Not a single confirmed case of a school pupil passing on coronavirus to their teacher exists anywhere in the world, says a leading expert

No confirmed cases exist anywhere in the world of school pupils passing on Covid to their teachers, an expert has said.

All the available evidence points to children being poor spreaders of the virus, said Professor Mark Woolhouse, who cast doubt on the theory that reopening schools will trigger a deadly second wave.

Last week, a modelling forecast published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health warned that opening schools across the UK in September could lead to a tsunami of new cases, more than twice the size of the first wave.

But Prof Woolhouse said a second study published in the medical journal the same day, which found infected children in Australian schools had passed the virus on to hardly anyone, had been largely ignored.

During the first wave, 15 schools and ten nurseries in the state of New South Wales reported 27 cases where children or staff had attended while infectious with Covid-19.

Fifteen of these ‘index’ cases were staff and 12 were children.

These 12 children were in close contact with 103 staff, found contact tracers.

Only one of them was discovered to have passed the virus on to a member of staff in a single instance, although this is understood to have occurred in a nursery.

Nor did infected children pass the virus on to their classmates to any great degree, with that happening in only two of 649 close contacts – a virus ‘attack rate’ of just 0.3 per cent.

By contrast, the 15 infected staff members passed it on to 4.4 per cent of colleagues who were close contacts (to seven out of 160).

Prof Woolhouse, head of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University, said: ‘Science progresses by people publishing research. So what we do as carefully as we possibly can is scan what’s been published in the literature to see if there are any reported cases, in this case of a child transmitting to a teacher in the classroom.

‘The fact that there aren’t any that we can find, and there still aren’t, doesn’t mean that it’s not possible in principle and doesn’t mean that it won’t happen on occasion.

'But it does suggest that out of all the ways that we see and have found this virus to transmit – and remember, there are thousands and thousands of transmission events that have been inferred [from contact tracing] – out of all those thousands, still we can’t find a single one involving a child transmitting to a teacher in a classroom.’

He added: ‘Even if this virus doesn’t spread easily among the children, it certainly will spread among staff if it gets the opportunity.

'The evidence so far is that the most dangerous room in the school is not the classroom, it’s the staff room. So schools need to pay attention to that, and not take their eye off the right ball.’

Prof Woolhouse advises the Government on coronavirus as a member of the Scientific Pandemic Group on Modelling (SPI-M), although he stressed he was speaking in a personal capacity.

His comments come amid renewed calls for caution by teaching unions, with the National Education Union urging schools to ignore ‘threatening noises’ from the Government and to refuse to reopen if they feel it is unsafe.

The unions will have felt emboldened to speak out by last week’s modelling study, by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and University College London (UCL).

Academics concluded reopening schools without improving contact tracing could trigger a second wave up to 2.3 times the size of the first, leading to 250,000 more deaths.

Prof Woolhouse said that apocalyptic outcome was ‘highly unlikely given the current evidence’.

He added: ‘I’m slightly worried that, just through an accident of timing, schools will get blamed for pushing the R number over 1. But all activity can contribute to R rising, not just schools.’

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Credential Inflation: What’s Causing It and What Can We Do About It?

Credential inflation refers to an increase in the education credentials required for a job—for example, a job that used to be done by high school graduates but now requires new hires to have a college degree.

Credential inflation has been going on for decades. One of the earliest mentions of it is in professor Randall Collins’ book The Credential Society, published in 1979 and republished last year; two recent studies give a sense of how widespread it has become.

The first, a study by Burning Glass, looked at the education level of current workers compared to the education level listed in job postings and found substantial credential inflation for many occupations. For example, around 19 percent of executive secretaries and executive assistants hold a bachelor’s degree, but 65 percent of job postings require a bachelor’s degree. Similarly, 26 percent of credit authorizers, checkers, and clerks have a bachelor’s degree, but 66 percent of job postings require one. And 39 percent of computer network support specialists have a bachelor’s degree, but 70 percent of job postings state that a degree is required.

Another study by a team including Joseph Fuller analyzed 26 million job postings and found that many “employers were increasingly inflating the educational requirements for jobs usually held by high school grads.” They also found that “automated hiring tools excluded applicants with relevant experience simply because they lacked a college degree.” Across the U.S. economy, they estimate that 6.2 million workers could be losing out on job opportunities due to credential inflation.

There are two main drivers of credential inflation.

The first driver is upskilling, which is when the nature of a job changes to require more education. For example, drafting did not traditionally require a college degree, but as computers and complex architectural software have become more prevalent, the skills needed by drafters have expanded, so it is not surprising or objectionable that these jobs increasingly require college degrees.

But the other driver of credential inflation is a mismatch in the supply of and the demand for educated workers. The New York Federal Reserve Bank estimates that 34 percent of all college graduates are underemployed, meaning they are overqualified (in terms of educational credentials) for their current job. With so many graduates floating around, employers use a degree as a screening device even if the job in question doesn’t require knowledge that one might learn in college.

