WH makes it official: “Science should not stand in the way”

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany broke new ground yesterday when she said (quoting from the USA Today article)

“The president has said unmistakably that he wants schools to open. And when he says open, he means open in full, kids been able to attend each and every day at their school.” "The science should not stand in the way of this,” she added, saying it is "perfectly safe" to fully reopen all classrooms.

Of course, this administration has been anti-science from the beginning, so this shouldn’t be a huge surprise. Nevertheless, it’s breathtaking to see them publicly admit that, when it comes to a clear conflict between what the scientists say and what Donald Trump believes is in his re-election interest the latter has to win, even when it requires endangering kids (I should note that she also said that “science is on our side” – meaning there really is no discrepancy. I like her strategy: It’s good to make two completely contradictory statements at the same time. At least one of them will be correct!).

I was going to write about Betsy DeVos today, who of course is also insisting on all public schools fully reopening on time, regardless of the consequences – which she minimizes by saying kids aren’t likely to get sick from Covid-19. That may be true, but it ignores the real problem, which is that kids will spread the virus to their parents. In her defense, she’s not being inconsistent because she simply doesn’t care about kids in public schools, which she thinks should be eliminated. Don’t worry; her beloved private schools will have the money they need to reopen safely.

For a really good discussion of how (most) schools could reopen safely, read this opinion piece in today’s WaPo. WARNING: The article contains science-based statements, which may be disturbing to White House officials.

(in case you hit the WaPo's paywall, I've posted the full piece below. However, at $30 a year the online subscription to WaPo is a bargain)

The numbers

These numbers are updated every day, based on reported US Covid-19 deaths the day before (taken from the Worldometers.info site, where I’ve been getting my numbers all along). No other variables go into the projected numbers – they are all projections based on yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total Covid-19 deaths, which was 4%.

Note that the “accuracy” of the projected numbers diminishes greatly after 3-4 weeks. This is because, up until 3-4 weeks, deaths could in theory be predicted very accurately, if one knew the real number of cases. In other words, the people who are going to die in the next 3-4 weeks of Covid-19 are already sick with the disease, even though they may not know it yet. But this means that the trend in deaths should be some indicator of the level of infection 3-4 weeks previous.

However, once we get beyond 3-4 weeks, deaths become more and more dependent on policies and practices that are put in place – or removed, as is more the case nowadays - after today (as well as other factors like the widespread availability of an effective treatment, if not a real “cure”). Yet I still think there’s value in just trending out the current rate of increase in deaths, since it gives some indication of what will happen in the near term if there are no significant intervening changes.

Week ending	Deaths reported during week/month	Avg. deaths per day during week/month	Deaths as percentage of previous month’s
March 7	18	3
March 14	38	5
March 21	244	35
March 28	1,928	275
Month of March	4,058	131
April 4	6,225	889
April 11	12,126	1,732
April 18	18,434	2,633
April 25	15,251	2,179
Month of April	59,812	1,994	1,474%
May 2	13,183	1,883
May 9	12,592	1,799
May 16	10,073	1,439
May 23	8,570	1,224
May 30	6,874	982
Month of May	42,327	1,365	71%
June 6	6,544	935
June 13	5,427	775
June 20	4,457	637
June 27	6,167	881
Month of June	23,925	798	57%
July 4	4,166	595
July 11	5,087	727
July 18	5,364	766
July 25	5,573	796
Month of July	23,198	7548	97%
Total March – July	153,320

Red = projected numbers

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 141,130

Increase in deaths since previous day: 964

Yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total deaths: 4% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above; it was 4% yesterday. There is a 7-day cycle in the reported deaths numbers, caused by lack of reporting over the weekends from closed state offices. So this is the only reliable indicator of a trend in deaths, not the three-day percent increase I used to focus on, and certainly not the one-day percent increase, which mainly reflects where we are in the 7-day cycle).

II. Total reported cases

Total US reported cases: 3,696,141

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 77,667 (a new record, of course. Dr. Fauci’s statement in June that daily new cases could reach 100,000 soon seems like less and less of a stretch all the time)

Percent increase in reported cases since yesterday: 2%

Percent increase in reported cases since 7 days previous: 15% (vs. 15% yesterday)

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 1,680,424

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 141,130

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 8%

For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – see this post. Short answer: If this percentage declines, that’s good. It’s been steadily declining since a high of 41% at the end of March. But a good number would be 2%, like South Korea’s. An OK number would be 4%, like China’s.

