Light at the End of the Tunnel

 Dear Superintendent and School Board Members,

March 15, 2021

"I know that people have made commitments, our elected officials have made commitments to get these schools opened up. I hope they take a pause and just at least look at these data that are showing that this may not be the time to open schools," Michael Osterholm, 3/12/21, CBS News. Osterholm noted that B117 is more infectious than the original strain of COVID-19 and causes more serious adverse health reactions, adding that studies show that that there has been an increase in serious illness in younger people in Europe.

Mitigating the spread: "We are within weeks to months of getting most of this country vaccinated. Wouldn't you want not to be the person who dies two weeks before they're supposed to get their dose of vaccine? That I think is the message we have to get across."

Safe, A Meaningless Word During a Pandemic

 Dear Superintendent and School Board Members,

March 14, 2021

Please halt this madness now, before it is too late. Reopening our schools now would be reckless, irresponsible and potentially deadly. Any claim that children do not significantly transmit COVID-19 and that schools can be safely reopened now is a lie. The most accurate and honest thing anyone can say is that with consistently effective mitigation efforts, the risk of infection and death can be reduced. Furthermore, all claims of “safety” refer ONLY to the “safety” of students and staff, but completely ignore the impact on community spread. But most significantly, the studies used to justify reopening schools are based on outdated studies of the wild type (original strain) of covid and tell us little to nothing about how the UK variant will affect students and staff.

Fallacy #1: All The Scientific Data Show That Reopening Schools is Safe This is simply untrue. What the data show is that school infections continue to happen, even with mitigation efforts, but that student deaths and hospitalizations are low compared with adults in the community at large. This is NOT safe. Safe would mean parents can trust that their kids won’t get sick or hurt at school. This is NOT something we can honestly promise them. 

1. More importantly, these studies ONLY look at the effects on students and staff, NOT on how schools contribute to community spread outside the schools. This review of international government interventions, in Nature Human Behaviour, showed school closures as second only to barring small gatherings in reducing community spread. 
2. The Journal of the American Medical Association published this study showing statewide school closures in the United States resulted in a 60 percent decrease in COVID incidence and mortality. 
3. This recent study in The Lancet looking at the impact of closing schools in 131 different countries, found that after one month, school closures were associated with a 20% decline in the reproduction number (the average number of people infected by each new case of SARS-CoV-2), while reopening school sites was associated with a 20 percent increase. 
4. In Michigan, where much of the state has resumed in-person instruction, schools are now the leading source of new COVID-19 outbreaks.  

Fallacy #2: The Current Science is Relevant 

1. All the studies saying that opening schools is safe are based on outdated research on the wild type (original strain of covid). But the British variant B.1.1.7 has grown from 1-4% of the viruses in the US analyzed four weeks ago to 30-40% now (over 50% in Florida). Therefore, the recommendations made by the CDC and other health agencies is based on outdated data and can NOT be trusted. 
2. What we do know about the UK variant is that it is significantly more infectious in school settings, significantly more contagious to kids, and substantially more deadly than the wild type. Therefore, reopening the schools now, with this strain on the rise, would not only be unsafe, but criminally irresponsible.  
3. It is 40-80% more transmissible overall, which means that when kids do pick it up at school and bring it home, it will spread much more quickly in the community, causing a sudden and sharp jump in the county’s daily infection rate, bring us quickly back into the purple tier and force us to reclose within a few weeks of reopening (or sooner).  
4. Europe is currently struggling to contain their third wave of the pandemic, caused by the more infectious and deadlier variants, and by reopening their schools and permitting public gatherings.  

There is no amount of money that Governor Newsom can give the district that would justify risking a single student getting sick, let alone dying. No amount of money that would justify contributing to the next surge, as reopening would likely do.  
 
We cannot make reckless and irresponsible decisions based on the loudest screams, coming from a minority of privileged families. When close to half our students are choosing NOT to return to the classroom, we should take that as an indication that families do NOT think it’s safe. And the number of returning students will likely decline sharply after the first week when they realize that in-person school is NOTHING like it was before the pandemic, when they realize just how onerous and unpleasant it is to stand in long lines just to get onto campus, to be fully masked for 7 hours straight, only to continue doing the same Zoom lessons as before. 
 
Mr. Superintendent, school board members, please stop ignoring the studies that say schools are unsafe. You do so at your own peril. When students and family members start getting sick, hospitalized and die, the lawsuits will follow. We cannot give any families what they really want in terms of a normalized classroom experience. Consequently, the angry complaints, the screaming and ranting, possibly even the threats, will continue, even if you continue with this reckless drive to reopen the schools.  
 
The only thing we can truly guarantee our students and families is that no one will be sickened or killed by our schools IF and ONLY IF we keep them closed and continue with Distance Learning until the pandemic is under control. 
 
Thank you again for your time and consideration, 

Reopening Schools: Dangerous and Irresponsible

 Dear Superintendent and School Board, 

March 11, 2021

You must put the brakes on reopening now and start the process of planning for the Fall, 2021 school year, and educating parents and the community about why you have changed directions. 

