NYC Mayor Prepares To Close Schools Despite ‘Strikingly Few’ COVID-19 Cases | Zero Hedge
New York City has more students in classrooms than any city in the US. And now that Detroit has just announced plans to close schools, it’s widely expected that NYC will soon follow suit, perhaps even as soon as Thursday.
A couple of weeks ago, we reported that another COVID-19 ‘myth’ had been busted: research by credible scientists over a large set of data has shown that closing schools does little to actually slow the spread of the coronavirus. Schools, the researchers claimed, are more of a reflection of the rate of transmission in the broader community. And even as cases have climbed in NYC over the past six weeks, the positive test rate in NYC schools has been just 0.17% according to the NYT. Public officials have declared the city’s schools as among the safest in the nation.
But is that really the smartest move for NYC’s economy, and for its children, as the pandemic grinds on? As the NYT points out in a surprisingly critical piece, that includes the voices of parents and business owners questioning epidemiologists urging the closure of schools. In Europe, schools have been deemed “essential services” that must remain open; so far, none of the new lockdowns sweeping the continent have impacted schools.