Students are back in the classroom in New York City, And while parents, teachers and students might be worried about the potential for the COVID-19 virus to spread quickly in the halls, the first results we have from testing show only a few positive cases: only 28 positives out of 16,348 staff members and students.
But the city has also shut down some in-person schooling and imposed new emergency restrictions in 20 Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods, due to concerns that those areas have become new coronavirus hotspots.
And a recent study from Brown University suggests that schools aren’t the super-spreader environments we might be worried about.
Health economist Emily Oster led the report. She breaks down how to measure the risks, based on the information we have, of keeping schools open.
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