Nearly 73 million children – about 99% of the U.S. population under the age of 18 – live in such a ‘high transmission’ community, defined by the CDC as a country where there are at least 100 new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 was. people or a test positivity rate of at least 10% during the past seven days.
The CDC guidelines emphasize five key mitigation strategies: masks required, physical distance, hand washing, clean facilities, and contract tracking. It also recommends different strategies based on how much transmission there is in the surrounding community, and has a color-coded guide with high-transmission areas that are colored red; substantial transfer colored orange; moderate transmission coded yellow and low transmission as blue.
The CDC says school districts should be assessed weekly.
If schools in high-transmission communities cannot strictly implement all mitigation strategies, the CDC says all extracurricular activities should be virtual. Plus middle and high schools need to stick to these red zones in virtual learning, and elementary schools need to maximize physical distance through hybrid learning or less attendance.
Less than 100,000 children in the U.S. live in a country considered ‘low’ or ‘moderate dispatch’, where the CDC recommends K-12 schools that are open to full personal education. Most of the students live in Hawaii or Washington.
The CNN analysis used the latest federal data on new cases and test positivity rates, published Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to determine each country’s risk threshold according to CDC guidelines. Population data comes from the 5-year U.S. community survey of the U.S. Census Bureau for 2019.