Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - Schools are on high alert after Governor Andrew Cuomo's Monday announcement that much of Erie County is now a 'Yellow COVID Cluster Zone.'
Despite Pediatricians stressing the importance of young children being in school and evidence pointing toward schools that are open with safety precautions not being a large driver of COVID spread, schools with in-person learning would temporarily shut down if Western New York was to move to an 'Orange Zone.'
Schools in red or orange zones must close for 4 calendar days after the orange or red zone designation is announced and may re-open as soon as the 5th calendar day.
In order to reopen on or after day 5, the schools must: test all returning staff and students, and only allow them to attend in-person classes after they receive a negative test; and test 25% of staff and students weekly.
What do the experts think about the priority of who stays open?
"There seems to be some arbitrary decisions in terms of how to proceed with these various restrictions," said Dr. Tom Russo, Chief of Infectious Diseases at the University at Buffalo's Jacobs School of Medicine.
"I am in absolute support of children being back in school, and we want to make sure that it's done safely. I know the numbers don't show that we have a lot of transmission in the schools," said Dr. Simone Wildes, an infectious disease specialist at South Shore Health. "Our children are really suffering from not being in school."
Two international studies of schools open overseas have shown no relationship between in-person learning and a significant increase in COVID spread. Anecdotal evidence from the US has supported that finding. Dr. Russo though thinks that the state's 'Yellow Zone' requirement that 20% of in person students and staff be tested on a weekly basis can provide some added information on how the virus may spread in a classroom.
"It will be interesting to see now with this new Yellow Zone designation how many of those children in school are actually infected when we didn't suspect that was the case," Russo said.
If the Western New York area were to move to an 'Orange Zone,' all in-person learning will be shut down.
