After a summer of uncertainty and fear about how schools across the globe would operate in a pandemic, a consensus has emerged in recent months that is becoming policy in more and more districts: In-person teaching with young children is safer than with older ones, and particularly crucial for their development.
On Sunday, New York City, home to the country’s largest school system, became the most high-profile example of that trend, when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that only elementary schools and some schools for children with complex disabilities would reopen after all city classrooms were briefly shuttered in November. There is no plan yet to bring middle and high school students back into city school buildings.
It was an abrupt about-face for the mayor, who had for months promised to welcome all of the city’s 1.1 million children — from 3-year-olds to high school seniors — back into classrooms this fall.
But the decision put New York in line with other cities around America and across the world, which have reopened classrooms first, and often exclusively, for young children, and in some cases kept them open even as they have confronted second waves of the virus.
In-person learning is particularly crucial for young children, who often need intensive parental supervision to even log on for the day, education experts say. And mounting evidence has shown that elementary school students in particular can be safe as long as districts adopt strict safety measures, though it’s an unsettled question for older students.
“With younger kids, we see this pleasant confluence of two facts: science tells us that younger children are less likely to contract, and seemingly less likely to transmit, the virus,” said Elliot Haspel, the author of Crawling Behind: America’s Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It. “And younger children are the ones that most need in-person schooling, and in-person interactions.”
Districts including Chicago, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia have either begun to bring back only young children or have plans to do so whenever they eventually reopen classrooms.
In Rhode Island, Gov. Gina Raimondo, a strong proponent of keeping schools open, recently asked colleges to shift to all-remote learning after Thanksgiving, and gave districts the option of reducing the number of high school students attending in person. But she asserted that middle and elementary schools were not sources of community spread.
That model of giving priority to younger students has been pioneered in Europe, where many countries have kept primary schools open even as most other parts of public life have shuttered during the continent’s second wave.
Italy has kept its primary schools open but kept teaching remote for middle and high schools. All schools in Germany are open, and discussions about possible closures have focused mainly on high schools.
And in America, more and more districts have begun to prioritize elementary school students for in-person learning.
In urban districts that have been slow to reopen, that has meant making plans to bring back the youngest students. In parts of the Midwest where school districts were more aggressive about reopening, and where there has been a huge rise in cases in recent weeks, public health officials have prioritized keeping elementary schools open even as they have closed high schools and in some cases middle schools.
“The data is becoming more compelling that there is very limited transmission in day care and grade schools,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a member of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s coronavirus task force, in a recent interview.
“I keep telling people, ‘Stop talking about kids — talk about those younger than 10,’” he added. “We’re seeing a very different epidemiology in that group than we’re seeing, for example, in high school students.”
Pfizer and BioNTech have submitted their final application to the European health authorities for approval of their Covid-19 vaccine, the companies announced Tuesday.
Initial approval could come as early as Dec. 29 when the European Union’s medicine agency plans to meet in an extraordinary session to decide if the data submitted is “sufficiently robust” to show the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
“Today’s announcement marks another key milestone in our efforts to fulfill our promise to do everything we can to address this dire crisis given the critical public health need,” Dr. Albert Bourla, chief executive of Pfizer, said in a statement.
Last month, Pfizer announced that the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective based on a Phase 3 study involving 43,538 participants, and that it had already submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration in the United States to authorize it for emergency use.
“We will continue to work with regulatory agencies around the world to enable the rapid distribution, should the vaccine receive the approval, contributing to the joint efforts to let the world heal and regain its normal pace of life,” said Ugur Sahin, co-Founder of BioNTech, the German start-up that created the vaccine.
The news comes a day after Moderna, the makers of another promising vaccine, announced that it had applied for approval from the European market.
If the applications are approved by the European Medicines Agency, the first doses could be available before the end of the month. The agency is “assessing all the applications for COVID-19 medicines under the minimum time frame necessary to allow for a thorough evaluation of the medicine’s benefits and risks,” it said.
If the agency concludes that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh its risks, it will recommend a conditional marketing authorization, which the European Commission will then fast-track to approve in all European member states within days.
On Tuesday, BioNTech officials, speaking at a news conference, said vaccine doses were waiting for approval to be shipped.
“We have produced a stockpile; everything that we have can really be distributed within a few hours,” said Sierk Poetting, the company’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer.
The coronavirus pandemic has created a record need for global humanitarian aid, the United Nations said on Tuesday, forecasting that 235 million people will require aid in 2021, an increase of 40 percent over the same period last year.
The proportion of people needing aid rose to one in 33 people worldwide from one in 45 last year. Fighting off famine, poverty and disease, while keeping children vaccinated and in school, will require $35.1 billion in funding, or more than double the record $17 billion raised in 2020, the United Nations said.
