Buffalo, NY (WBEN) While some school districts in Western New York and across New York State are ready to welcome elementary school students back full time, there's still a question of whether there will be a return for middle school and high school students.
A full return in middle and high schools is dependent on the high transmission threshold.
At the moment, the high transmission threshold is 100 cases per 100,000 residents. Dr. Bruce Troen of UB says it's a fair number considering there are still a lot of unknowns. "There is a lot of shall we say scientific estimation going on," says Troen. "Our knowledge of COVID and the transmission of COVID, particularly with the new variants, is incomplete."
Troen says he does respect the epidemiologists, especially at the CDC, who are doing their best to balance ending the lockdown with dealing with the unknowns.
Troen says there are unknowns about infection and transmission rates, and also about asymptomatic transmission. He cites an example from a pandemic a century ago.
"Back in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which by the way did not originate in Spain but in Kansas, there were many people who got infected. Then, there was a cluster who 20 years later, came down with Parkinson's Disease," says Troen. "There was no way to know in 1918 that was going to happen. But epidemiological investigation shows in the mid 1930s the people who were coming down with it had been infected by the pandemic." That big unknown is whether there will be long-term consequences of asymptomatic infection among young or middle-aged people.
Troen says there's uncertainty about long term consequences. "Now, the question I would pose is how do we balance that uncertainty and lack of knowledge with what is a best guess, and I believe a truly informed guess, in deciding what the threshold should be before we change our conditions and allow people to start congregating," says Troen. He calls the threshold number fair. "It is fair to be able to separate the environment in the school setting and be able to make decisions. Those decisions are best done in knowing many of the teachers will have had vaccinations. That's a stop gap to stop spread in that direction," believes Troen.
He says when one looks at schools, the infection rate is lower than the general surrounding community. "Once you make the assessment, hopefully the community will continue to keep tabs on students and teachers and staff, so if you have to reconfigure in either direction, you can do so," adds Troen.
