Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, October one. I'm Oscar Emiraz from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Some initial results from coronavirus testing in New York City
Speaker 1: schools is showing a surprisingly small number of positive cases.
Speaker 1: About half of the city students have opted for hybrid learning,
Speaker 1: which is helping them keep class sizes as small and
Speaker 1: allow for more social distancing between desks. David Goodman, reporter
Speaker 1: at the New York Times, joins us for the testing plan,
Speaker 1: aiming to test ten of the school population at least
Speaker 1: once a month. Thanks for joining us, David, I'm sure
Speaker 1: thanks for having me back to school in the country.
Speaker 1: This year took on many different forms. There was schools
Speaker 1: that we're doing only remote learning, there was schools that
Speaker 1: we're doing some type of hybrid, and then there was
Speaker 1: these other schools that we're doing in person instruction. In
Speaker 1: New York City, they were one of these school districts
Speaker 1: that we're trying to do these in person classes. And
Speaker 1: right now we have some early data from the city's
Speaker 1: effort to test a lot of the students and faculty
Speaker 1: that are running the schools, and we're seeing a surprisingly
Speaker 1: small number of positive coronavirus cases, which is very good news.
Speaker 1: So David tell us what we're learning about this as
Speaker 1: kids are starting to go back to school. So in
Speaker 1: New York City they're doing but they're calling a blended model.
Speaker 1: So you know, half of the students have opted or
Speaker 1: actually half of the families have opted to keep their
Speaker 1: students at home and do remote learning, and half have
Speaker 1: opted for in person classes that are done in a
Speaker 1: kind of split schedule, so you're in school some of
Speaker 1: the time and then you're at home for some of
Speaker 1: the time. And I think what we're seeing now the
Speaker 1: data that's come out so far is from the first
Speaker 1: round of random testing that they've done in a small
Speaker 1: number of schools. I mean small number of New York City.
Speaker 1: They're about eighteen hundred schools in New York City's public
Speaker 1: school system, and they're testing about fifty at a time,
Speaker 1: which is a lot for any ordinary school system, but
Speaker 1: here it's they've done about three or four days of
Speaker 1: testing that we have the data for, and what we've
Speaker 1: seen is that the rates are not any different in
Speaker 1: schools than they are anywhere else in the city, and
Speaker 1: in fact, compared to hotpot locations in the city right now,
Speaker 1: they're lower. And what that signals, I think is that
Speaker 1: some of the fear that had really attended the opening
Speaker 1: of schools in New York City, you know, it just
Speaker 1: hasn't been worn out. This is a place that had
Speaker 1: the worst outbreak back in March and April at the
Speaker 1: most depths of any part of the United States, and
Speaker 1: going back to school was seen as a big risk
Speaker 1: that the mayor had taken here. And so far it
Speaker 1: hasn't proved any riskier going to school than is doing
Speaker 1: any other activity in the city, which is to say,
Speaker 1: not risky at this time. So what is the plan
Speaker 1: in New York My understanding is that they want to
Speaker 1: test about ten of the school population at least once
Speaker 1: a month. Depending on the location, size of the school,
Speaker 1: they might want to do more than that twice a month,
Speaker 1: I've seen. So what's that plan? And then beyond that,
Speaker 1: when they get a positive test, how do they react.
