Thread by @denise_dewald

My recent op-ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on school opening in the time of delta.


The schools are not safe.

My views to not represent the views of my employer.

and a 🧵1/n
cleveland.com/opinion/2021/0…

I am not the only one who is saying it. @mtosterholm is saying it as well, and he is one of the world's foremost infectious disease experts.

"No more happy talk."

Please listen to his recent podcast on delta; school discussion starts at 49:21. 2/n

I am including a transcript below because what he said was so very important, and he provides concise recommendations for making schools safer.

After this segment please listen to Dr. Jena talk about what it is like in the ICU. It is worth listening to. 3/n

I will put the entire school safety section transcript in photos right now; it is 9 pages long.

In the subsequent tweets, I will break the discussion down into pieces.

pages 1-4 4/n

pages 5-8 5/n

page 9

I will start the "fast" Twitter run-down next Tweet. Quotes are from Dr. Osterholm. 6/n

"The most important recommendation I can make right now is we have got to stop with the happy talk...We in public health have to be completely transparent and honest about what we know and don’t know about transmission of this virus in kids, and what it means for opening schools"

"...the data that has been used to develop the CDC guidelines for children attending schools has largely been collected from the period before the first alpha variant showed up in this country, let alone delta....so the CDC recommendations frankly...are built on a house of cards"

"So when we talk, for example, about the distance of three feet is acceptable in the school if you have a face cloth covering on defies gravity!"
9/n

"Why? Because we know face cloth coverings have LIMITED protection...I want ADEQUATE masking."

"And who in their right mind believes that an aerosol is only going to be transmitted three feet or less, or that Plexiglas will make a difference?" 10/n

"...educators have then thus become convinced that they can open their schools safely based on this new information from public health...WE HAVE MISLED THEM." 11/n

Reality check with school opening:
"Right now, more than 1 in every 100 school aged children has tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 2 weeks in Georgia..... If you look at what has happened in Florida right now, the same situation is there." 12/n

Quoting CDC guidelines, he says it is not possible to make schools safe during delta.

"That is, to say to get kids back in person safely. I don’t think that is possible today...What does “safely” mean? It’s not what’s going to happen in our schools in the next 3-6 weeks." 13/n

"WHAT ARE WE DOING, PUTTING KIDS IN HARM’S WAY, BY PUTTING THEM IN AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE IT IS NOT EVEN 3 FEET MAINTAINED?" 14/n

"And the science is telling us with delta, it is absolutely impossible to open up schools and not have major transmission when you are talking about the issues of how close kids are, what kind of respiratory protection they are using, etc." 15/n

"It is again not scientifically sound information to say that you can make schools safe. We can make them safer, and we have to do that." 16/n

Here is the hierarchy of how to fix this:

"The first thing we do, is we use our vaccines." 17/n

Now come the recommendations on how to stop airborne spread:

"The top one is all about VENTILATION: moving air in and out of a room."

"Ironically, masking is at the very bottom! It’s not the top!" 18/n

"The second thing is: you can use portable air cleaners. They can be VERY effective....buy one that has HEPA filters."

If HEPA filters are not available, make a Corsi box! 19/n

Distance: "So 3 feet distance is wrong, wrong, wrong. CDC is wrong, wrong, wrong. I don’t care who in the education world, and who in the public health world did those studies, I will tell you right now, it defies gravity to think that 3’ apart will make a difference with delta."

We need some serious quarantining guidelines, not this 15-minute exposure jazz:

"I think delta right now, quite honestly, the data we have would support the fact that this is probably transmitted within seconds to minutes in terms of contact time for transmission." 21/n

He rips apart BS quarantining guidelines:

"The virus will do what it is going to do, and it is not going to be deciding what it is going to do based on what you decide to do as an administrator." 22/n

Hospitals are becoming overwhelmed

"So if your child gets severely ill, don’t count on getting a pediatric intensive care bed, or even getting a pediatric intensive care doctor and nurses to take care of them. We have got to dramatically decrease transmission in our kids." 23/n

He talks about masks: We should be using N95 masks or equivalent, and we need to be teaching people how to use them properly. 24/n

Summary for parents:
1. Vaccination
2. Ventiliation
3. Filtration
4. Spacing
5. Testing/quarantining
6. Masks 25/n

And finally, a warning: "I will not tell you that this is going to be safe....This is delta. This is a virus that is going to do what it is going to do, and our best efforts to try to limit its transmission will always be challenged."