Short Wave - Coronavirus Is Closing Schools: Here's How Families Can Cope.

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

As schools across the U.S. shutter for weeks at a time, Short Wave looks at the science behind the decision. Plus, tips from a psychologist on how to cope with long, unexpected periods at home.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, everybody, Emily Kwank here. We've heard that a lot of you listen to Shortwave with your kids, sometimes on the way to school, and it's part of your routine. But today, many of you may be staying at home because of the coronavirus. Effective Monday, March 16th, we will close all Los Angeles Unified Public Schools for two weeks. We've informed the superintendents while we've closed schools for three weeks that the odds are that, you know, this is going to go on a lot longer. We will make a first attempt to restart our schools on Monday, April 20th.

But I have to be honest that we're dealing with a lot of unknowns and a lot of challenges. And this virus can feel really scary for kids, for parents, for grandparents, too. So today on the show, to provide you some solid science-backed info, we have two of NPR's finest. education correspondent Corey Turner. Hey, Emily. Hey, Corey. And Malika Garib, an editor on NPR's Global Health and Development Desk. Hey, Malika.

Hello. Hey. So, Malika, you've been drawing some cartoons about this outbreak for kids and grownups. And they are amazing. Thank you. We're going to talk about them and about coronavirus basics for families. Why your school may close if it hasn't already. What you can do to try and limit getting sick.

And maybe some ideas about how to pass a time if you're stuck at home, all that and more after the break. Okay, let's start this conversation by talking about the number one thing on most kids' minds and definitely the number one thing on most parents' minds, school closings. So, Corey, why take the kids out of school? Well, Emily, we've seen in the last few days a kind of tipping point where we went from schools closing, you know, here or there on a case-by-case basis to, honestly, in just really 48 hours last week, schools starting to close.

statewide. And in most of these places, when the decision was made, they didn't actually have that many infections. So, you know, it may have struck people in the moment. Like, well, this is kind of weird. Right. Why are we doing this right now? Why close if there aren't infections in our immediate community? Right. So why do that? Well, so I spoke to this guy, Nicholas Christakis. He's at Yale. Okay. And he actually does a lot of really interesting work studying how ideas spread, among other things. And they happen to spread kind of like diseases. And so when coronavirus hit the scene, given our interest in this topic and given the fact that, you know, I'm a physician and also specialized in public health and epidemiology, it was not a stretch for me to become interested in this topic. And so Christakis said, look, yes, you can close a school when there's a case. And probably everyone would agree that that is a sensible thing to do.

And it helps. So there's a study he pointed me to of H1N. one, flu epidemic was about what, 10 years ago? Which hit a decade ago, yeah. So the study is of Japan's reaction and showed that closing the schools when there's a case made a difference. And it found that reactive school closures reduced the rate of infections in the community by nearly 30%. That is no small number.

No, it's not. It's pretty good. So that makes a lot of sense to me. But like you said, schools in the U.S. are closing all over the place even when there are a lot of infections. Yeah, and I think part of that is because the science around COVID-19, at least, and how it spreads is still kind of unsettled. You know, we're not totally clear on how kids can spread it. We don't know if, say, a child, you know, doesn't seem sick, but is still carrying the coronavirus?

How will that child impact the people that he or she comes into contact with? Right, right, like their parents or their caretakers. Exactly. So honestly, out of an abundance of caution, school closures, you know, they limit contact, they limit the possibility of kids getting sick and of passing along coronavirus to the people they love. And Corey, you have an example from history of a time when school cancellations really helped out during a viral outbreak. What was that? Yeah, this was an enormous flu epidemic back in 1918. And there's actually really good research on how U.S. cities responded.

including what happened to the cities that closed their schools early versus those that didn't. So Nicholas Christakis says when you look at this research, the results really speak for themselves. If you compare, you know, St. Louis, which closed the schools in advance and kept them closed for longer, their death rate was 358 people per 100,000 population. But Pittsburgh, which waited till later and didn't keep the schools closed as much, their death rate was almost three times as high, 807 people dying per 100,000 population. Wow, that is a lot of people.

Yeah, it's a lot of people. And what about how will that affect families in vulnerable populations? How will that affect them? I imagine that all of this comes with a cost. Oh, absolutely. And I think this is something that a lot of people aren't thinking about, that while keeping schools open has a public health cost, so does closing them, especially for vulnerable low-income families.

You know, a lot of people don't realize that 20 million kids in this country, more than 20 million, depend on schools for free breakfast, free lunch, in some cases, free dinner. Many of them get medical care at school. Not to mention the fact that there are lots of parents out there who are working, you know, low-age, hourly jobs. They can't take off work. They can't work from home. So what happens with these kids? I spoke with Sonia Santalises.

She's the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, which are now closed, and she really summed it up well for me. For a large number of our students, the safest place for them to be is actually in school. So if you think about this from her point of view in Baltimore, you know, the state of Maryland has closed schools for two weeks. That's a long time for some kids to be home alone, to be coming to distribution centers to pick up what are called, you know, grab and go meals. But honestly, Emily, really, really complicating this is the fact that CDC released new guidance at the end of last week that said these short-term closures, like two to four weeks, they're not even long enough to actually slow the spread of this disease. They might need to go much longer. And I know there are a lot of school leaders around this country who are looking at that guidance and scratching their heads. Like, how much longer are we talking about here?

Well, I mean, the governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, said on CNN this Sunday, you know, he's closed schools there for three weeks. But he said it's perfectly imaginable that, you know, this is going to go on a lot longer. And it would not surprise me at all if schools did not open again this year. Wow. Malika, I want to bring you in on this because you've been looking at the ways this can really affect families. Yeah, if schools are closed, it can definitely put a lot of pressure on families. I spoke to Joy Assovsky. She's a clinical and developmental psychologist at Louisiana State University's Health Sciences Center.

