Thread by @AstorAaron

This chart is fascinating. Some school mitigation measures actually helped reduce covid and some made it worse. Not necessarily the ones you'd think of either. Masks? Teachers needed them, but not students. Plexi-shield? Prevented ventilation and made it worse. Extracurriculars?

https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1390785863857147909

My theory on extracurriculars - though based anecdotally - is that the danger was with carpools and, occasionally, locker rooms. But actual sports - even indoor close contact sports like wrestling? Not much of a risk. Oh, and part-time instruction? Doesn't help at all.

I'm also surprised that temperature/symptom checks had so much positive effect. I had thought those were mostly theater. But I guess a lot of MS and HS students weren't telling parents of symptoms and were prevented from in-school spread thanks to these monitors.

Also, a thing about cloth masks. Of course they don't prevent all aerosolized viral particles from getting out or coming in. But they do seem to prevent *some* particles from transmitting (both directions). Thus they lower viral load. So they are not an all-or-nothing solution.

And then there are the vaccines, which are extremely effective at stopping both symptomatic disease and viral transmission. With 12-15s about to be approved for vax, there is no reason MS and HS cannot operate 100% normal in the Fall.

Since teachers are likelier to spread virus to students than students are to each other (bc teachers talk the most/loudest and emit virus), schools will probably start mandating vaccines for teachers as soon as full FDA approval kicks in. And for all grade levels.