Even as much of the world looks with hope to promising coronavirus vaccines, which could begin to be rolled out as early as next month, the lingering impact of the pandemic — including rising food prices, falling incomes and halted education — will disproportionately hit more vulnerable people, said Mark Lowcock, organization’s humanitarian and emergency relief efforts.
Extreme poverty will increase for the first time since the ’90s, life expectancy will fall, deaths from diseases like malaria and tuberculosis will double, twice as many people will face starvation, and many children will be unable to go back to school, he said.
“The rich world can now see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Mr. Lowcock said. “The same is not true in the poorest countries. The Covid-19 crisis has plunged millions of people into poverty and sent humanitarian needs skyrocketing.”
The United Nations presented its forecast in Geneva on Tuesday as it introduced its Global Humanitarian Overview, an annual assessment of projected needs. At the same event last December, before the coronavirus outbreak had grown to a global pandemic, the United Nations predicted 168 million people would need aid in 2020, requiring $28.8 billion in funding.
Its plan for 2021 would target aid to 160 million people in 56 countries, with the largest populations in Yemen, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria and Nigeria.
Dr. Scott W. Atlas, the former Stanford University radiologist who espoused disputed theories and rankled government scientists while advising President Trump on the pandemic, has resigned his White House position, according to a senior government official.
The move was not entirely unexpected. Dr. Atlas caught Mr. Trump’s eye with his frequent appearances on the Fox News Channel over the summer, and joined the White House in August as a special government employee for a limited term that was set to expire this week. Fox News first reported his resignation, which Dr. Atlas later announced on Twitter.
“I worked hard with a singular focus — to save lives and help Americans through this pandemic,” Dr. Atlas wrote in a letter obtained by Fox, adding that he “always relied on the latest science and evidence, without any political consideration or influence.”
But some of Dr. Atlas’s administration colleagues would likely differ with that assessment, citing views that differ starkly from those put forth by officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government scientists. Dr. Atlas has argued, for example, that the science of mask wearing is uncertain and that children cannot pass on the coronavirus.
Even more controversial was his libertarian vision of the role of the government in the pandemic. In Dr. Atlas’s view, the government’s job was not to stamp out the virus but simply to protect its most vulnerable citizens as Covid-19 takes its course.
His argument was that most people infected with the virus would not get seriously ill, and at some point, enough people will have antibodies from Covid-19 to deprive the virus of carriers — “herd immunity.” Public health experts were appalled, and Dr. Atlas clashed in particular with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease specialist, and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator.
“I don’t want to say anything against Dr. Atlas as a person, but I totally disagree with the stand he takes. I just do, period,” Dr. Fauci said earlier this month on the NBC program “Today.”
But Dr. Atlas had the ear of one person who mattered: Mr. Trump.
France’s coronavirus test positivity rate, at 11.1 percent, is nearly four times that of New York City.
And yet schools across France have remained open during the latest lockdown, in sharp contrast to New York City, which closed schools after its average test positivity rate climbed to 3 percent before abruptly deciding to reopen elementary schools over the weekend.
Even as the virus has surged again in Europe, classrooms across the continent have largely remained open despite increasing restrictions, in a significant departure from the first lockdowns last spring. Based in part on scientific evidence that young children are low transmitters of the virus, the decisions have helped soften the pandemic’s academic and economic blows.
“Obviously, the decline has been slower because schools are open, but we had to find a middle ground,” said Yazdan Yazdanpanah, an infectious disease specialist and a member of France’s Scientific Council, which advises the government on the pandemic. But, he added, the slower drop in infections has been offset by positive effects on education, mental health and the economy.
Three months into France’s school year, schools have not become a major driver of infections. Only 7,776 schoolchildren tested positive for the coronavirus last week, or just 0.06 percent of the 12 million schoolchildren in France, according to figures released by the Education Ministry.
On Nov. 27, out of 61,500 schools, only 19 primary schools, three middle schools and three high schools were closed because of outbreaks.
France’s experience, at least so far, suggests that it is possible to flatten the curve, or bend it down, even when schools are open. A week ago, France’s 14-day rate of infection was nearly 800 per 100,000 people; as of Wednesday, it had dropped to 483.
With schools open, parents have been able to focus on their work at home or commuting to their workplaces, which has helped blunt the second lockdown’s depression on the economy. The country has shuttered cafes and restaurants through at least mid-January, but allowed essential sectors to keep operating.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee will meet on Tuesday afternoon to determine its guidance on who should get access to coronavirus vaccines first. But much like its recommendations about masks and travel restrictions, the C.D.C.’s guidance about vaccine distribution will only inform states, which will ultimately need to devise their own plans.
Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, said on Monday that vaccine doses will be distributed through normal processes for vaccines, with governors acting as “air traffic controllers” to determine which hospitals or pharmacies receive shipments.
