Strong story by @Kaubo with a small contribution by me (I interviewed Professor McLaws) 👉🏼 COVID-19 study clears NSW schools for student return smh.com.au/national/safe-…
This study might provide some context for the PM’s comments on Friday, when he said social distancing wasn’t necessary in schools and teachers were more at risk in the staffroom than the classroom.
I don’t endorse or condone any comments that teachers need to “get back to work”. I know my kids’ teachers and my teacher friends have been working extremely hard first with the online pivot and then as the goal posts keep shifting.
I would like everyone to listen to experts and consider evidence. It’s not magical thinking to say schools are reasonably safe for most kids and teachers, it’s science. There’s the NSW Health study and there’s also what other, independent epidemiologists say.
I asked Prof Mary-Louise McLaws, an epidemiologist at UNSW, if it was inevitable that having more face-to-face teaching in schools would lead to wider community transmission. She said no, as long as adults in schools keep their distance from each other, and parents don’t linger.
She said scientists had moved on from idea that children could be asymptomatic super-spreaders of CoVID-19. Kids are instrumental in spreading influenza because they have lower immunity but they are NOT drivers of COVID-19. Theory is they don’t have receptor sites for the virus.
Of course some children do get COVID-19. Prof McLaws said scientists are still figuring out why some kids get it and others don’t. Is it because of comorbidities? Or something else? There is a lot we don’t know.
But Prof McLaws was very clear that if children were instrumental in spreading COVID-19 to each other and adults they’re in contact with, you’d see a very different epidemic curve not just in Australia (where suppression has been successful so far) but overseas too.
She also said that students in senior high school still have the epidemiological profile of children not adults. The profile changes when young adults hit the age of 30, not before. It’s largely about travel and intermingling in the community.
I found this pretty interesting. Anyway, I realise there are many factors that go into the decisions around schools besides public health - keeping teachers happy, educational goals for kids, keeping parents employed etc. But this is the latest on the science. Hope it was useful.
Update: Professor Mary-Louise McLaws is on Twitter and had this to share last night.
