Close Schools. NOW.

The coming pandemic has the potential to be the largest crisis that the world, our nation — and our community — has faced since World War II.  

Today (March 13), the New York Times reported on a leaked CDC estimate that between 200,000 and 1.7 million people would die (That’s 15-75 deaths in Oneida).  Our national preparation and response has been a colossal, appalling failure whose impacts have yet to be felt.  Our response will be compared to China’s and South Korea’s in the years to come, and the comparison will not be kind.  Because of the Federal failures, our state and local officials have had to lead. They are doing their best, but their preparation and response has also fallen short.

In the present pandemic, schools are perhaps the second most important public health organization in our community after our primary health care system.  That’s because closing schools and eliminating other large gatherings at the very beginning of a pandemic-and keeping them closed- saves lives. The closings save lives by slowing the rate of transmission so that the primary health care system isn’t overwhelmed as the pandemic runs through the population. We do not want to be in the situation that Northern Italy is in now, where the hospitals do not have enough ventilators for all the critically ill and doctors must make the terrible decision about who lives and who dies. 

In February,  a CDC representative said the public “should ask your children’s schools about school dismissals or school closures or plans for tele-school“, so I immediately asked the Oneida School District what their plans were for the coming pandemic.  This week, I attended the Board meeting to learn their thinking regarding the pandemic. The challenges I saw there apply to the entire state.

The Board and superintendent were thoughtful, concerned and generally careful, with primary concern for the health and safety of our children.  There was prudent discussion of cancelling field trips to New York and Boston, and I learned that the State has said that The County Department of Health has the power to close schools, and the Board could do so on its own authority.  This week, the State said that school closings would be determined by county health officials. However, the State has not addressed issues of state aid, exams, grades,or distance learning, causing uncertainty for schools. This in turn may motivate Districts to delay some actions that potentially cost lives.

We should not panic, but to avoid the worst impacts of the pandemic, schools should be closed immediately (call it spring break) while officials use that time to determine how to keep them closed and address the issues above.

More broadly, our state and local response could learn from other countries, and prepare much better quarantine processes and test regimens.