There is wide agreement that frontline health care workers should be prioritized, and the C.D.C. has said in documents sent to public health agencies that essential workers like police offers or workers in food production, as well as employees and residents of long-term care facilities, should be close behind. But it is unclear where other vulnerable populations, like transit workers, inmates and teachers, stand.
States don’t have to follow the C.D.C.’s recommendations, but most probably will, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, which represents state health agencies.
Moncef Slaoui, the head of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed virus program, told Politico that he expects some states “may prefer long-term care facilities or the elderly, while others may prioritize their health care workers.”
The C.D.C. panel hinted last week that it would recommend the country’s 87 million essential workers be next in line. These workers are disproportionately Black and Hispanic, populations that have been hit especially hard by the virus, and at increased risk because they are more likely to work at jobs that preclude working from home.
After essential workers, next are likely adults with medical conditions that put them at high risk of coronavirus infection, and people over 65.
As of Monday, two major vaccine makers, Moderna and Pfizer, have applied to the Food and Drug Administration to authorize its vaccine for emergency use.
With the limited quantities of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines set to be distributed as early as later this month, states are scrambling to plan their distribution.
Federal officials have said they plan to ship the first 6.4 million doses within 24 hours after the F.D.A. authorizes a vaccine, and the number each state receives will be based on a formula that considers its adult population.
In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said on Monday that 26,000 residents and employees of nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities would be the first in the state to get vaccinated, along with 12,000 of the state’s more than 200,000 health care workers. The federal government has allocated an initial 38,025 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine for Kentucky, based on its population, he said.
That is a much smaller amount than what the state had planned for, he said, adding that Kentucky is also projected to receive an initial 76,700 doses of a vaccine made by Moderna by the end of December if the regulatory process goes quickly.
The initial allocation would reach about half of the 50,000 patients and staff members in “the highest, most intensive tier of long-term care” in Kentucky, Mr. Beshear said. A staggering 66 percent of deaths from Covid-19 in Kentucky have been among their residents, and protecting them could help prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed, he said.
Teachers and emergency medical workers will likely be next in line, he said.
Seven families sued the state of California on Monday over the quality of education that their children are receiving at home this year, saying they have been left behind by the shift to remote learning during the pandemic.
The suit argues that a lack of attention to the realities of remote learning has exacerbated inequality in schools and deprived minority students from poor families of their right to an education.
“The change in the delivery of education left many already underserved students functionally unable to attend school,” the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in the Alameda County Superior Court, asserts. “The state continues to refuse to step up and meet its constitutional obligation to ensure basic educational equality or indeed any education at all.”
The plaintiffs include 15 Black and Latino students in Oakland and Los Angeles, who range from kindergartners to high school seniors. The suit details their individual struggles as they try to continue their education despite a lack of sufficient computers, internet access and instruction.
For two twins in Oakland, who were in second grade when distance learning began, the experience “barely resembled learning,” the suit said. Their teacher held remote classes only twice between March 17 and the end of the school year. When the twins’ mother asked why, the teacher responded that because some students could not connect to the internet, classes were canceled for everyone, it said. The mother “felt like her children had been written off.”
Representatives of the state of California could not immediately be reached for comment.
California schools, with more than six million students, have relied on mostly remote learning since March. Early progress reports this fall showed a sharp drop in performance as students struggled to learn from home.
With a new administration and coronavirus vaccines on the way, there is hope for the United States, even as it grapples with the appalling milestone of more than one million new coronavirus cases every week.
But for now, the nation has little alternative but to confront the dark winter ahead. “The next three months are going to be just horrible,” warned Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health.
Some epidemiologists predict that the death toll by March could be close to twice the 250,000 figure surpassed only last week. Hospitals in some states are beyond capacity, while the number of deaths seem on track to easily surpass the 2,200-a-day average in the spring.
President Trump could help to save the lives of millions of his supporters by urging them to wear masks, in accordance with new C.D.C. guidelines, or avoid gathering indoors. But that seems unlikely to occur, many health experts said.
Had Mr. Trump heeded his medical advisers and adopted measures to curb new infections in late spring, he could have been the hero of this pandemic. Operation Warp Speed appears on track to deliver vaccines and therapies in record-breaking time, with the first doses of vaccine available to Americans as soon as later this month. Vaccinations are expected to go first to health care workers, nursing home residents and others at highest risk.
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will inherit the fruits of Operation Warp Speed and oversee their distribution. Speaking anonymously, members of his transition team said they were already discussing whether to create a secure way for vaccinated individuals to prove they have received both shots, and whether Covid vaccines should ultimately be made mandatory, as some experts recommend.
To do so may be a political struggle, but it is within American religious tradition and within the scope of American law.
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