Democratic states are shutting down many places once again as cases of COVID-19 are on the rise, including in-person education for schools, but as MSNBC reported on Monday, schools do not seem to be a concern for spreading the virus.
MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle asked Dr. John Torres what evidence says about coronavirus spreading in schools versus in-person dining at restaurants.
"The science right now is showing that in-person schools, the virus doesn’t seem to be spreading that much. And here is a couple of things we know. Remember, early on, a few months ago, we were really worried schools would turn into superspreader centers. Children go back and start spreading it to their households and it caused a lot of issues. Well, that has not panned out," Torres said.
"As a matter of fact, Brown University, Dr. Emily Oster did a study, 47 states. Two hundred thousand students, 63,000 staff members. And here’s what she found. Since school opened, the infection rate for students is 0.1 percent. The infection rate for staff is 0.25 percent. These are very, very low numbers. And so what we’re seeing is the schools themselves don’t seem to be supercenters or even centers of spread of coronavirus, especially in the younger children," he continued.
Torres said it also looks as though when students do contract coronavirus, it is often not at school settings, as they contract the virus at get-togethers and other places outside of school.
States like Michigan and New York are banning in-person learning at schools and colleges.
On Monday, pharmaceutical company Moderna announced they have produced a vaccine that is 94.5 percent effective against COVID-19. This marks the second company, behind Pfizer, that has revealed major progress in a COVID-19 vaccine.