Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Francesco leaving Laura Carlson is out.
Speaker 1: It's day one hundred twenty one since coronavirus was declared
Speaker 1: a global pandemic. Today's main story. There's no doubt that
Speaker 1: classrooms from kindergarten to college will look different for students
Speaker 1: and teachers this fall. But even as education systems struggle
Speaker 1: to reinvent themselves for a COVID world, the issue of
Speaker 1: reopening schools has become a political football. But first, here's
Speaker 1: what happened in virus News today. The pandemic is killing
Speaker 1: record numbers of people in the American Sun Belt, overrunning
Speaker 1: hospitals and exhausting supplies. But even as some leaders fall
Speaker 1: ill themselves, they have failed to take the stiff measures
Speaker 1: needed to contain the disease. On Thursday, Florida Governor Rhonda
Speaker 1: Santists offered no new restrictions as Florida joined Texas and
Speaker 1: California in reporting record deaths. Arizona Governor Doug Doucy promised
Speaker 1: more testing and limited restaurant capacity after the state announced
Speaker 1: the most cases in six days. In Mississippi, where many
Speaker 1: lawmakers had resisted wearing masks in the capital. Twenty six
Speaker 1: of them tested positive, including the leaders of both legislative chambers.
Speaker 1: New US virus cases topped sixty thousand a day for
Speaker 1: the first time Thursday, with the national total above three
Speaker 1: point one million. Gilead Sciences said it's ramdzevier virus treatment
Speaker 1: could reduce the risk of death for patients with COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen by sixty two. The company said they based this
Speaker 1: finding on an analysis that combines clinical trial results with
Speaker 1: a real world cohort of patients with severe disease. The
Speaker 1: results would have to be confirmed with prospective clinical trials. Finally,
Speaker 1: the FED has a message about the best way to
Speaker 1: boost the economy wear a mask. Robert Kaplan, president of
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said that widespread mask
Speaker 1: wearing and following other healthcare measures will be vital to
Speaker 1: economic growth in the US. Kaplan said mask wearing could
Speaker 1: substantially mute the spread of the coronavirus. Using face coverings
Speaker 1: would likely bolster reopenings and create faster growth and a
Speaker 1: lower unemployment rate. And now for today's main story. With
Speaker 1: the start of school, fast approaching institutions from elementary schools
Speaker 1: to colleges, are rushing to reinvent themselves for the coronavirus era.
Speaker 1: Some are shifting to a mix of in person and
Speaker 1: virtual classes. Meanwhile, the Trump admin station is pushing schools
Speaker 1: to reopen completely. I talked to Bloomberg reporter and the Court,
Speaker 1: who reports that as schools become the latest political touch
Speaker 1: point in the COVID crisis, there are far more questions
Speaker 1: than answers about keeping classrooms safe and what education will
Speaker 1: look like in the fall. So what is the latest
Speaker 1: on how K through twelve schools are planning to reopen.
Speaker 1: Plans for reopening elementary, middle high schools are starting to
Speaker 1: come out. We've seen New York, for instance, offer up
Speaker 1: this option of part time in person learning. We've seen
Speaker 1: some other districts follow in that sort of model as well.
Speaker 1: And the real constraint here seems to be literally physical
Speaker 1: space and classrooms. You know, under CDC guidance for reopening
Speaker 1: these schools, the ideas you want to have smaller class
Speaker 1: sizes so kids can appropriately social distance. And obviously there's
Speaker 1: some concerns about you know, if you've really young kids,
Speaker 1: for instance, will they be able to social distance, will
Speaker 1: they understand what that means, will they be able to
Speaker 1: wash their hands as thoroughly as you would like, things
Speaker 1: like that. Um, And that's why you're seeing many schools
Speaker 1: propose these sort of smaller in person schedules because they
Speaker 1: physically can't really accommodate that, and they don't have staffing
Speaker 1: as well. And what's the message on this from the
Speaker 1: Trump administration? This is something that the Trump administration came
Speaker 1: out very firmly against this week. During a press conference
Speaker 1: the other day, they said, basically, schools have to reopen
Speaker 1: in full, and that was really the message there. There
Speaker 1: wasn't really any public health guidance around that or practical
Speaker 1: advice about how schools might be able to accomplish that.
Speaker 1: The message was really, schools have to reopen. They talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the different problems with schools being closed,
Speaker 1: including that virtual learning in many cases, you know, hasn't
Speaker 1: been as effective and some schools haven't really been able
Speaker 1: to do that very well. So you heard them talk
Speaker 1: about you know, losing educational gains, about other issues that
Speaker 1: come up, you know, food and security, you know, teachers
Speaker 1: not being able to spot domestic violence, things like that.
