GREENSBORO, N.C. — (Editor's Note: The attached video is from a previous story)
In the debate over reopening schools, Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest retweeted a statement Wednesday from a conservative pundit: "There is little to no evidence schools are serious vectors of COVID transmission; children are at extraordinarily low risk from COVID"
This week the CDC did post new guidance for schools writing something similar: "The best available evidence indicates that COVID-19 poses relatively low risks to school-aged children." Adding that children under 18 make up 26 percent of Americans but 7 percent of coronavirus cases.
This topic has also been researched across the globe. In Australia researchers tracked 9 students and 9 teachers with coronavirus. They came in contact with 863 other people at the school and infected two people.
In China a team of researchers did a much larger study and found compared to adults, children are about a third as likely to catch coronavirus. But in school settings they come into close contact with three times more people than the average adult. So they have the same risk level as everyone else. The study's author says closing schools stops about 40 to 60 percent of infections.
And back here at home, scientists reviewed all the research around the world and wrote: "far from definitive, the researchers provides early reassurance that school-based transmission could be a manageable problem."