HIGHER ED TODAY
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COURIER L 14 IFE, OCTOBER 1-7, 2021
Defying Delta
Back to school goes
better than many feared
BY MICHAEL ERMAN, GWLADYS FOUCHE
& ALISTAIR SMOUT, REUTERS
School for children in many nations
has been underway for more than a
month and fears the Delta coronavirus
variant would derail in-person learning
have largely proven unfounded.
In a dozen countries with high vaccination
rates in Asia, Europe and the
United States, case rates that surged
in August have mostly fallen back, according
to local data and offi cials.
The jury is out on how much this is
due to seasonal factors amid a global
decline in cases, and how much it is
linked to vaccinations and other preventative
measures. Public health experts
say they will continue to watch
for signs of an increase in cases as winter
approaches.
“In the United States, in-school
transmission is higher in places with
low adult vaccination and no mitigation,
but, overall, schools have stayed
open,” said Monica Gandhi, professor
of medicine at University of California
San Francisco Medical School. “It is going
better than expected.”
Cases among children increased
nearly seven fold in August but peaked
the week ended Sept. 2, American
Academy of Pediatrics data shows. But
only about 2 percent of U.S. schools
have closed temporarily because of
COVID-19 outbreaks, according to research
fi rm Burbio, which tracks
school closings.
In the United States, the number of
children’s cases has grown as a percentage
of overall cases, according to
the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“Schools simply refl ect what’s going
on in the surrounding community
and, in most cases, you have less
transmission than in the surrounding
community because of mitigation
measures in place,” said Dr. Sean
O’Leary, a pediatrics professor at the
University of Colorado.
In Kentucky, for instance, 45 of the
state’s 171 school districts have closed
down at least once since the academic
year began in August, according to
Joshua Shoulta, a spokesman for the
Kentucky School Boards Association.
Cases per 100,000 people in Kentucky
are falling but still among the
highest in the country and just over
50 percent of its population is fully
vaccinated. The state’s school districts
were already struggling with
staff shortages before COVID-19 cases
and quarantines, Shoulta said. The
A teacher wears a mask while in the classroom.
REUTERS/Brian Snyder
state legislature met in a special session
last week, where lawmakers gave
local school offi cials more autonomy
to implement COVID-19 protocols.
“What we know now and the tools
we have compared to where we were at
this time last year makes it a slightly
different ball game,” Shoulta said.
One Texas school district is struggling
with less than half the substitute
teachers it needs. Brent Hawkins,
superintendent of the Livingston (TX)
Independent School District, said the
district was forced to close down for
Labor Day week after more than 10
percent of the 600-member faculty got
COVID-19.
Hawkins said Texas Governor
Greg Abbott’s decision to bar school
districts from requiring masks is
driving much of the increase in cases.
Livingston recorded more positive
cases among students and teachers in
the fi rst few weeks of school than during
all of last year, he said. Just under
7 percent of the district’s approximately
4,000 students, or nearly 300
children, had been infected as of mid-
September.
“For a couple of weeks, we had people
like myself and other administrators
in classrooms substitute teaching,”
Hawkins said.
Meanwhile, California is nearly
nine times the size of Kentucky, with a
population of around 40 million. With
masks, ventilation and high vaccination
rates, the San Francisco and Los
Angeles school districts reported zero
to few cases in their fi rst few weeks.
The state has had fewer than half of the
number of school or district closures as
Kentucky, according to Burbio.
EDUCATION
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FAiyana Braswell was a college student
in Houston when COVID-19 reached
the U.S. in the spring of 2020. Aiyana, who
is Black, began working as an EMT, saying
she wanted to work on the front lines and
“advocate for people who look like me.”
“It was clear that the virus was hitting
certain communities, such as my own,
harder than some other communities,” Aiyana
says. “And I wanted to get involved.”
Fast forward 18 months later: Aiyana is
now a student at CUNY’s Graduate School
of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY
SPH) pursuing an Advanced Certificate
in Public Health. She plans to eventually
complete a graduate degree in epidemiology.
“That’s why I wanted to pursue public
health,” she says, “because there’s a difference
in how you are treated based on your
economic status.”
It doesn’t surprise me that Aiyana’s
strong desire to make a difference brought
her to CUNY SPH, one of CUNY’s seven
graduate, professional and honors schools.
As the pandemic has reshaped our world,
the school has been particularly well positioned
to meet the fast-evolving challenges
of these times.
Health Equity Approach
Since its founding in 2016, CUNY SPH
has blossomed into an invaluable resource
for scholarly research and community engagement
at a time when New York — and
the world — has needed it most. Under the
leadership of Dean Ayman El-Mohandes,
a pediatrician with a deep commitment to
public service, the school has grown into
a formidable institution of advocacy for
the eradication of inequities in the public
health care system.
In just five years, the school has doubled
the size of its student body to a record
949 students registered this semester while
tripling its research funding to more than
$17 million for the current academic year.
This year, CUNY SPH and the NYC Department
of Health and Mental Hygiene
received a five-year, $3.3 million grant from
the National Institute of Mental Health to
help people living with HIV achieve viral
suppression. The school also received a
$500,000 grant to launch the Campaign for a
Food Secure CUNY, a new initiative to help
CUNY students combat food insecurity, a
problem that was growing in scope well before
it was exacerbated by the pandemic.
No doubt this is part of the reason why
CUNY SPH was recently ranked 16th of 123
graduate schools of public health across
the nation, as well as the top-ranked public
school of public health in the New York tristate
area, by U.S. News & World Report.
Local Focus, Global Reach
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
in March 2020, the school became
a valuable source for expert perspectives
with its world-class faculty and staff routinely
quoted in the national and global
media. The school’s regular surveys of New
Yorkers’ opinions on all things COVID-related
were an important source of information
for health officials and policymakers.
The school’s Institute for Implementation
Science in Population Health (ISPH) monitored
the pandemic response and tracked
antibody test results among nearly 7,000 individuals
nationally, which helped schools
better prepare for remote or in-person
learning during the pandemic.
CUNY SPH’s research is created locally,
but its reach is global. The school published
an international study in Nature Medicine
gauging potential acceptance of a COVID
vaccine, which was one of the first to address
vaccine hesitancy. And through their
CONVINCE USA initiative, CUNY SPH has
promoted vaccine literacy and boost confidence
in life-saving COVID-19 vaccines.
Public Service Bent
This dedication to public service is reflected
in the articulated ambitions of the
students it attracts. Students such as Kevin
Chin, who, after working for nearly two
decades as an information technology consultant
in the health care industry, decided
to take a break from his high-pressure job.
He returned to New York in early 2020, just
as the pandemic hit, and the extra time off
gave him an opportunity to reflect.
After much soul-searching, Kevin enrolled
in CUNY SPH to pursue an MPH in
Health Policy and Management. “After I
complete my degree, I want to look for jobs
where I can help enact better health care
policies that improve everyone’s lives,” he
says. “Not just the lives of a few.”
It fills me with pride, hearing how these
students have been motivated by the important
role that CUNY SPH has played these
past 18 months. This pandemic is far from
over. But with each month, we grow more
optimistic as we look to build a more equitable
post-pandemic future, and New Yorkers
know that CUNY and its students are helping
to make that future a reality.
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