Schools: Caution light is blazing bright yellow

Pierce County is saying that local districts may be free to start reopening elementary schools as early as Sept. 22.

While that may be welcome news, I would say it is definitely tentative news, and districts should seriously consider whether to move ahead when we remain so close to the unsafe red zone.

I track and share each day’s Pierce County COVID-19 numbers. My sense is that new case numbers are leveling off at something around 50 new cases per day.

It seems reasonable to expect the 14-day case rate will also level off around this level, assuming we don’t have a post Labor Day spike. This would put us somewhere near the middle of the cautious yellow zone.

It may be safe to bring younger students back at this level, but then again ...

It might be worth noting that on March 19, two days after the governor deemed it necessary to shut down all schools, the 14-day moving average stood at 6 cases per day. The first wave peaked at 46 cases on April 8-9.

How can we be sure that conditions for reopening buildings are safer now than they were then?

This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 8:23 AM with the headline "Schools: Caution light is blazing bright yellow."