Duke study 5PM

Using data from school districts around the state, including several within the Triad, researchers at Duke University say with public health measures and stringent policies in place, in-person learning does not lead to the spread of the coronavirus within schools. "Community transmission should not influence the decision as to whether or not schools open," said Dr. Danny Benjamin, professor of pediatrics at Duke University. "Schools opening is simply a question of leadership. If you have strong leadership, you open and you open safely. And if you have weak leadership, you either stay closed or you open and you infect a bunch of people." Benjamin said the goal of the study was to understand if schools had the ability to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within the schools for students and staff members as community transmission remained present in a district. He said the findings show that with public health measures including masking, distancing and hand hygiene transmission of the virus within schools can be stopped. “If they do those things, schools clearly prevent within-school transmission of COVID-19,” he said. Benjamin said children and adults will come inevitably come into school buildings with the infection because of high rates of infection in the community, however, after analyzing data from schools with in-person learning this fall, he said measures can stop it from spreading within the school itself. “I hear school officials sometimes saying, ‘We don’t want to be the mask police.’ Well, guess what? Then you should stay closed. If you don’t want to put in basic public health mitigation measures: Stay closed, shut down the schools and do remote learning,” he said. Researchers analyzed data from the first nine weeks of in-person instruction in North Carolina schools, including data from Mount Airy City Schools, Davie County Schools and Yadkin County School. The findings suggested, the researchers said, "limited within-school secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2.” They said districts worked with local health departments to determine which cases were acquired within school buildings and which were acquired from other community spaces. “Our little district of Mount Airy was used as an example to the CDC on how to come back to school safely,” said Dr. Kim Morrison, Superintendent of Mount Airy City Schools. “That doesn’t happen unless you have a group like Duke University that cares about how to get students back to school. I would say kudos to The ABC Collaborative.” For the 56 districts who joined the study and formed the ABC Science Collaborative, weekly meetings were held to discuss case numbers, protocols, what was working and what was not. Mount Airy City Schools returned to in-person learning, five days a week in August. Morrison said despite the unanimous decision by the board to do so and deep concern about everything from neglect to nutrition of students if they were to stay home, there was anxiety about returning to the school buildings. Morrison said Wednesday working with Duke affirmed the board made a good choice. “You cannot do it unless everybody is wearing that mask, they’re washing hands, they’re staying six feet apart. That is the only way we’re able to continue to have school,” Morrison said. “We know that the kids need to be in school, but there are so many hurdles for them to overcome. Public perception is one of them.” The focus on enforcement was echoed by Davie County Schools Superintendent Jeff Wallace. Wallace also participated in the study, sharing findings about his district’s return to school buildings. Davie County entered a hybrid model of in-person and remote learning – also referred to statewide as Plan B -- mid-August. “I’m glad we started in Plan B on Aug 17. I’m glad we moved our K-5 to Plan A, which is in-school four days a week, starting in October at the end of the first quarter,” said Jeff Wallace, superintendent of Davie County schools. He said the district is strict with its COVID-19 precautions, including mask wearing. “I do think it can be done at a larger scale, but at the same time, you have to be able to monitor that, you have to be able to enforce that and your team has to be on the same page,” he said. Wallace said he wanted to participate in the study because of his deep belief in the need for school-specific data to be made available for educators still navigating the pandemic. “There can’t be just a protocol or practice for masks, it has to be enforced. You have to mandate that people wear masks,” Wallace said. “It sounded pretty direct and harsh, but now it’s not harsh. We expect people to wear a mask and we address it when they don’t.” The researchers published that over 9 weeks, 11 participating school districts had more than 90,000 students and staff attend school in-person and that there were 773 cases of COVID-19 identified. Of those, they reported, 32 more cases were acquired within the school. The researchers said their findings did not show any instances of child-to adult transmission within the school. Researchers, including Dr. Kanecia Zimmerman, said the research team involved group and one-on-one discussions about successes and drawbacks. She said the researchers worked to determine where and how cases in schools did transmit. “It’s very descriptive in nature,” she said. “If you do the right things – that is having the mitigation measures in place, particularly the Ws, if you’re following the toolkit -- you can be successful. If you’re not doing those things, you can fail but I think the fact that you can be successful is optimistic for our ability to get back to school.” The research team's findings were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Read the original report