{"id":14011,"date":"2020-09-09T02:35:47","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T08:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=14011"},"modified":"2020-09-09T02:35:47","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T08:35:47","slug":"let-them-play-safely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/09\/let-them-play-safely\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Them Play, Safely"},"content":{"rendered":"

School board trustees OK <\/i><\/span>with Harvard\u2019s COVID-19 data<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
The Harvard Global Health Institute publishes a COVID Risk Level map showing if a county or state is on the green, yellow, orange or red risk level, based on the number of new daily cases. Image credit: Harvard Global Health Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

R<\/span>umblings around the school district about the use of a Harvard University COVID-risk map to determine which teams Blaine County schools can safely compete against triggered a lengthy discussion by school board trustees, district administrators and county health experts at an Aug. 31 meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n

It also triggered a nearly 1,000-word letter of explanation by Zone 5 Trustee Lara Stone, vice chair of the board who has been one of the more steadfast trustees when it comes to an err-on-the-side-of-safety approach. In the letter, Stone summarized the six key reasons BCSD opted for the Harvard Global Health Institute (GHI) metric rather than the one put forth by South Central Public Health District (SCPHD). <\/span><\/p>\n

Among the reasons are timing and purpose. Specifically, the timing of the local health district data can sometimes be nearly two to three weeks delayed, whereas Harvard\u2019s is at most a few days off. In addition, the purpose of the localized data is to help mitigate COVID spread, the purpose of Harvard\u2019s data is to help suppress it. Trustees are hoping that if sports teams follow a rigorous safety protocol developed by the district administrators and based on the Harvard data, student athletes will be able to compete against other schools safely or know when it\u2019s too risky.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a strategy to eliminate all risk. The only way to do that is to not play sports,\u201d Stone said. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s really clear that we want kids out playing, and competing if possible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What follows are excerpts from Stone\u2019s six-point explanation:<\/span><\/p>\n

SCIENCE \u2013 GHI\u2019s metrics were developed by physicians and scientists in the fields of immunology, virology, and epidemiology. In contrast, local health districts have a board of health appointed by county commissioners within that region, so the ratings can be impacted by local politics and outside pressures.<\/span><\/p>\n

TIMING \u2013 GHI\u2019s ratings are based on a seven-day rolling average and are updated daily, with a 24-hour delay built in to assure the stability of the data. In contrast, the local public health districts only reassess their risk\/color ratings every two weeks and their data is based on a 14-day rolling average. This gap can hide a big surge in infection.<\/span><\/p>\n

MITIGATION vs. SUPPRESSION \u2013 SCPHD\u2019s ratings set a lower bar. They aim for mitigation\u2014keeping the size of current outbreaks from growing, in order to keep our hospitals from being overwhelmed. In contrast, GHI\u2019s ratings aim for suppression\u2014greatly reducing new infections and keeping them low enough to safely open public life again. Following GHI ratings significantly increases the chances we can go back to school full time sooner without increasing the number of people put at risk or having to suddenly switch to all remote learning due to an outbreak.<\/span><\/p>\n

EXPERIENCE \u2013 Local public health districts in Idaho have only been rating county risk levels for two-plus weeks. GHI has been publishing data since July 1. GHI uses data obtained from the CDC, national, state, and local health departments.<\/span><\/p>\n

MIXED DATA \u2013 SCPHD uses the districtwide case-positivity rate (they do not have this data at the county level). Because Blaine County has a much lower positivity rate right now, it conceals the risk in other counties in our public health district. <\/span><\/p>\n

PERTINENT DATA \u2013 SCPHD places the most weight in terms of color rating on hospital capacity, which is the ability to treat all incoming patients, not just COVID-19 positive patients. This figure will only change when every other metric is at a critical level. Because it is classified as \u201cGreen\u201d across all counties, it reduces the color ratings of counties with other, more pertinent, transmission risks.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

School board trustees OK with Harvard\u2019s COVID-19 data By Eric Valentine Rumblings around the school district about the use of a Harvard University COVID-risk map to determine which teams Blaine County schools can safely compete against triggered a lengthy discussion by school board trustees, district administrators and county health experts at an Aug. 31 meeting. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"category-news","9":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}