I would say I definitely don’t know, but reliable epidemiologists I follow seem to think this is true. I have no idea. (And as I said, I am only talking about elementary school in this entire conversation; children under 12.). Not inclined to go searching for the latest studies right now.
I would say that this could be different than normal respiratory viruses - most kids are not showing symptoms at all, and that may limit their infectiousness.
We’ll probably find out for sure next year when it is too late.
But I’d reiterate that school is important enough that it should be the absolute last thing shut (this is not what is being done in NYC). It’s dumb. People should be arrested for going to bars and restaurants before they shut down elementary schools, in my opinion. (At this point in the pandemic, anyway, with what we know now. We just had no idea in March/April of what the dangers were, and no way to control spread.)
Anyhow. They should have been reopened this year with fast antigen tests for every student, every day, and then the question of whether or not outbreaks spread in schools readily would have been largely moot.
Seems like a good idea. I would actually guess that SOMEONE is doing a similar study.
It’s one of the most frustrating things about this pandemic that there is very little information shared by the gov’t about the Pareto of how infections are acquired. They must know at this point.
The South Koreans found that kids 0-10 did not transmit the virus very well, but kids 11-20 did. In both groups severe cases were very rare and asymptomatic cases were common.
It is also likely that states had more restrictions because they had worse outbreaks. There could be some underlaying reason why they had a worse outbreak, for example population density etc that are still relevant.
Oregon has been better than most US states from the beginning at no time breaking into the top states for infection. The worst county in the state is a rural, extremely conservative county. Multnomah County, where Portland is and the most populous has fared better than many rural counties. The most populous counties are ticking up in cases, as is the rest of the country, but they are well below the national average.
The San Francisco Bay Area had a bad outbreak that started in a prison but throughout the pandemic they have fared better than most cities.
Most of the worst counties in the US are rural ones. Cities have built in difficulties containing outbreaks because people are so close together to begin with. As a result all the bigger cities in the US have had some outbreaks, but the places where people shun measures to stop the virus' spread have had it the worst.
If North Dakota was a country, it would have the worst outbreak in the world. South Dakota would be #3. North Dakota has the 4th lowest population density in the US (4 Km2), South Dakota is 5th. Only Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska are less dense. The largest city in North Dakota is Fargo with 128,000 people, South Dakota's largest city is Sioux Falls with 181,000 people. Both are very low density cities with most people living in single family homes with some space around every house.
For comparison the Portland, Oregon metro area is about 2.4 million people. More than both of the above states combined.
If you did a county by county political map of the US and compared it to a current COVID map, you would find a fairly strong correlation. There are some exceptions, but they are usually surrounded with COVID hot spots and too many cases are coming and going to contain.
In a lot of countries politics is not playing a role in COVID containment, which is the way it should be, but it's a highly politicized topic in the United States which is why the US is a serious mess and getting worse.
I thought the piece was about Elon's emotionally intelligent response, but it was about the doctor's. My partner is a domestic violence and anger management perpetrator counselor. She has a very low recidivism rate because she is very talented at getting around people's boundaries and getting them to listen.
Population density is very tricky. For example in Sweden many people live in Stockholm in a pretty small area while in the north of the country very few people live. Overall Sweden gets a pretty low population density, but where people live the density is not as low as the figure would indicate.
Other relevant population density metrics would be number of people per household, housing area per capita etc.
Even if I knew nothing about what policy was adopted I would guess that:
New York, Belgium, Madrid etc would get hit hard but that
Alaska, Finland, Marbella etc would get hit less hard
Then for some countries I would be wrong, like Singapore, China etc, but that would be explained by policy, genetics, previous immunity etc. They had to enact really strong policies because otherwise their R would be very high.
Not so much in the US.
Here is a population density map of the US
Population Density by County: 2010
Now go here and select Counties and Daily Confirmed case
Per capita covid-19 cases and deaths
You will find a lot of very rural counties showing up pink on the second map. New York City is currently at 20.4 cases / day / 100,000 people. North Slope Borough Alaska (population less than 10,000) has 50.9 cases / day / 100,000. And there are several boroughs in Alaska over 100 cases / 100,000 per day.
People's behavior has a huge impact on spread. The data is pretty clear.
Population density is definitely a factor, but a place with a high population density can still keep this under control with the right measures.