And here's what she said. One of the, a lot of parents need to work, and they cannot work remotely. And even if they can work remotely, there are a lot of different kinds of things that need to be done for children if they're not in school. It puts also much more pressure on parents because there isn't the routine of school. So there are more meals at home. There's more care for children needed during the day. And so they really have to establish what we would call a new normal, a new routine in that way. So how can parents create that routine and deal with that?

Well, you know, she had a lot of different ideas, but the one that struck me was that older children can take some responsibility. I myself am the oldest of five siblings, and I helped with my siblings growing up. She says that they could basically watch younger kids and help around the house doing chores and that kind of thing. And she says that actually is helpful for the older children and can give them a sense of responsibility, a sense that they're like actually contributing to the family in a time of crisis. And I asked Assovsky whether older kids really do step up to the plate. And she says that actually she's found that after disasters like Hurricane Katrina, for example, older kids have been really helpful. They're helping younger kids out with schoolwork. So parents can lean on them.

This is what older kids do. Yeah. This is part of the job description. Trust them. When you're born, you get a job description. And it's look after your siblings. Yeah. And what about talking about the virus itself?

Because I know a lot of families are really scared and there's a lot of anxiety around it and maybe they're not sure what to say. I mean, Asofsky basically said is that parents need to be informed. Check the CDC website. Listen to NPR. And there's really, really good news for families on the one end. Kids don't really seem to get very sick. And, Emily, I just want to add a couple things, too, from the episode. I just recorded with my colleague, Anya Kamenetz, on parenting and coronavirus over at LifeKit.

When you're talking with kids, make sure you're not making promises you can't keep. So don't tell them, oh, no, you won't get it because you don't know that. And I always like to channel Mr. Rogers whenever I can, which is look for the helpers, trust in the helpers, know that the helpers are out there. Our country is full of doctors and experts and professionals who are there to help take care of us when we need them, and that will be a comfort to kids. Yeah, this is the time for the helpers, for sure. Malika, I wanted to talk to you about the basics to avoid getting sick.

You spent an entire day following all of the recommendations from the CDC and the WHO, or at least trying to. Then you illustrated it and turned it into a comic that's on npr.org's website. Tell me all about that. Yeah. Yeah. So basically, I want to test my skills in terms of how to avoid transmission. So I just read the directions on the CDC and the WHO website. And I want to see if I can interpret those guidelines correctly in my daily life in the real world because it's one thing to read it, but it's totally other thing to do it. Being a plus. Yeah. CDC follower. Exactly. So like on a Friday, and it seems like it's just so outdated now, like what I did. But last Friday, I kept a diary of all my movements. What I touched, when I was. I washed my hands, when I scratched my face, picked my nose. And then where I went to the coffee shop, salad bar, to the movie theaters. I saw three other NPR people there. So you went to the

movie theater? I know, I know. But it's totally outdated now. Like, no one would go to the movie theater today. You know what I mean? That was so two weeks ago. So two weeks ago. And then I turned all of that into a comic. And then just to like take things further, I actually showed the comic to three professors of epidemiology and asked them to grade me. And what was the result? Well, they all definitely said that I should not have gone to the movies or sat in a taxi. It's a lot of close contact with people who might potentially be sick. My lowest grade was a B-minus, but my highest grade was an A-plus for making the epidemiologist laugh. That has to count for something.

So you went through this exercise and what did you learn from it? Well, here's what I learned. I think that, for one, you have to assume that every surface that you touch is contagious. Don't assume that it's safe. Two, you need to really cut down on situations that will put you in close, proximity of others. I think we're in a place right now in the American society where that's like really drilled into our minds. And three, just be conscious of your efforts. That awareness of being safe, it really goes a long way. And beyond those measures, what else do you think we

should be doing? Well, Emily, honestly, and this is so not a thrilling answer, but speaking for all the parents out there whose kids are out of school, like my own, I think it's really important to come up with a routine together. Create time. for learning, create time for, you know, independent reading, sitting on the sofa, time for board games, time for drawing, time for outside. You can still go outside. Just don't party, hang out in big groups, but go for a walk, go for a hike, go for a bike ride. And lastly, this is for the grownups out there. You have to take care of your own mental health too. This is a stressful time for all of us. And, you know, raising kids, it's like sitting in an airplane and the oxygen masks come down. This is

the same thing. You got to put your own mask on first or you're no use to your kids. Yeah, love that. Yeah. Speaking of looking out for others, mental health is a factor too. And what can you do to look out for the mental health of someone who does get sick in your home? So the one thing that you need to think about also is that if a person gets sick in your home, in addition to isolating that person physically and doing everything that the CDC and the WHO says to isolate that person, you need to have a plan of how you're going to keep an emotional bond with that person. They're going to need lots of love and care and attention and you have to figure out a way to talk to them, communicate with them. So whether that's using like social media or FaceTime or just calling them on the phone,

having that plan is very important. And this is something that Joy Asofsky told me is something that family should think about. Coming up with a care plan that's holistic. Not just their physical care. Their emotional care too. Yes. That's awesome. That is education correspondent Corey Turner and Malika Grieb, editor on NPR's Global Health and Development Desk. Thank you both so much for coming in and sharing this information with Shortwave listeners. We really appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Thank you, Emily.

And for anyone listening who's interested in Malika's comics about what we know about the coronavirus and how to follow guidelines, we'll have a link to that on our episode page. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. See you next time.