Speaker 1: At the moment, the plan is like you said, do
Speaker 1: once a month. There's the union and others are pushing
Speaker 1: for them to do it more frequently, primarily because when
Speaker 1: you talk to public health experts, they'll tell you that
Speaker 1: once a month is really not enough to actually keep
Speaker 1: an outbreak from spreading. What it does is tell you
Speaker 1: you know that you have an outbreak happening, and so
Speaker 1: you can sort of act on it. But a lot
Speaker 1: of folks have looked at this and said, really, to
Speaker 1: be effective at this, they need to test a larger
Speaker 1: portion of the population, some think, and you need to
Speaker 1: do it more frequently, And that's what you see in
Speaker 1: some places, you know, like small college campuses around the country,
Speaker 1: where they're testing folks twice a week, and that way,
Speaker 1: you really are using the test as a way of
Speaker 1: sort of intervening and catching someone even before they know
Speaker 1: that they're sick, so you keep them at home. But
Speaker 1: right now, the city is moving forward with this and
Speaker 1: see this as the best option. So when they get
Speaker 1: a positive test, and they're getting it two ways, they're
Speaker 1: getting it from this random testing. But short of that,
Speaker 1: someone who works in the school or a family can
Speaker 1: go to any number of testing sites in the city
Speaker 1: and get tested, and they're meant to tell the school
Speaker 1: when that happens, and once they alert the school, the
Speaker 1: school immediately closed down the classroom that the person is in.
Speaker 1: If it's just one positive test, they'll send everybody home
Speaker 1: from the classroom, assume everybody had been exposed was and
Speaker 1: those folks will quarantine for fourteen days, and what they'll
Speaker 1: do as an investigation within the school to find out,
Speaker 1: you know, where those people have been. The design of
Speaker 1: the program is such that really the students and the
Speaker 1: teachers for each classroom are meant to stay pretty much
Speaker 1: within that small group. There's not supposed to be too
Speaker 1: much cross pollination to keep these exposures at a minimum.
Speaker 1: If there's more than two people that are found to
Speaker 1: be positive in a school and they can't connect them
Speaker 1: to each other, so they don't know how these two
Speaker 1: people are both in the class or hoy, this teacher
Speaker 1: went to the faculty lounge and and spose someone else
Speaker 1: that way, they can't make a connection, then they'll close
Speaker 1: the whole school down for a time and while they
Speaker 1: do an investigation, and if they can't figure out how
Speaker 1: multiple people are getting sick, they'll keep that school closed
Speaker 1: for fourteen days and assumed if everybody is exposed. And
Speaker 1: that struck a lot of people as overly cautious when
Speaker 1: it was announced, but in reality it seems to be
Speaker 1: working relatively well for the school system. You know, they've
Speaker 1: been you know, at the forefront and trying to open
Speaker 1: a very large school system, being aggressive that way, but
Speaker 1: then being very conservative on the side of closing down
Speaker 1: when even a single case emerges in a school population.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things about this, though, is for
Speaker 1: this testing program to work, it really depends on parents
Speaker 1: consenting to have their kids being tested. So I know
Speaker 1: that's kind of a hurdle to get over. Also, to
Speaker 1: get with a school population as big as New York
Speaker 1: City has to get that many parents to sign off
Speaker 1: on it has also been an issue. Yeah, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1: I mean, right now they have about I think it's
Speaker 1: fifteen percent. It's changing all the time, but about fifteen
Speaker 1: percent are contended to be tested. But what the officials
Speaker 1: will tell you, and even some public health officials with
Speaker 1: the city is that they really look at the teachers
Speaker 1: and the staff as the main sort of vector of
Speaker 1: bringing the disease into the school, bringing the virus, I
Speaker 1: should say, into the school, and that all those folks
Speaker 1: are sort of automatically consenting as part of their job,
Speaker 1: they want to come to work, and so they're getting
Speaker 1: over sort of sampled, so to speak. Right now, and
Speaker 1: the city doesn't see that as too much of a problem.
Speaker 1: They'd like to test the students as well, but as
Speaker 1: long as they're getting the adults that are in the school,
Speaker 1: they think they can still stay on top of any
Speaker 1: sort of emerging outbreak. Well, good news so far on
Speaker 1: all this. Hopefully this all continues and maybe other districts
Speaker 1: can uh take this model or I mean we're kind
Speaker 1: of learning constantly as we go through this, So a
Speaker 1: good news for now on it. David Goodman, reporter at
Speaker 1: the New York Times, thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks again. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been
Speaker 1: reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories,
Speaker 1: you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast
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