Coronavirus: pay attention to the schools

Thanks to Paul Krugman's newsletter I found myself reading Simon Wren-Lewis on what the likely impact of the coronavirus might be. About 10 years ago, this British economist was enlisted by health experts to model what a major influenza epidemic would mean to the economy.

What leaps out from his highly readable summary of that work is that, on top of losses caused by workers getting sick and missing work, school closures could really hurt the economy.

School closures can amplify the reduction in labour supply if some workers are forced to take time off to look after children. ...

Should be obvious, but in this country we don't habitually think of work in terms of family implications.

This put me in mind of one of my take aways from a book about the 1918 flu epidemic. New York City was surprisingly successful in keeping the flu outbreak from devastating the crowded, impoverished, immigrant working class of the metropolis.

... Initially [health commissioner, Royal S. Copeland] intended to close all public schools, as had happened in the neighbouring states of Massachusetts and New Jersey. But the pioneering head of the health department's child hygiene division, Josephine Baker, persuaded him not to. She argued that the children would be easier to survey in school, and to treat should they show signs. They could be fed properly, which wasn't always the case at home, and used to transmit important public health information back to their families. ... [Copeland tried her approach] and in doing so he brought bitter recriminations down on his head, including from the Red Cross and former health commissioners. But he and Baker would be vindicated; the flu was practically absent from school age children that fall. ...

They didn't close the schools -- and they were therefore able to use the students to carry home precautionary information to parents, many of whom were not fluent in English.

For the moment, this does not seem to be the response favored in the present developing situation.

School superintendents throughout the country are pondering whether and how to close their school systems as the coronavirus approaches, weighing the pros and cons and seeking advice from outside experts including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state health officials and professional groups.

The executive director of the American Association of School Administrators said his organization fielded at least 60 inquiries about closures from concerned superintendents over the past week. Daniel A. Domenech, the executive director, said he gave similar advice to each: The moment you must drop everything and close, he said, comes when students, parents or teachers contract the novel coronavirus.

That holds true even if just one person is infected, Domenech said — because, in schools, infections can spread dangerously fast. “Schools are the breeding grounds: Teachers are always sick, because kids are always sick,” he said. “They bring in the germs and, boom, the classroom is infected.”

School authorities could certainly use more coherent advice from state and federal officials than they seem to be getting as yet. There are over 13,000 school districts in this country which are trying to figure this out. ...Since this was Super Tuesday, the FiveThirtyEight crew took a light weight crack at envisioning how the coronavirus might play in the campaign.

Coronavirus will be an issue ... campaigns will have to adjust ...