It's Wednesday, October one. I'm Oscar Emiraz from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. Some initial results from coronavirus testing in New York City schools is showing a surprisingly small number of positive cases. About half of the city students have opted for hybrid learning, which is helping them keep class sizes as small and
allow for more social distancing between desks. David Goodman, reporter at the New York Times, joins us for the testing plan, aiming to test ten of the school population at least once a month. Thanks for joining us, David, I'm sure thanks for having me back to school in the country. This year took on many different forms. There was schools that we're doing only remote learning, there was schools that we're doing some type of hybrid, and then there was
these other schools that we're doing in person instruction. In New York City, they were one of these school districts that we're trying to do these in person classes. And right now we have some early data from the city's effort to test a lot of the students and faculty that are running the schools, and we're seeing a surprisingly small number of positive coronavirus cases, which is very good news. So David tell us what we're learning about this as
kids are starting to go back to school. So in New York City they're doing but they're calling a blended model. So you know, half of the students have opted or actually half of the families have opted to keep their students at home and do remote learning, and half have opted for in person classes that are done in a kind of split schedule, so you're in school some of the time and then you're at home for some of
the time. And I think what we're seeing now the data that's come out so far is from the first round of random testing that they've done in a small number of schools. I mean small number of New York City.
They're about eighteen hundred schools in New York City's public school system, and they're testing about fifty at a time, which is a lot for any ordinary school system, but here it's they've done about three or four days of testing that we have the data for, and what we've seen is that the rates are not any different in schools than they are anywhere else in the city, and in fact, compared to hotpot locations in the city right now,
they're lower. And what that signals, I think is that some of the fear that had really attended the opening of schools in New York City, you know, it just hasn't been worn out. This is a place that had the worst outbreak back in March and April at the most depths of any part of the United States, and going back to school was seen as a big risk that the mayor had taken here. And so far it hasn't proved any riskier going to school than is doing any other activity in the city, which is to say,
not risky at this time. So what is the plan in New York My understanding is that they want to test about ten of the school population at least once a month. Depending on the location, size of the school, they might want to do more than that twice a month, I've seen. So what's that plan? And then beyond that, when they get a positive test, how do they react. At the moment, the plan is like you said, do
once a month. There's the union and others are pushing for them to do it more frequently, primarily because when you talk to public health experts, they'll tell you that once a month is really not enough to actually keep an outbreak from spreading. What it does is tell you you know that you have an outbreak happening, and so
you can sort of act on it. But a lot of folks have looked at this and said, really, to be effective at this, they need to test a larger portion of the population, some think, and you need to do it more frequently, And that's what you see in some places, you know, like small college campuses around the country, where they're testing folks twice a week, and that way, you really are using the test as a way of sort of intervening and catching someone even before they know
that they're sick, so you keep them at home. But right now, the city is moving forward with this and see this as the best option. So when they get a positive test, and they're getting it two ways, they're
getting it from this random testing. But short of that, someone who works in the school or a family can go to any number of testing sites in the city and get tested, and they're meant to tell the school when that happens, and once they alert the school, the school immediately closed down the classroom that the person is in.
If it's just one positive test, they'll send everybody home from the classroom, assume everybody had been exposed was and those folks will quarantine for fourteen days, and what they'll do as an investigation within the school to find out, you know, where those people have been. The design of the program is such that really the students and the teachers for each classroom are meant to stay pretty much
within that small group. There's not supposed to be too much cross pollination to keep these exposures at a minimum.
If there's more than two people that are found to be positive in a school and they can't connect them to each other, so they don't know how these two people are both in the class or hoy, this teacher went to the faculty lounge and and spose someone else that way, they can't make a connection, then they'll close the whole school down for a time and while they do an investigation, and if they can't figure out how multiple people are getting sick, they'll keep that school closed
for fourteen days and assumed if everybody is exposed. And that struck a lot of people as overly cautious when it was announced, but in reality it seems to be working relatively well for the school system. You know, they've been you know, at the forefront and trying to open a very large school system, being aggressive that way, but then being very conservative on the side of closing down when even a single case emerges in a school population.
One of the interesting things about this, though, is for this testing program to work, it really depends on parents consenting to have their kids being tested. So I know that's kind of a hurdle to get over. Also, to get with a school population as big as New York City has to get that many parents to sign off on it has also been an issue. Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean, right now they have about I think it's fifteen percent. It's changing all the time, but about fifteen
percent are contended to be tested. But what the officials will tell you, and even some public health officials with the city is that they really look at the teachers and the staff as the main sort of vector of bringing the disease into the school, bringing the virus, I should say, into the school, and that all those folks are sort of automatically consenting as part of their job, they want to come to work, and so they're getting
over sort of sampled, so to speak. Right now, and the city doesn't see that as too much of a problem. They'd like to test the students as well, but as long as they're getting the adults that are in the school, they think they can still stay on top of any sort of emerging outbreak. Well, good news so far on all this. Hopefully this all continues and maybe other districts can uh take this model or I mean we're kind of learning constantly as we go through this, So a
good news for now on it. David Goodman, reporter at the New York Times, thank you very much for joining us. Oh thanks again. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So'll follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast.