Cali-

fornia, Irvine. Studies have shown

that younger children and those in

lower-income districts do not

learn as well online as they do in

person. For lower-income chil-

dren, that gap in learning can per-

sist, he said.

Wealthy families, which have

more resources and work-

arounds, will be far more risk-

averse than others, Dr. Duncan

said.

“One infection is too many” will

likely be the refrain of wealthier

families, he said. “Any slight

chance that their child is going to

be infected is probably going to

get them to jump to a decision

more quickly than lower-income

families.”

Although the risk varies by

school size, in the hardest-hit ar-

eas of the country, even small

schools face significant risks.

In eight states, most people live

in counties where even a school of

only 100 people would probably

see an infected person in the first

week if school started today, the

estimates say: Louisiana, Ala-

bama, Mississippi, Florida, Neva-

da, Tennessee, Arizona and Geor-

gia.

The list is even longer for

schools of 500 people: The vast

majority of people in 19 states, in-

cluding California, Texas and Illi-

nois, live in counties where at

least one infected person would

likely show up to school in the first

week if in-person classes were

held. Many of those areas have

elected to hold classes online for

now.

Many parents are consumed

with the question of returning to

school, and there is hunger for

solid guidance, said Annette

Campbell Anderson, deputy direc-

tor of the Johns Hopkins Center

for Safe and Healthy Schools.

“They want to see the data to

make them feel that they have a

model that they can trust,” Dr. An-

derson said. “And we need it. We

need this kind of data.”

How many infected people might arrive

if classes started today?

Potential number of infected people arriving during the first week of

instruction, in the 25 most populous counties.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sources: Lauren Ancel Meyers and Spencer Fox, the University of Texas at Austin; Michael

Lachmann, Santa Fe Institute. Notes: Estimates approximate the proportion of the population that

is infectious based on the number who were infected during the preceding seven days, from data

ending July 28. The calculations assume that students and teachers come in to school at least

once a week and won’t come in if they are symptomatic. The estimates are likely to change as the

epidemic gets better or worse in certain areas. The estimates assume that five people are infected

for each known case. The estimated range of infected people shown on the map is based on

scenarios with between three and 10 people infected for each known case.

Los Angeles, Calif. 10,000,000 0 0 1 4 8

New York City 8,300,000 0 0 0 1 1

Cook, Ill. 5,200,000 0 0 0 2 4

Harris, Texas 4,700,000 0 0 1 5 10

Maricopa, Ariz. 4,500,000 0 0 1 7 14

San Diego, Calif. 3,300,000 0 0 1 3 5

Orange, Calif. 3,200,000 0 0 1 3 6

Miami-Dade, Fla. 2,700,000 0 0 4 19 38

Dallas, Texas 2,600,000 0 0 1 5 9

Riverside, Calif. 2,500,000 0 0 1 5 10

Clark, Nev. 2,300,000 0 0 1 7 14

King, Wash. 2,300,000 0 0 0 1 3

San Bernardino, Calif. 2,200,000 0 0 1 6 11

Tarrant, Texas 2,100,000 0 0 1 4 9

Bexar, Texas 2,000,000 0 0 2 8 15

Broward, Fla. 2,000,000 0 0 2 12 23

Santa Clara, Calif. 1,900,000 0 0 0 2 3

Wayne, Mich. 1,700,000 0 0 0 1 3

Alameda, Calif. 1,700,000 0 0 0 2 4

Middlesex, Mass. 1,600,000 0 0 0 1 1

Philadelphia, Pa. 1,600,000 0 0 0 2 4

Sacramento, Calif. 1,600,000 0 0 1 3 6

Palm Beach, Fla. 1,500,000 0 0 2 8 16

Suffolk, N.Y. 1,500,000 0 0 0 1 2

Hillsborough, Fla. 1,500,000 0 0 1 6 11

COUNTY POPULATION1 0 100

NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN SCHOOL

500 1, 000

EDUCATION

Odds of Being Exposed by Returning to School

Families are facing

tough decisions as

autumn grows near.

This article is by James Glanz,
Benedict Carey and Matthew
Conlen.

bers during the first week if it re-

opened today.

To deal with that likelihood,

many schools and some states

have enacted contact tracing and

quarantine protocols, with differ-

ing thresholds at which they

would close classrooms or build-

ings.

Because of the low infection

rate locally, New York City, the

largest district in the country,

plans to reopen schools on a hy-

brid model on Sept. 10, with stu-

dents attending in-person classes

one to three days a week. Yet even

there, the system might have to

quickly close if the citywide infec-

tion rate ticks up even modestly.

On Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio

laid out a plan for responding to

positive cases that would mean

many of the city’s 1,800 public

schools would most likely have in-

dividual classrooms or even en-

tire buildings closed at certain

points.

One or two confirmed cases in a

single classroom would require

those classes to close for 14 days,

with all students and staff mem-

bers ordered to quarantine. The

rest of the school would continue

to operate, but if two or more peo-

ple in different classrooms in the

same school tested positive, the

entire building would close for an

investigation, and might not re-

open for two weeks depending on

the results.

