Learn, Baby, Learn

We’ve been fairly lax in our approach to COVID-19 and children for two reasons: (i) clinical vaccine testing in adults always precedes clinical testing in children and (ii) children generally show remarkable resistance to getting serious symptoms from COVID infections. 22% of the US population is under 18, so this is not a demographic to be ignored. Moreover, even when children have mild reactions to the infection, they are clear carriers of the disease, quite able to infect their elders. Nevertheless, none of the currently approved vaccines are cleared for use with younger children; kids are not anywhere on the inoculation priority list… yet.

There are relatively rare severe complications associated with younger children who have been infected, like multisystem inflammatory syndrome-children (MIS-C), where the CDC tells us: “Children with MIS-C may have a fever and various symptoms, including abdominal (gut) pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, or feeling extra tired.” There have been some recorded fatalities as well. The complications for children, who normally would be in the process of socializing with other children and generally attend schools where human interaction is very much a part of the learning process, are thus different from those facing adults.

Statistically, children who attended gatherings outside the home other than school, had dramatically higher rates of infection. Hence, we have seen significant increases in COVID infection rates in children, as the weather has turned colder, increasing indoor activities, and as amplified in family and other social gatherings causing, for example, a “Thanksgiving bump.” We are expecting massive increases in both adult and child infections in late January, reflecting increased holiday travel and traditional family and other social gatherings. As of this writing, for example, Los Angeles area hospitals have no remaining ICU capacity. 

But the rapid rise in infections among children is deeply troubling. “New child COVID-19 cases have been rising sharply since early November. Coronavirus cases among children increased by 25 percent in the two weeks from December 3 to 17, according to the latest report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association… ‘Over 182,000 new child COVID-19 cases were reported last week, the highest weekly increase since the pandemic began,’ based on data available on December 17 from 49 states, New York City, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and Guam that provided age distributions of cases, the AAP said.

“More than 1.8 million children in the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19 since the outbreak began, with an overall rate of 2,420 cases per 100,000 children in the population. Eight states reported more than 4,000 child COVID-19 cases per 100,000 children, according to the report.” Newsweek, December 22nd. For almost every hotspot school district in the United States, remote learning remains the prudent choice.

For schools in less impacted areas, where safe in-person attendance is possible, caution and retrofitting seem pretty obvious requirements. Plexiglass, distancing, masks and most of all enhanced air flow and filtration. Expensive choices that many school districts, often in states that are now generally running out of funds, simply cannot afford. But children, facing COVID isolation, have very special needs that could impact their overall journey through life. 

According to the Editorial Board of the Los Angeles Times (December 29th), we also have “reason to be more and more worried about the stalled academic, social and emotional growth of students, not to mention the impact on the families who have acted as tutors, counselors and endlessly inventive social directors to keep kids on track, and the parents and guardians struggling just to get by. Some older siblings have neglected their own schoolwork because they were needed to babysit or oversee the lessons of younger brothers and sisters.

“The chasm between rich and poor has been widening at a worrisome rate. One new study shows that low-income students are making considerably lower progress with math than they were a year ago, while high-income students are actually progressing at a faster rate than before the pandemic. More affluent students have parents who can afford learning pods and other tutoring help that speeds up the pace of learning. And though no one can blame parents for doing their best by their kids, the yawning inequity is unacceptable.

“For that matter, white, middle-class and affluent students are far more likely to be able to attend regular school at least part time, according to a report out of Columbia University. That’s been obvious just from looking at the experience in the Los Angeles area.

“There are various ideas about how to help students catch up once they’re back in a regular classroom — up to and including having many of them repeat a year. But right now, facing the probability of many more weeks online, it’s time to think about how to rev up online school for hundreds of thousands of disengaged students in California.” CARES Act money needs to be deployed to focus on disadvantaged students who are being left behind in the system. Extra tutoring, mandatory attendance (in person when safe), extra class time, more sessions with parents, and for those truly struggling, private tutoring. All at school district expense.

As you watched the recent battle for the stimulus relief bill, which finally passed and was reluctantly signed into law by the President, the prioritization of stimulating business above all – dramatically illustrated by the massive 2017 corporate tax cut that did little other than make the rich richer – has left too many school districts in the lurch. Crowded classrooms, underpaid teachers and decaying facilities have become the rule. Add the pandemic to this mix… It is time we reorder our priorities… or live with a generation betrayed by older, selfish generations… and abandoned.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as I watch other developed nations cope with this pandemic, even with economic support of their citizens, I wonder how we have become such a callous and uncaring society, where money and business seem to trump just about everything else.