In the fall, Brown University economist Emily Oster made a compelling quantitative argument that schools weren’t spreading the virus and should remain open or reopen, even as the virus surged. I found it difficult to embrace her conclusions because of documented outbreaks at schools abroad and here in the U.S. 

Now two teams of quantitative researchers have combed through public health data and have concluded that the question of whether to keep schools open during the coronavirus pandemic doesn’t have a simple yes or no answer.

• A national study found that school openings didn’t add to the number of people in the hospital, as long as the COVID-19 hospitalization rate was below 36 to 44 people per 100,000 residents per week before schools reopened..  

• Another study in Washington and Michigan found that in-person school didn’t exacerbate community spread of the virus if COVID-19 rates were below certain thresholds. In Washington, that threshold was low, only 5 cases per 100,000 people. In Michigan, that threshold was much higher, at 21 cases per 100,000 people.  

• Even when schools aren’t producing additional COVID cases, there is still transmission of the virus in schools. Researchers were calculating whether in-person school was making transmission rates in the community worse than it otherwise would have been.   

• Open schools can be safer than remote learning, depending on community norms. “If kids are not in school, maybe they are in childcare or they’re hanging out with their friends or doing other things that also lead to spread,” said Dan Goldhaber, one of the researchers. In Germany, re-opening schools actually reduced community transmission.

1. Goldhaber, Dan, Scott Imberman, Katharine Strunk, Bryant Hopkins, Nate Brown, Erica Harbatkin, and Tara Kilbride (December 2020). To What Extent Does In-Person Schooling Contribute to the Spread of COVID-19? Evidence from Michigan and Washington. Michigan State University: Education Policy Innovation Collaborative. https://epicedpolicy.org/does-in-person-schoolingcontribute-to-the-spread-of-covid-19/ 
2. Harris, Douglas N., Ziedan, Engy, Hassig, Susan (January 2021). The Effects of School Reopenings on COVID-19 Hospitalizations National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH). https://www.reachcentered.org/publications/the-effects-of-school-reopenings-on-covid-19-hospitalizations 
3. Oster, E. (2020). Schools Aren’t Superspreaders. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/schools-arent-superspreaders/616669/ 
4. National COVID-19 School Response Dashboard https://statsiq.co1.qualtrics.com/public-dashboard/v0/dashboard/5f78e5d4de521a001036f78e#/dashboard/5f78e5d4de521a001036f78e?pageId=Page_f6071bf7-7db4-4a61-942f-ade4cce464de 
5. Isphording, Ingo E., Marc Lipfert, and Nico Pestel (2020). School Re-Openings after Summer Breaks in Germany Did Not Increase SARSCoV-2 Cases. IZA DP No. 13790. https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13790/school-re-openings-after-summer-breaks-in-germany-did-not-increase-sars-cov-2-cases