 

First, it is irresponsible, dangerous and cruel to be reopening any crowded indoor environments now, including schools, as most of the country is already in the early stages of the next surge, a surge that will be greatly accelerated by the presence of multiple new highly infectious variants. The UK variant is expected to become the dominant variant in the U.S. within the next two weeks. It’s 59-70% more infectious than the wild-type (original) Covid. The experience in the UK and other European countries was that it spread much more easily among children and teens, and that schools were a major source of new outbreaks. Indeed, we are already seeing large clusters of school outbreaks in Michigan, and in Colorado. 

 

It’s not just the increased risk of infection with these new variants. They are deadlier, too. A new study found that the death rate for the UK Variant was 64% higher in people 30 and older. That age group includes the vast majority of our staff members, as well as the vast majority of our students’ family members. Most adults still have not been vaccinated. Even for those 75 and older, only 50% have received their full 2 doses. The only people under 65 who have been vaccinated are some teachers, some food workers, some emergency service workers, and many frontline health workers. That leaves the overwhelming majority of parents, extended family members and community members vulnerable to infection and death by this more deadly and transmissible strain. Consequently, 2021 could be like 1919, when the Spanish flu mutated and became much more virulent, and the mortality that year dwarfed the already terrible death toll in 1918. 

 

Secondly, there is no way to ensure that the schools are truly safe. Asymptomatic and presymptomatic people easily pass through wellness checkpoints. Even with improved HVAC systems, desks 6 feet apart, masks and plexiglass shields, there will still be 10 or more people sharing an indoor space and swapping air for extended periods of time, and some virus will continue to circulate. This is why school outbreaks continue to proliferate, in spite of mitigation efforts, as we saw in Europe in Dec-Jan, and we are seeing now in Michigan and Colorado. Even the CDC’s own back-to-school recommendations were based on studies in which school outbreaks continued to happen. 

 

So, what you are really telling teachers, students, families and the public is NOT that it is safe to return to school. This is not something you can guarantee during a pandemic. What you are actually telling all of us is that YOU ARE WILLING TO ACCEPT A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF ILLNESS AND DEATH in exchange for giving roughly 50% of our students (because the other 50% have opted out, as they understand that they’d be risking their lives and those of their family members) the chance to continue doing the exact same Zoom lessons they’d be doing at home, but with masks on, inside crowded classrooms, after waiting in long lines at the wellness checks, and with oppressive restrictions on movement and behavior throughout the day. After 2-3 days of this, many of the students who opted in for in-person, will see how onerous it is. They will stop coming and we’ll be taking these unnecessary and potentially deadly risks for only a fraction of our student population. 

 

This is unacceptable. The superintendent and school board members are not gods and should not be playing god with the lives of tens of thousands of Bay Area community members. I say tens of thousands of lives because it’s not just our students who will be affected when an outbreak occurs. Infected students will take it back into their homes and neighborhoods, infect vulnerable family and community members, who will, in turn, spread it to vulnerable neighbors, shop keepers, strangers at the playground. And this will exacerbated the next surge and magnify the number of hospitalizations and deaths. 

 

One final comment on the absurdity and irresponsibility of the March 31/April 1 return-to-school date. Assuming we actually stay in the red tier for a full 4 weeks and get a full 4-5 days in the orange tier, as required by the agreement between the district and the teachers' union, this would leave us with only 2-3 days of in-person learning. Then we’ll have spring break and lots of people traveling, who will then be forbidden from returning to school. Like we saw this winter, that travel will either lead to a new surge or exacerbate the one that is brewing now, and force the reclosure of the schools. 

 

I hope I am wrong about another terrible surge sending us back into the purple. But why bother reopening for only 3 days before spring break? It would be a lot more rational, prudent and compassionate to everyone to wait until after spring break, see if we are still in the orange or if we have backslid, give people who traveled a chance to quarantine, give the district more time to upgrade and test HVAC systems and meet the other stipulations in the agreement. There is no rational or compelling reason to reopen on April 1, rather than April 12. That’s only 3 days of instructional time, but it buys us an extra 12 days to get prepared and watch the infection trends. 

 

Even more prudent, responsible, compassionate and sane would be to wait until the fall of 2021 to reopen. By then, all adults will have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. Possibly teenagers, too. Hopefully, by then, we will be back down into the yellow or green and actually be able to do the proper testing and contact tracing to keep the numbers that low. We will have had plenty of time to ensure that all HVAC systems are repaired, upgraded and tested. Plenty of time for professional development over summer break. Plenty of time to observe the infection trends and make sure we really are at protracted low-point. 

 

Lastly, there is NO acceptable amount of illness or death. Anyone, student, staff or family member, who does get sick, hospitalized or dies because of a covid infection connected to the reopening of our schools, will be a tragedy that could have been averted, that was unnecessary, and that was caused by the irresponsible decision of this school board to reopen the schools. No amount of bribery or threats from the governor justifies reopening now and subjecting anyone to the risk of dying or losing a family member. No amount of screaming and threatening by a loud and vocal minority of mostly very privileged parents justifies those risks.  

 

I understand how difficult it would be to put on the brakes now, after you’ve been cheerleading for weeks about the imminent reopening. But it can and needs to be done. And it won’t be half as difficult as writing those letters of condolence to our students, staff and family members who lose loved ones because of infections picked up at our schools. Nor half as bad as all the wrongful death lawsuits that follow. 

 

Thank you again for your time and consideration,