The Case For Reopening Schools (with Emily Oster)
In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt
Lemonada Media
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 February 2021
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr. Bob calls up Brown economist Emily Oster to discuss one of the most complicated and controversial issues of the pandemic: what to do about schools. Emily created the COVID-19 School Response Dashboard, a database that indicates that schools aren't a significant source of COVID-19 spread. She also talks about how the school debate ended up getting politicized, what it's like doing real-time data analysis, what elements need to be in place for successful school reopening, and how she’s managed her own kids during the pandemic.
Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter @Bob_Wachter and check out In the Bubble’s new Twitter account @inthebubblepod.
Follow Emily Oster on Twitter @ProfEmilyOster.
Keep up with Andy in D.C. on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt.
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Check out these resources from today’s episode:
- Find a link to the COVID-19 School Response Dashboard here: https://covidschooldashboard.com/
- Read the CDC’s new guidelines for reopening schools: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/community/schools-childcare/K-12-Operational-Strategy-2021-2-12.pdf
- Pre-order Emily’s latest book, The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/639450/the-family-firm-by-emily-oster/
- Keep up with all of Emily’s work at her website: https://emilyoster.net/
- Read more about those advocating to make 3 feet the default distance between people in schools: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/12/three-feet-social-distancing-schools-coronavirus/
- Check out the CDC report that Bob mentions in today’s episode on the NFL’s response to COVID-19: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e2.htm
- Learn more about Dr. Bob Wachter and the UCSF Department of Medicine here: https://medicine.ucsf.edu/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's CVS Health, they know the women's physical, mental, and sexual health matters. |
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| 0:14.0 | to virtual birth control consultations and visits with a board certified provider, |
| 0:18.0 | women's health is it an afterthought. It matters. |
| 0:21.0 | It's CVS Health. Health here happens together. Learn more at CVSHealth.com. |
| 0:28.0 | So I got a box in the mail the other day, and you know, I'm not usually thrilled with the box usually. |
| 0:35.0 | It's not always for me. This time it was from well before.com and I opened it up and there were a whole bunch of masks, |
| 0:42.0 | including what they call their premium 3D Pro KNN-D5 mask, which I started wearing when I was in crowded places |
| 0:50.0 | and became stable for me during the winter and during the holidays. |
| 0:54.0 | And with a new variant circulating, I don't really want to get COVID. I can't take packs. |
| 0:59.0 | Love it. So there's also other viruses, there's fires, all kinds of reasons why having a whole box of masks around made me really, really happy. |
| 1:07.0 | So I am always happy when the box shows up as it's now started to do. |
| 1:12.0 | They actually are sold through a subscription, which is kind of a game changer because you can work through your masks |
| 1:17.0 | and then you always know that the KNN-D5s are going to show up again. So thank you well before. |
| 1:24.0 | Go to well before that's w-e-l-l-b-e-f-o-r-e.com slash in the bubble or use the code in the bubble for an extra 10% off site wide. |
| 1:35.0 | Lemonada. Welcome to In the Bubble from the Frontlines. I'm your host, Dr. Bob Wachter. |
| 1:55.0 | There have been a lot of issues that have been debated back and forth in this pandemic and frankly some of them should not have been the source of debate. |
| 2:06.0 | Masks should not have been testing, should not have been. I understand the debate over vaccines, but the vaccines are so remarkably effective and so important and so safe, |
| 2:16.0 | at least from the data we have now that there shouldn't be much debate about them. |
| 2:21.0 | There's one issue though that has been the source of massive amounts of debate and it's understandable because it is remarkably challenging and emotional and the stakes are so high at every level and that is the question of the schools. |
| 2:36.0 | And like everything else in the early parts of the pandemic, it got politicized and that made it difficult to take a good, hard, evidence-based, scientific-based rational look at what the right things to do about the schools were. |
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