Credential inflation is a problem for several reasons.

First, it (unnecessarily) reduces opportunities for many qualified workers. If a job doesn’t truly need a college education, yet a college education is a job requirement, then many otherwise qualified workers will be passed over, thus impeding their upward economic mobility.

Second, credential inflation devalues other forms of learning. Colleges are not the only place where people can learn, but requiring a college degree ignores this fact. Experience is probably responsible for more learning than formal schooling, yet even highly experienced workers are ignored when they don’t have inflated education credentials.  Third, formal education is expensive. Requiring a college degree for a job that doesn’t really need one encourages people to get unnecessary degrees, which is very costly for both the student and taxpayers. As a country, we spend around $600 billion on around 20 million college students, or around $30,000 per student per year. Part of that is in pursuit of credentials of doubtful value.

Requiring a bachelor’s degree for a job that doesn’t truly need one is asking students and taxpayers to spend $120,000 over four years for no good reason. And there are non-monetary costs as well, such as the student’s opportunity cost of time, namely, the four years (or more) of their life they spend in college.   Given the minimal benefits and high costs of credential inflation, what can be done to halt and reverse this damaging trend?

First, employers should stop requiring unnecessary education. As Peter Blair and Shad Ahmed wrote in their June 28 Wall Street Journal article, employers “should change their hiring and management practices to focus on job skills, rather than continuing to privilege college degrees.”

Governments should do the same. As Preston Cooper notes, President Trump’s recent executive order mandating that federal hiring focus on skills and capabilities rather than credentials is a step in the right direction. State and local governments and private businesses should follow Trump’s lead and adopt this practice too.

Second, we need to develop new ways to certify skills.

While credential inflation is common, there are some jobs that have resisted the trend. As the Burning Glass report notes, some “jobs resist credential inflation when there are good alternatives for identifying skill proficiency.” Thus, many health care and engineering positions have not experienced credential inflation, probably because licensing and certification requirements allow employers to be confident that potential hires can perform the job without resorting to inflated credentials.

Third, we should eliminate unnecessary occupational licensing requirements.

Occupational licensing requirements often go too far, driven by the ability of incumbent providers to erect barriers to entry against new competitors. When this happens, licensing can contribute to credential inflation rather than serve as a potential remedy.

For example, CNN’s Holly Yan discovered that barbers in North Carolina, cosmetologists in California, interior designers in Florida, refrigeration technicians in Massachusetts, and manicurists in Louisiana all require more hours of training than police officers. Professions that now require a college degree to be licensed in some states include athletic trainers, building inspectors, dental hygienists, dietitians, funeral service directors, landscape architects, and many others. As with business, the focus should be on competency, not on paper credentials.

Fourth, allow employers to test job applicants.

My former colleagues Bryan O’Keefe and Richard Vedder document that the Supreme Court’s Griggs v. Duke Power in 1971 essentially forbade employers from most testing of job applicants. For example, an employer can no longer give applicants a test of general intelligence. But they can require a college degree—and many do. Congress should override Griggs v. Duke Power with new legislation that allows employers to test applicants however they wish without fear of lawsuits.

Finally, create a tight job market.

While the previous four recommendations may halt (and perhaps partially reverse) credential inflation, there is really only one way to start a widespread trend of credential rightsizing, and that is to create a tight job market.

Requiring a bachelor’s degree for a job that doesn’t truly need one is asking students and taxpayers to spend $120,000 over four years for no good reason.
As long as employers can hire college-level workers without paying college-level wages, they will do so. But in a tight job market, employers will face the choice of either a) keeping their credential requirements and paying college-level wages, or b) dropping any unnecessary credential requirements.

We’ve seen this play out very recently. While it may not feel like it, as we emerge from our pandemic-induced job coma, less than a year ago, the job market was the tightest in my lifetime. Everyone has an easier time finding a job under these conditions—even those with a criminal record. And the difficulty employers have in filling positions also provides an incentive to reverse credential inflation for jobs where it is not really necessary. For example, a 2019 survey of employers of temporary workers found that 50 percent were reducing education requirements.

There are several ways to help create a tight job market. The most obvious is to increase the number of employers seeking employees, such as by removing barriers to entry for entrepreneurs seeking to start a new business. Deregulating labor markets would also clear the way for more hiring.

But because recessions are one of the most damaging events for labor markets, reducing the frequency and severity of recessions would be of immense value. The best way to accomplish that would be for the Federal Reserve system to adopt a price level or nominal GDP level target. This would help ensure that macroeconomic policy is countercyclical, as well as ensuring that real shocks to the economy (such as the recent coronavirus) are not magnified by nominal shocks (e.g., a decline in inflation increasing the real burden of debt).

