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WASHINGTON – Schools operating in person have seen low transmission of the coronavirus, especially when masks and distances are used, but indoor athletics has led to infections and should be curtailed if schools are to operate safely, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded. in articles published Tuesday.
The CDC team looked at data from studies in the United States and overseas and found experience in schools different from retirement homes and high-density workplaces where rapid spread was produced.
“The preponderance of available evidence from the fall school semester has been reassuring,” three CDC researchers wrote in a viewpoint article published online Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “There is little evidence that schools have contributed significantly to increased community transmission.”
The review, which echoes the findings of other researchers, comes as many school districts continue to question whether and how to reopen schools and President Joe Biden returns to in-person learning one of his main priorities related to the pandemic.
A new CDC study, also released on Tuesday, examined 17 rural K-12 schools in Wisconsin and found that seven of 191 coronavirus cases were the result of school transmission. The researchers noted that students and staff at these schools wore masks almost all the time.
“The conclusion here is with proper prevention efforts. . . we can keep transmission in schools and educational institutions low enough, ”said Margaret Honein, lead author of the JAMA report. “We didn’t know that at the start of the year, but the data has really piled up.”
She said that even in places with high infection rates, there is no evidence that schools will transmit the virus at rates higher than those seen in the general community and that they can operate safely as long as they are precautions are taken.
The CDC recommends that schools require masks, allow a six-foot distance between people, and keep students in cohorts to limit the number of people who must quarantine if exposed.
“With good prevention, we can safely reopen and keep more schools open,” said Honein, head of the CDC health department’s Covid task force and the local health department.
Researchers said they were much more concerned about indoor sports and other extracurricular activities that don’t allow for distancing and the use of masks.
The new CDC report noted two Florida high school wrestling tournaments in December, after which 30% of the 130 athletes, coaches and referees who participated would be diagnosed with the new coronavirus, which can lead to covid-19 disease. Actual rates may be higher, the report notes, as less than half of participants have been tested.
After the tournaments, tests were carried out among 95 people in close contact with infected tournament participants; 43% of them tested positive. One person, an adult over 50, has died.
Wrestling, the report notes, is an activity for which distancing is not possible and wearing masks is not safe.
“The bottom line for me is to prioritize the in-person educational setting and make tough choices both in communities and in schools about other activities that we enjoy but that might need to be postponed so as not to compromise. the education of our children, ”Honein said in an interview.
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