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com

Opinion by

Danielle Allen

Contributing columnist

July 16, 2020 at 3:57 p.m. CDT

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Pathei mathos — in suffering we learn. The words of the Greek tragedian Aeschylus continue to echo in my mind.

Our suffering today in America is finally teaching us that we need to fight covid-19 for real; we need to pursue not just mitigation — slowing the spread of disease — but suppression — getting back to near zero case incidence. But just because we grown-ups have had to learn from suffering doesn’t mean the kids should.

To date, all countries that have reopened schools without further outbreaks did not open until after they had achieved near zero case incidence and low community transmission rates. They also have maintained focus on infection control and ongoing testing, tracing and supported isolation programs for disease control after opening. Combined, these tools represent the best (and least expensive) policy to support school reopening. Many of us have learned that lesson, but our window of opportunity for achieving that across the whole country before the start of the new school year has closed. We now must take a different path.

This is how it could work: States that are at near zero case incidence are at what the Harvard Global Health Institute, based on common metrics agreed upon by a broad network of public health organizations, calls a “green risk level.” States that are almost completely at near zero case incidence — including Maine, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii — should reopen.

States that are seeing more than 25 new daily cases per 100,000 people on a seven-day rolling average, putting them at a “red risk level” — including Arizona, Texas and Florida — should be reverting to stay-at-home orders and remote learning.

Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic

More difficult decisions will be faced by states between those parameters, at yellow and orange risk levels. States that reopen schools at these levels of covid-19 community spread will be attempting something not yet achieved anywhere in the world.

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Can it be done safely? The very different risk levels facing young students, older students and adults in the school must be taken into account. Certainly both the transmission rate of covid-19 and its impacts are much lower for those younger than 10, as the National Academy of Medicine has pointed out. They may also be lower for those under 15, a point that researchers are seeking to clarify in the coming weeks. Older students, though, should be thought of as adults for purposes of planning the pandemic response. At higher levels of community spread, they too should avoid mass gatherings such as classrooms, crowded hallways and cafeterias. As for teachers and support staff, their ages and underlying conditions vary widely and need to be taken into account.

Learning spaces would need to be pandemic-resilient. They would need ventilation adequate for infection control, spatial reorganization to reduce density, and resources for sanitation and hygiene, to name just some elements. (For a full picture, see “Schools for Health,” a report from Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health). This would require significant public investment.

Also, teachers and other staff obliged to work in congregate settings situated in contexts of community spread at this level should be deemed essential workers and receive equivalent protections, including hazard pay and reassignment to remote work for high-risk individuals and/or access to disability benefits. This will require significant public investment.

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We might succeed in reopening schools with reasonable safety if we focus on elementary and middle schools first, even using high school buildings for added space to open lower schools with sufficiently low levels of density. Denmark has proceeded this way.

With grades pre-K through 8 spread out through all available pandemic resilient learning spaces in a district, high school students would need effective remote learning. This too will require significant public investment.

Even with schools in jurisdictions at “red” risk levels operating remotely, achieving pandemic resilience for the rest of our schools will be expensive. It will be far more expensive than investing appropriately in the infrastructure of covid-19 suppression last April would have been. Pathei mathos.

Yet our students should not have to learn in conditions of suffering; our educators should not have to teach in conditions of suffering. We owe it to our children to get them back to school safely. We need a surge for education, just as we surged for health care. We redesigned hospital spaces and learned how to protect patients and essential workers. We invested in this. We’ve even done it for restaurants.

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So far, our priorities have mainly taught my kids that this is the lesson: “Schools aren’t essential, Mom!”

How painful it is to hear that.

Our schools are essential. We should treat them as such. The pace of our reopening should track the pace of our investment in our school spaces and school personnel. We should send our kids back when we can do so in ways that are safe both for them and for the essential workers educating them. I think we’re all agreed that the sooner this is possible, the better.