Political leaders and school administrators are once again shifting millions of American kids back to virtual leaning as coronavirus cases mount. Yet data from the fall semester indicates schools aren’t a big vector for the virus after all. “We have not seen schools as a major source of transmission for covid, particularly in the low-prevalence areas,” said Emily Oster, an economics professor at Brown University. “I think that suggests it’s possible to reopen schools safely, probably more than we are currently doing.” That’s according to a database created by Oster, who noticed there was no central place to track how the virus was spreading in elementary, middle and high schools and wanted to fill that need. With the help of colleagues, she invited school districts and individual schools across the United States to submit reports twice a week on cases among students and staff members. Seventy-two percent of the […]