here. Using data from school districts around the state, including several within the Triad, researchers at Duke University say with public health measures and stringent policies in place, in-person learning does not lead to the spread of the coronavirus within schools. "Community transmission should not influence the decision as to whether or not schools open," said Dr. Danny Benjamin, professor of pediatrics at Duke University. "Schools opening is simply a question of leadership. If you have strong leadership, you open and you open safely. And if you have weak leadership, you either stay closed or you open and you infect a bunch of people." Benjamin said the goal of the study was to understand if schools had the ability to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within the schools for students and staff members as community transmission remained present in a district. He said the findings show that with public health measures including masking, distancing and hand hygiene transmission of the virus within schools can be stopped. “If they do those things, schools clearly prevent within-school transmission of COVID-19,” he said. Benjamin said children and adults will come inevitably come into school buildings with the infection because of high rates of infection in the community, however, after analyzing data from schools with in-person learning this fall, he said measures can stop it from spreading within the school itself. “I hear school officials sometimes saying, ‘We don’t want to be the mask police.’ Well, guess what? Then you should stay closed. If you don’t want to put in basic public health mitigation measures: Stay closed, shut down the schools and do remote learning,” he said. Researchers analyzed data from the first nine weeks of in-person instruction in North Carolina schools, including data from Mount Airy City Schools, Davie County Schools and Yadkin County School. The findings suggested, the researchers said, "limited within-school secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2.” They said districts worked with local health departments to determine which cases were acquired within school buildings and which were acquired from other community spaces. “Our little district of Mount Airy was used as an example to the CDC on how to come back to school safely,” said Dr. Kim Morrison, Superintendent of Mount Airy City Schools. “That doesn’t happen unless you have a group like Duke University that cares about how to get students back to school. I would say kudos to The ABC Collaborative.” For the 56 districts who joined the study and formed the ABC Science Collaborative, weekly meetings were held to discuss case numbers, protocols, what was working and what was not. Mount Airy City Schools returned to in-person learning, five days a week in August. Morrison said despite the unanimous decision by the board to do so and deep concern about everything from neglect to nutrition of students if they were to stay home, there was anxiety about returning to the school buildings. Morrison said Wednesday working with Duke affirmed the board made a good choice. “You cannot do it unless everybody is wearing that mask, they’re washing hands, they’re staying six feet apart. That is the only way we’re able to continue to have school,” Morrison said. “We know that the kids need to be in school, but there are so many hurdles for them to overcome. Public perception is one of them.” The focus on enforcement was echoed by Davie County Schools Superintendent Jeff Wallace. Wallace also participated in the study, sharing findings about his district’s return to school buildings. Davie County entered a hybrid model of in-person and remote learning – also referred to statewide as Plan B -- mid-August. “I’m glad we started in Plan B on Aug 17. I’m glad we moved our K-5 to Plan A, which is in-school four days a week, starting in October at the end of the first quarter,” said Jeff Wallace, superintendent of Davie County schools. He said the district is strict with its COVID-19 precautions, including mask wearing. “I do think it can be done at a larger scale, but at the same time, you have to be able to monitor that, you have to be able to enforce that and your team has to be on the same page,” he said. Wallace said he wanted to participate in the study because of his deep belief in the need for school-specific data to be made available for educators still navigating the pandemic. “There can’t be just a protocol or practice for masks, it has to be enforced. You have to mandate that people wear masks,” Wallace said. “It sounded pretty direct and harsh, but now it’s not harsh. We expect people to wear a mask and we address it when they don’t.” The researchers published that over 9 weeks, 11 participating school districts had more than 90,000 students and staff attend school in-person and that there were 773 cases of COVID-19 identified. Of those, they reported, 32 more cases were acquired within the school. The researchers said their findings did not show any instances of child-to adult transmission within the school. Researchers, including Dr. Kanecia Zimmerman, said the research team involved group and one-on-one discussions about successes and drawbacks. She said the researchers worked to determine where and how cases in schools did transmit. “It’s very descriptive in nature,” she said. “If you do the right things – that is having the mitigation measures in place, particularly the Ws, if you’re following the toolkit -- you can be successful. If you’re not doing those things, you can fail but I think the fact that you can be successful is optimistic for our ability to get back to school.” The research team's findings were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Read the original report here.