Speaker 1: A really strong message about how working parents will not
Speaker 1: be able to restore the economy basically under these kinds
Speaker 1: of conditions. And how are families with kids reacting to this?
Speaker 1: What do what do they want to see happen in
Speaker 1: the fall? You know, it's interesting about this is a
Speaker 1: lot of parents really want school to come back, right,
Speaker 1: and they want to be able to kind of resume
Speaker 1: a normal schedule. But there's some really major concerns about
Speaker 1: safety here obviously, and whether schools can appropriately keep kids safe.
Speaker 1: At the same time, you know, two or three days
Speaker 1: a week in the classroom doesn't really solve many working
Speaker 1: parents problems, right, They still have to figure out child
Speaker 1: care for other days of the week. I mean, many
Speaker 1: working parents have been really in a state of very
Speaker 1: difficult circumstances during this time. And I think you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people probably agree that kids need to
Speaker 1: go back to school. The question is how. But children,
Speaker 1: as far as we know, are supposed to be largely
Speaker 1: shielded from the virus, right, So what is the science
Speaker 1: on that. How much danger would kids be in going
Speaker 1: back to schools? This is kind of the ten million
Speaker 1: dollar questions, So it's still really mysterious what the role
Speaker 1: of children is in all of this. We know children
Speaker 1: have become infected with COVID nineteen, but it's not as
Speaker 1: frequent as adults become ill with this disease. And there's
Speaker 1: some contradictory research on this subject. So some have found,
Speaker 1: you know, school aged children seem to be less contagious,
Speaker 1: but there's also another study that found, you know, basically
Speaker 1: the opposite, that kids may be as contagious as adults.
Speaker 1: I think it's worth noting there's an international perspective on
Speaker 1: this as well. There are countries that have reopened schools
Speaker 1: successfully without seeing coronavirus cases you know, rides significantly. But
Speaker 1: the consensus on that is really that they did that
Speaker 1: by following safety precautions, by limiting class sizes, by taking
Speaker 1: other kinds of mitigation steps. Reopening schools obviously has major
Speaker 1: implications for the economy, not just for working parents, but
Speaker 1: also for their kids educational gains. So what are the
Speaker 1: experts saying about that? How are they kind of sifting
Speaker 1: through all of these difficult choices. The issue here is
Speaker 1: that the stakes are sort of pretty high no matter
Speaker 1: what you do. Right, Um, we know that working parents
Speaker 1: have had to manage both their workdays and childcare and
Speaker 1: it's forced really difficult situations for families. There are questions
Speaker 1: about whether it's pushing working mothers out of the workforce
Speaker 1: because it's just too impossible to be caring for toddlers
Speaker 1: during the day and also managing a demanding full time job.
Speaker 1: But then on the other hand, you have this question
Speaker 1: about if children really aren't learning effectively during this time,
Speaker 1: are they losing out on all of this education that
Speaker 1: could basically further literally they're earning potential. There's the stakes
Speaker 1: are high. It's not just K through twelve schools, right,
Speaker 1: Colleges and universities are also dealing with these issues. How
Speaker 1: do college is plan to approach this? This has really
Speaker 1: been the week of school, so we've seen not only
Speaker 1: some of the sort of political tensions heat up between
Speaker 1: the federal government and states and localities over you know,
Speaker 1: whether school should reopen and how, but we've also seen
Speaker 1: a number of universities come out this week with plans
Speaker 1: as to how they will go back to school this fall. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a mix of plans that are emerging,
Speaker 1: but most are opting for some form of in person
Speaker 1: reopening and then a mix of you know, virtual and
Speaker 1: in person classes or just a full in person reopening
Speaker 1: with US. Some schools also turning to online classes again.
Speaker 1: For instance, Rutgers has chosen to do most of its
Speaker 1: classes online this fall, and I believe all of their
Speaker 1: undergraduate classes online. You know, what's interesting is the amount
Speaker 1: of variety and the lack of consensus here. You might expect,
Speaker 1: given that universities have so much in common in terms
Speaker 1: of challenges, that they might all be coming out with
Speaker 1: the same kinds of plans, but that's just not what's
Speaker 1: happening here. I think one expert I spoke to said,
Speaker 1: people don't really know what the right thing is to
Speaker 1: do here. In schools are coming with from very different
Speaker 1: places in terms of resources, not just financial resources, but
Speaker 1: also in terms of ability to do things like testing.
