In a call w @Theresa_Chapple y’day, I was reminded of all the community members, researchers, & on-the-ground govt folks pulling together to offer constructive data, guidelines, etc. to help us all make it through #COVID19. 1/
@Theresa_Chapple In that spirit of gratitude, I’m highlighting this 🧵.
Harvard folks in public health, education, etc, have made many resources, frameworks & guidelines to help communities make good decisions about when and how K-12 schools could have in-person classes.
But they shouldn’t have had to spearhead this kind of effort. The US federal government has capable experts who could have led these efforts 6 months ago. But our govt did not prioritize letting them do this work. So here we are. Piecing it together the best we can. 3/
Addendum: The work is not just Harvard folks! I apologize. In the thread, you’ll see folks from across the country tagged. People are coming together to pitch in.
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Again, many great quotes but this one deeply resonated with my personal experience: “Yet when Black women ‘do say no to additional projects, we are seen as anti-team player, unwilling to be collegial,’ Lima-Neves said...”2/
The most galling thing said to me in 2020 was from a senior leader in response to my asking him why his leadership team was all-White over many years despite the presence of talented non-White faculty (like myself)...
So THEN someone in our “You’re on yr own” US executive says, “Actually I do have some thoughts!”
and bullies the actual *CDC* (the home of elite force of disease detectives who live to identify and squash outbreaks) into saying...2/
“Hey school districts, in case you were thinking about doing the extraordinary & forward-thinking work of standing up a whole #SARSCoV2 surveillance system in your K-12 schools bc yr federal govt has abandoned you...3/
@HeidiKKim The excess deaths among the Asian subgroup in April and May are striking.
Part of the spin I’m seeing online is the 1/3 of deaths not #COVID19. But the timing and patterning of these so close to the COVID19 deaths that I suspect many actually are miscoded deaths that really were COVID. What do y’all think?
First, @ProfEmilyOster, an economist, has spearheaded the most comprehensive data collection efforts re: #SARSCoV2 spread in US schools that I know of. Correct me if I’m wrong. I’d like to see other better data sources. 2/
She’s had to do this bc of a profound abdication of authority and will from the US government but also bc no one else (including us in #epitwitter - again, correct me if I’m missing better data sources) did it... 3/
1/ Maybe it’s my #epitwitter bias, but I get frustrated by the outsized attention these hospital-based viral load comparison studies (kids vs adults) get. And interpreted as children as a group highly infectious...
2/ the epidemiologic evidence of actual transmission in real-life settings (household studies, popn-representative seroprevalence studies, overall experiences of daycares and elementary schools globally) has indicated than young children lower risk than adults re: spread...
3/ the viral load studies seem much less relevant evidence...
* viral load is not live virus nor infectiousnes. For instance, viral load often stays high for a while in #COVID19 patients who are no longer infectious. Viral load is necessary but not sufficient for infectiousness
1/ Not that @jbouie needs me to pump up his work, but I will anyway. This essay is excellent for scholars who do work in U.S. Black populations but are not explicitly trained in the theory and history of racial stratification...
2/ A lot of people have learned that race is "socially constructed." But what does that mean? This article explores that question at a macro level (get ready for a quick historical tour) and at a meso/micro level in the person and story of Kamala Harris.
3/ An aside: earlier this week, I walked past one of my neighbors, a 60-something Black American women, sitting out on a swing. She was wearing a distinctively pink and green t-shirt. I told her "Congratulations!" That was it. That's what I said. We smiled. @akasorority1908