The COVID-19 new case count continues to drift downwards, now 26 new cases per 100K population per day, down one from yesterday.
Data source for this and other graphs of new case counts: Calculated from The New York Times. (2021). Coronavirus (Covid-19) Data in the United States. Retrieved 9/3/2022, from https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data.” The NY Times U.S. tracking page may be found at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
Schools and the return to normalcy.
As has been the case throughout the pandemic, back-to-school for elementary and high school students seems to be having no noticeable impact on the spread of COVID-19. Early in the pandemic, most people (including me) expected to see some increased spread of disease as students returned to school. But, as far as I can recall, that never materialized in any uniform fashion. Michigan schools had some problems, particularly among “high contact” populations such as football teams (Post #1077). But for U.S. students, in general, return to class (typically masked, sometimes distanced, frequently tested) didn’t increase the spread of disease significantly above the existing background rate in the community.
For example, last year I did a pretty good “natural experiment” analysis of Virginia schools, comparing the school districts based on the staggered school year start dates. I found exactly nothing.
Note: This is the 2021 school year opening.
This year, our local school district (Fairfax County Public Schools) continues to track the number of reported new COVID-19 cases among elementary and high school students. That seems like a not-unreasonable precaution.
Source: Fairfax County Public Schools.
By contrast, there were definitely well-documented COVID-19 outbreaks at many U.S. universities. For example, at William and Mary, which my daughter attended at the time, widespread partying last St. Patrick’s day led to a significant upturn in new cases (Post #1099).
This year, William and Mary isn’t even bothering to keep track of new cases. Checking a few other Virginia universities, this appears to be the norm. That seems a bit odd, as there’s still plenty of COVID-19 in circulation, and students are still apt to party. That makes further COVID-19 outbreaks on college campuses almost a certainty. But this year, those outbreaks will be treated no differently from flu outbreaks, annoying but not life-threatening.
And so, things return to (the new) normal. It resembles the old normal, except that we all have to contend with permanent widespread circulation of this disease. But now, by and large, it’s like flu, just vastly more contagious. It continues to add to our health care costs and to the U.S. mortality rate. (As noted in a recent post, U.S. lifespan isn’t going to return to the pre-pandemic level any time soon.) It’s now just the way the world is. Today’s children will eventually view COVID as part of the landscape.
