Some excerpts from my recent piece in Newsweek on how we can manage a third year of disrupted schooling:
Several trends point to another year of interrupted schooling. The first is inconsistency in vaccination rates across the country. The best defense against the coronavirus and its variants is a vaccine, but low vaccination rates create a path for the more transmissible Delta variant to spread. Inevitably, a positive test will lead to large numbers of students out of school. In England, one million students were absent from school one week in July due to quarantine and self-isolation protocols.
Another trend is the erosion of confidence in our scientific institutions. It's difficult for school leaders and parents to "follow the science" when officials are pointing in different directions. Disagreement between the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC over whether vaccinated individuals need to wear masks in schools in one example. British health officials decided not to vaccinate most teens after concluding that the health benefits were small and did not outweigh the potential risks. The disagreement quickly spread through social media networks of vaccine-hesitant parents, reinforcing fears that scientists don't really know the risks of vaccinating children.
I outline five steps we can take to manage this uncertainty, including:
First, the question should not be whether we reopen schools, but rather how we do so. The vast majority of research suggests that we can safely reopen schools with well-established mitigation measures. Resolve to Save Lives, an organization founded by former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden, reviewed the most recent scientific evidence and concluded, "Evidence from around the world suggests that children spread COVID-19 less than adults; that children with COVID-19 are less likely than adults to become severely ill; and that in-person education has not meaningfully increased community transmission when schools have mitigation measures in place."
Third, asymptomatic COVID-19 screening programs are essential not only to identify cases, but to assure nervous parents and faculty that schools are safe. Testing could also become an alternative to quarantining large groups of students. In the United Kingdom, researchers from the University of Oxford found daily testing could reduce absences by up to 39 percent.
Fourth, we need a dedicated outreach campaign to address parents' questions about the vaccine. Instead of stigmatizing hesitant parents, we need to create space for them to raise their concerns and find answers without the judgmental tone that defines the debate right now. Such an effort needs to involve pediatricians who command trust among parents. Governors should also explore making the vaccine easily accessible through clinics at schools and local doctors' offices.