Thread by @DrEricDing

I’m trying hard to square this:

📍CDC this weekend: not really safe to have a #SuperBowl party with people outside your home.

📍Also CDC: it’s safe for teachers to teach kids/teens, in person, indoors, 5 days/week.

🤔...and let loud kids eat at lunch indoors unmasked? #COVID19

2) To be clear — I am a firm believer kids need to go back to school. and as an epidemiologist, a staunch CDC advocation. But we need to call a spade a spade on this issue. Kids definitely do transmit. Here is the best collection of evidence in 🧵why it does from Dr @dgurdasani1.

https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1346362159446577154

3) This makes the clear case that school transmission of #COVID19 does occur, and increases when cases levels rise—which then further drives school transmission. It’s an analytical thread but it’s the Bottomline: Schools are not impervious to transmission. Can’t lie to ourselves.

https://twitter.com/SarahDRasmussen/status/1356302433237008391

4) Here is my earlier thread in transmission in kids. It starts by highlighting the key conclusions from UK 🇬🇧 govt’s expert group: words speak for themselves. See 🧵 below.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1345858404263321600

5) Look, I hate hate hate school closures just as much as anyone else with kids. I don’t share it for any agenda—other than stopping then pandemic so that we can return to normal lives sooner and send kids back to school **sooner**. #ZeroCovid is the way. Earlier study:

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1347860038661140483

6) here is also data from CDC showing that counties with large colleges or universities with remote instruction experienced a 17.9% decrease in incidence of #COVID19, while those with in person had 56% increase in incidence. Again, it’s a CDC report by CDC authors.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1353112560409698306

7) I’m a firm believer in mask needed for any indoor space, but we also know mask rules + 6 feet alone are not silver bullets, especially in crowded rooms with poor ventilation. VENTILATION is key. Both ventilation and masks needed to reduce risk indoors

8) My stance is that we need school reopenings—but SAFE reopenings that address the highly contagious airborne transmission. Ventilate, upgrade air cleaning with HEPA filters per classroom, maybe install germicidal UV in the HVAC, or upper air UV toward ceiling—but most of all—

9) We need to strongly address indoor cafeteria lunchtime eating mess— it’s a disaster waiting to happen if kids eat together indoors unmasked at lunch. There has been ZERO valid arguments offering why that is safe. My stance: We need outdoor tent lunch eating.

10) we DEFINITELY need kids to mask if we reopen. Kids, even if less susceptible than adults, do transmit (@dgurdasani1 and I have entire long long 🧵s on this) and transmit more. So as an epidemiologist, I cannot endorse indoor cafeterias. Outdoor tents please.

11) Why can’t we construct / assemble more outdoor tents meantime? And yes, outdoor tents cost money, but they cannot be THAT much more to acquire—cities/states/federal govt should fund them. I think we can reopen schools if we have outdoor ventilated tents for lunch— I’m in.

12) Thus, going forward—We should demand to see real solutions in school reopening plans to address LUNCHROOM SAFETY. Kids obviously can’t mask while eating lunch, and we can’t do no-mask indoors. Either uber-ventilate/disinfect cafeterias or just MOVE LUNCHES OUTDOORS.

13) Another idea if we can only have indoor cafeterias, is to possibly use upper air UV (used in restaurants that circulates air to ceiling where UV lights are safely pointed). Upper air UV can achieve 15 air exchanges per hour says @ShellyMBoulder. That’s better than airplanes.

14) or alternatively bring pair of 2x huge air flow tubes connected to outside that ventilates the cafeteria at *high* speed. But this will need to ensure air ventilation is sufficient for a cafeteria depending on occupancy levels. We have to radically rethink indoor air safety.

15) We can do this if we try, and don’t ostrich our heads in the sand. We love our kids and we want them to goto school, so we can solve these school safety issues with existing technology. Don’t say we can’t—we have landed people on the Moon with 1969 tech. We can do this folks!

16) Government needs step up with funding for sufficient HEPA filters / air upgrades for every school... we can make schools safe. All the environmental engineering scientists say we can. The key thing is that we must now DO.

17) Also, Israel is seeing a sharp rise in the number of children and teens getting infected with coronavirus, according to 🇮🇱 Health Ministry.

“This is something we did not witness in previous waves of coronavirus,” Health Minister said. #COVID19

jpost.com/health-science…

18) This week in a village in Italy 🇮🇹... 140 #COVID19 infected out of 1400 residents... mostly kids. It was the #B117 variant.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1357599530296958982

19) Join me this coming Thursday for a special PBS @NewsHourExtra for a discussion on schools and COVID with teachers and school staff. Hosted by @saribethrose.

RSVP to participate: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

https://twitter.com/NewsHourExtra/status/1358038762933137409

20) And.... now we see the effect of school reopenings in the U.K.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1360289161291390983