I'd like to invite you to go scilunking with me.
What is scilunking? It's spelunking within studies.
First cave we enter, Dr. Gurdasani's headlamp shows us that kids infect each other...and their parents.
This is a great thread! Read it, then come back for .... gold!
Her second tweet had this study. A genomic tracing study and confirmation of transmission within schools.
wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27…
But something in this cave caught the corner of my eye.
A furtive movement.
"most school-associated cases are acquired outside of school"
Hoeg.
A cold wind blows from the depths of the cave.
Dare we?
"Hey, I was promised GOLD, not HOEG!"
You are right, let's go deeper.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
Our headlamps have found gold! 37% less transmission in school!
Where will you spend yours?
Wait a second though. There's something off about this gold.
It's fool's gold.
✅ Kids are often asymptomatic.
⚠️Absence of child to staff transmission does not mean transmission in school is uncommon. We'll come back to this.
⚠️ Reference #5 says asymptomatic attack rate is only .7% within household, so we are to believe kids don't transmit.
So, we move sideways into that cave, and we see what that study says.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…
It says asymptomatic index cases are .7%.
Which means the first person found to be infected was asymptomatic.
Does not state if child or adult.
Were children actually addressed?
Yes. Data was limited, but a study was found indicating relatively high transmission from kids!
The exact opposite of what Hoeg tried to fool us into believing!
And thus, we have our fool's gold.
Remember I promised to come back to child to adult transmission?
About that. Hoeg's study was in Wood County, Wisconsin, September-November 2020.
Guess what they had in school?
Teachers and students wearing masks.
In rural Wood County, did they have a mask mandate? Yes.
Technically.
The state was under a mask mandate.
But the sheriff said there would be no enforcement.
waow.com/2020/07/31/lis…
So, in all likelihood, there was much less mask wearing in the community than the 92-97% mask wearing in the school.
And for sure there was no cohorting, etc. in the community.
But all of those NPI's were in the school.
And this is the real gold from this scilunking expedition:
NPI's work.
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