In California, where schools in

although some in places like Flor-
ida and Texas are hoping to open
classrooms after a few weeks if in-
fection rates go down, over strong
objections from teachers’ unions.
More than 80 percent of Califor-
nia residents live in counties
where test positivity rates and
hospitalizations are too high for
school buildings to open under
state rules issued last month. And
schools in Alexandria, Va., said on
Friday that they would teach re-
motely, tipping the entire Wash-
ington-Baltimore metro area, with
more than one million children,
into virtual learning for the fall.
In March, when schools across
America abruptly shuttered, it
seemed unimaginable that educa-
tors and students would not re-
turn to school come fall, as they
have in many other parts of the
world. Now, with the virus con-
tinuing to rage, tens of millions of
students will start the year re-
motely, and it has become increas-
ingly clear that only a small per-
centage of children are likely to
see the inside of a school building
before the year ends.
“There’s no good answer,” Mark
Henry, superintendent of the Cy-
press-Fairbanks Independent
School District near Houston, told
trustees at a recent special meet-
ing in which they voted to post-
pone the district’s hybrid reopen-
ing until September. “If there was
a good answer, if there were an
easy answer,” he said, “we would
lay it out for you and everybody
would be happy.”
Anywhere that schools do re-
open — outside of a portion of the
Northeast where the virus is
largely under control — is likely to
see positive test results quickly, as
in Indiana.
A New York Times analysis
found that in many districts in the
Sun Belt, at least 10 people in-
fected with the coronavirus would
be expected to arrive at a school of
about 500 students and staff mem-

two-thirds of the state have been

barred from reopening in person

for now, state guidelines call for a

school to close for at least 14 days

if more than 5 percent of its stu-

dents, faculty and staff test pos-

itive over a two-week period.

Chicago, the nation’s third-larg-

est school district, has proposed a

hybrid system for reopening that

would put students into 15-mem-

ber pods that can be quarantined

if one member tests positive.

School buildings should close if

the city averages more than 400

new cases a week or 200 cases a

day, the plan states, with other

worrying factors like low hospital

capacity or a sudden spike in

cases taken into account.

In Indiana, where the middle

school student tested positive on

Thursday in Greenfield, an Indi-

anapolis suburb of 23,000 people,

the virus began to spike in mid-

June, and the caseload has re-

mained relatively high. This week,

Indianapolis opted to start the

school year online.

The Greenfield-Central Com-

munity School Corporation, with

eight schools and 4,400 students,

gave families the option of in-per-

son or remote learning. At Green-

field Central Junior High School,

which the student with the pos-

itive test attends, about 15 percent

of the 700 enrolled students opted

for remote learning, said Mr. Olin,

the superintendent.

“It was overwhelming that our

families wanted us to return,” he

said, adding that families needed

to be responsible and not send stu-

dents to school if they were dis-

playing symptoms or awaiting

test results. Students are also re-

quired to wear masks except

when they are eating or for physi-

cal education outside, he said —

and as far as he knew, the student

who tested positive was doing so.

Anyone who was within six feet

of the student for more than 15

minutes on Thursday was in-

structed to isolate themselves for

two weeks, Mr. Olin said. He

would not give a specific number

of people who were affected at the

school, but he said no teachers or

staff members were identified as

close contacts, and therefore none

have been told to quarantine.

“It really doesn’t change my

opinion about whether we should

start or not,” Mr. Olin said. “If we

get down the road and realize that

we need to make some adjust-

ments, we’re not opposed to that.”

He said that the district did not

have a specific threshold for when

it would close a school, but that it

would likely do so if absences

reached 20 percent. The state has

not provided specific guidance to

schools on when they should shut

their doors, he said.

Some teachers in the district

said the positive case on the first

day confirmed their fears about

returning.

“I most definitely felt like we

were not ready,” said Russell Wi-

ley, a history teacher at nearby

Greenfield-Central High School.

“Really, our whole state’s not

ready. We don’t have the virus un-

der control. It’s just kind of like

pretending like it’s not there.”

One father whose daughter

goes to the middle school with the

positive case said he felt con-

flicted about his three children at-

tending classes in person. Few

people in the community are

wearing masks, said the father,

who asked not to be named be-

cause he worried that his family

would face backlash.

“I have all these concerns,” the

father said. But he has to com-

mute at least an hour to work ev-

ery day, so remote learning was

not a good option for his family.

“It’s just a mess,” he said. “I

don’t know what the answers are.”

Students leaving Greenfield Central Junior High School in Indiana on Friday, a day after a student tested positive.

AJ MAST FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Most of the nation’s largest school districts are planning to start
the new term remotely. Above, a family in Washington.

ERIC BARADAT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Indiana School Learns

Of Student’s Infection

On the First Day Back

From Page A

Some students and staff members at Greenfield Central Junior High School in Indiana were told

to quarantine for two weeks after a student tested positive on the first day of school on Thursday.

AJ MAST FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Preparing for the

likelihood of

quarantines.

REOPENING ROADBLOCKS

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