Speaker 1: So if you have a hospital or a really big
Speaker 1: research lab on campus, that's something you can leverage to
Speaker 1: test your student body. But you know, if you're a
Speaker 1: university or a college with that's public, that doesn't have
Speaker 1: as much financial resources, that's really small. Those questions become
Speaker 1: a lot more complicated. And when we look at states
Speaker 1: like Florida, Texas, California, sun Belt states that have had
Speaker 1: these recent virus surges, how is that complicating this question
Speaker 1: even further, are those places planning to reopen schools and
Speaker 1: is that even a good idea. That's the thing about
Speaker 1: this virus when you're planning for how to do things
Speaker 1: during this time, that the target is always moving. So
Speaker 1: we've heard, for instance, the Los Angeles Times reported that
Speaker 1: Los Angeles County, which has been a big hot spot
Speaker 1: right now, is looking at being able to shift online
Speaker 1: depending on where the virus is, you know, come the fall,
Speaker 1: and quoted the health Health Department director, They're saying, we
Speaker 1: have to do this, we have to think about a
Speaker 1: backup plan because of what's going on right now. In Florida,
Speaker 1: there's plans to push ahead with an in person reopening
Speaker 1: in the fall, but I spoke with a public health
Speaker 1: expert there who said she was very worried about it
Speaker 1: and she didn't see how it could possibly work and
Speaker 1: was really concerned about planning for in person reopening. She said,
Speaker 1: is something you can do for schools when the virus
Speaker 1: is really in the background, Right when the virus isn't
Speaker 1: making itself so present and so known in the community
Speaker 1: is and infecting so many people, She said, doing something
Speaker 1: like this when the virus is Uh, you know, breaking
Speaker 1: records every day is not advisable, and I think there
Speaker 1: are gonna be some really big questions about wheather reopening
Speaker 1: schools if this does happen intensify as some of the
Speaker 1: trends we've already been seeing. You know, you really wouldn't
Speaker 1: want a young child going to school and maybe themselves
Speaker 1: not getting sick, but bringing it home, the virus home
Speaker 1: to their parents, to their maybe they live in a
Speaker 1: house with elderly grandparents. That's a situation you wouldn't want
Speaker 1: um and could add to to the damage that's already
Speaker 1: been caused. So these are really difficult decisions. But you
Speaker 1: know they wouldn't be so hard if the United States
Speaker 1: was in a better place with this virus, If there
Speaker 1: were more precautions, that there were more safety measures that
Speaker 1: were well developed, like contact tracing, you might be able
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, we have a better grip on this virus,
Speaker 1: and we think we can go successfully back to school.
Speaker 1: It seems so difficult because on the one hand, everyone's
Speaker 1: really demanding answers about this right now. It's so important
Speaker 1: for families and kids and education employees to understand kind
Speaker 1: of how this is going to work. And yet at
Speaker 1: the same time, any answers we come up with right
Speaker 1: now could be thrown right out the window a month
Speaker 1: or two from now. Yeah. I mean, if you think
Speaker 1: about it, we've been making excruciating decisions for months now
Speaker 1: about whether to open things, how to open things, whether
Speaker 1: it made sense, whether it would come at the expense
Speaker 1: of the health of the community. Right we're still making
Speaker 1: those decisions now as the fall arrives. And you know,
Speaker 1: you would have thought it might have gotten easier by now,
Speaker 1: that we would have had more tools in our tool kit,
Speaker 1: more ability to weigh the costs of some of these things.
Speaker 1: But we're still we're still making these excruciating decisions. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think what's becoming apparent is anyone who
Speaker 1: thinks we're going to be in a much better place
Speaker 1: in a couple of months should think about the experience
Speaker 1: we've had in the last couple of months and wonder
Speaker 1: if that's really going to be true. That was Emma
Speaker 1: Court and that's it for our show for coverage of
Speaker 1: the outbreak from bureaus around the world. Because at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com sh coronavirus and if you like the show,
Speaker 1: please leave us a review. And a rating on Apple
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Speaker 1: listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is
Speaker 1: produced by Topor foreheads Jordan Gospore, Magnus Hendrickson, and Laura Carlston.
Speaker 1: Today's main story was reported by Emma Cord. Original music
Speaker 1: by Leo Sidran. Our editors are Rick Shine and me
Speaker 1: Francesca Levi. Bloomberg's head of podcasts is me