THREAD: The way we talk about cases in child care programs & schools is continuing to inflate COVID fears and making it much harder than necessary to get our youngest students back in the classroom. Here's a really good example:
That sounds bad! 13 child cares & schools (out of how many, we of course aren't told). But in this case the ignored denominator isn't even the sin, the scatter plot is. The Chronicle article tells us that 30(!) cases are linked to 1 preschool. Obviously, that's not good! But...
That only leaves 32 cases for the other 12 sites. As we learn from this KTLA article, there was a family child care home with 9 cases. Now we're down to 23 cases for the other 11 sites. You see where this is going?
Even if you distribute those 23 cases evenly, that's about 2 per site, which are awful hard to connect (there's a reason why many states don't start reporting an 'outbreak' until between 3 and 5 linked cases show up). So the actual headline is...
"Two outbreaks in Sonoma County, 11 other sites with cases." All of which continues to tell us only what we already know -- outbreaks can and will happen, most single cases don't lead to big outbreaks, and most programs have no cases at all. Sigh. Here's what frustrates me most:
We act as if we don't have a pretty solid grasp of the risk level posed by child cares & elementary schools. We do! European officials are so much more candid. Look at how they talk about Covid and kids in this article...
"Children are not identified as the main driver of the pandemic." / “The schools are not driving this. The schools are a mirror of what’s going on in society.” / "If asymptomatic transmission was common, we should be seeing a lot more cases than [we are]." Now! Does this mean...
...the European experts are being blind or blunt-edged? No, they're clear-eyed: “It is clear that children can pass on the virus to each other. It’s not that this doesn’t exist." The recent JAMA piece by @apsmunro is similarly frank about the fact that transmission happens and...
...that community spread rates still matter enormously. Again, we know how this works in terms of defining the risk of young kids and covid! There's more to learn, but it's not a big huge giant mystery anymore. We need to stop treating it as such. SO...
I'd like to see every journalist covering kids & COVID commit to the following:
1) Always use denominators 2) Always cite community spread levels / compare to rates in general population 2) Be super-clear about defining cases vs. outbreaks 3) Acknowledge the larger evidence base
America is exceptional in one other way, and I'll conclude here: Our public is *way* more against returning to in-person school than most of Europe. As @ajlamesa has been chronicling, many Europeans protest at the very whiff of closures. I daresay that's partially because...
Americans have been given a false sense of risk when it comes to young kids and COVID. This isn't easy, particularly on deadline (and not just media: many of our elected & appointed leaders are also bad at communicating clearly). But there's real harm to risk distortion!...
And if this problematic narrative keeps up that kids are either super risky 'silent spreaders' or a giant who-can-say of a shrug emoji, it's going to continue to poison what could be otherwise reasonable reopening discussions. We can and must do better. /end
( 1) 2) 2) 3) will haunt my writer dreams, but I’m going to leave the typo intact to avoid deleting a mid-thread tweet 😂 )
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One of the greatest differences between the U.S. and nations that lead the pack on family outcomes is an understanding that, as the Nordic Council of Ministers says, "the well-being of children is strongly linked to that of their parents."
In the U.S., we often segment out the child from the parents. Think about the way that we focus on 'school readiness' by what the kid can do w/o considering factors like housing stability. We want a playground for the kid w/little consideration for how parents can socialize.
Similarly, until pretty recently, America has had very little to say about how working conditions, schedule predictability, and job quality impact parental well-being. That conversation is much more sophisticated (and has policy teeth) in many peer nations.
🧵Ok, we need to talk about this. We've reached the point where in a well-intentioned attempt to do ANYTHING about child care, the administration is taking an action that may be actively counterproductive. Let me explain.
First off, I have SO MANY QUESTIONS about how this is going to work. Options include "company child-care centers near construction sites or new plants, paying local child-care providers to add capacity at an affordable cost for workers, directly subsidizing workers’ care costs"
Ok, but you realize we have a MASSIVE child care educator shortage right now, yes? Do any of these companies need to ensure educators get a competitive wage? What happens if their workers just end up on waiting lists? Doesn't feel fully thought out.
None of this has to be complicated. There are enough public buildings around -- elementary school gyms could easily be used on the weekends -- and local gvm't could partner with volunteer orgs, faith communities etc. to staff them. Toys, coffee machine, you're set.
🧵I had a fascinating experience today at this Helsinki playground that reinforced for me just how backwards the U.S. gets its family policy.
(And no, this isn't gonna be another 'if only America was Finland' thread)
I went with my daughters to attend a free arts & crafts activity at the children's center adjoining the playground (many Finnish playgrounds have these, and there are different staffed activities every day).
A Finnish father was there with his delightful 15-month-old son.
We struck up a conversation and it emerged that he was on his third day of paternity leave. His wife had been taking care of their son before going back to work, and now he had three months of full-time care before the toddler started attending a child care program in January.
That's 3% of your annual income and close to a $150 increase in your monthly food budget!
Of course, this assumes that your district is actually able to operate its school meal program as usual; if it's not, now you're buying more at the grocery store.
"Under a policy of broadly expanded subsidies that limits family payments for ECE to no more than 7% of income among those up to 250% of national median income, we estimate that mothers’ employment would increase by six percentage points while full-time... nber.org/papers/w30140?…
"...employment would increase by nearly 10 percentage points, with substantially larger increases among lower-income families...
...Despite the increased use of formal care, family expenditures on ECE services would decrease throughout most of the income distribution..."
(10%!)
...For example, families in the bottom three income quintiles would experience expenditure reductions of 76%, 68%, and 55%, respectively. Finally, teacher wages and market prices would increase to attract workers with higher levels of education."