For those of us with plenty of educational credentials, credential inflation may not seem like a pressing issue because it is not our opportunities that are inappropriately restricted. But for those who don’t have the right pieces of paper, credential inflation is a big problem because it prevents them from getting jobs they are qualified for.

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Universities Appease China, Ignore Human Rights Abuses

Long the vanguard of liberal change, the American university now leads the appeasement of a hardened authoritarian China. The interest in promoting a broader community of scholars has given way to a toxic combination of business interests, the inability of college leaders to recognize their failure in influencing Chinese education, and their unwillingness to see the reality of a new China.

Both China and the United States need universities to engage in solutions based upon the values of universities rather than catering to authoritarianism.

American universities and professors jealously guard their independence, seeing themselves as defenders of liberal values and social change. A tenure system built upon the defense of free speech and controversy promotes the exploration of radical ideas and critical thinking skills seen as vital for everything from an informed electorate to higher-order job skills.

Historically, the academy writ large has been at the forefront of human rights and social change. Universities provide a fertile environment to push for social change, from racial integration to campaigns for human rights. With a reasonable record of pushing change, universities like to consider themselves defenders of liberal values.

Early after the opening of China, American universities worked to build bridges between a Cold War-focused country and a reforming communist stalwart. Major elite universities trained early reformers that helped China join the World Trade Organization—yet, now, they have educated the daughter of authoritarian Party chairman Xi Jinping. Universities began with the noblest of intentions but, as China changed, evolved into institutions that defend educating the children of elite rulers who direct concentration camps.

The shift of universities from defenders of human rights to protectors of authoritarian Party elites stems from a noxious cocktail of self-righteousness, hubris, and money.

Universities—believing in their mission to spread liberalism—fail to grasp the fundamental problems they face when dealing with China. Defensive at any critique of their many degrees, university leaders and professors lack the same interest in holding the powerful to account. To professors and universities, activism is a virtue in America, but a vice in China.

Attempts to hold China accountable are met with immediate charges of racism rather than any careful consideration of how to meet the challenges of academic freedom and activity in the face of an emboldened authoritarian China.

At the peak of hubris, professors refuse to acknowledge the historical failure of their principled ideals to cause change in China or the need to adopt policies of engagement. Ezra Vogel, the longtime China studies professor at Harvard, illustrated the willful blindness of academia when he decried the shift in tone of US-China relations and called for engagement to improve relations. He failed to even mention Hong Kong or Xinjiang, his Harvard colleague arrested for illegal dealings with China, or the failure of previous engagement with China.

The refusal throughout higher education to acknowledge the evolution of China into a racial, oppressive authoritarian state shows that it is divorced from reality. China monitors students in the classroom (in China and abroad). The preferred policies of high-ranking professors and college presidents have not worked.

Complicating the picture of hubris and self-righteousness, money from China dominates any discussion of university policies and behavior. Chinese students in the United States comprise roughly 30 percent of all foreign students—370,000 in 2019, up from 98,000 in 2009. Notably, Chinese students pay full tuition, making them much more attractive compared to domestic students who get financial aid or in-state tuition for public universities.

American universities bent over backward to serve this growing lucrative market. Universities adopted mass student admission from China—helped by education consultants who housed students in Chinese-speaking dorms, fed them Chinese food with a Chinese cook, and delivered the China Daily to their room. In the process, however, they willfully ignored the risks of dealing with an expansionist authoritarian state and the tradeoffs it required.

United States professors accepted unreported positions at Chinese universities and shared advanced federally funded data with an adversarial government. Universities also accepted constraints on academic freedom, allowing the Chinese Ministry of Education to appoint Chinese Communist Party-approved employees at language programs to ensure sensitive topics were not discussed. Even policies to block graduate students connected to the People’s Liberation Army became a point of contention for universities despite posing a clear, undeniable security risk.

Universities rescinded invitations to speakers that might anger the Chinese government or student body to keep high-margin customers happy.

College leaders and professors engaged in significant behavior to challenge the U.S. government on policies like international student visas and other policies that favored China. Conversely, they also chose to remain silent when China cracked down on speech in their universities, the Hong Kong National Security Law, and ethnic genocide in Xinjiang.

Universities engage in a self-righteous lack of reflection, believing that the surge in donations and contract work from China and Hong Kong—which grew from $140 million in 2014 to $495 million in 2019—plays no role in their decision to remain silent.

The willingness to plead ignorance is staggering. A recent report highlights when the University of Pennsylvania reported a $3 million donation from a Hong Kong shell company with no visible business that was owned by a Chinese national linked to high-level corruption scandals. When asked about the donation, Penn at first claimed it was linked to another donor even though no link could be found. When asked for documentation or evidence of this claim, they refused to answer additional questions from reporters.

If Penn were a financial firm accepting a significant new client while knowingly accepting potential corrupt proceeds or using a front company as the official client, it would result in significant legal penalties. This behavior by elite universities, tasked with educating the business and political leaders of tomorrow, is highly disturbing.

Other top universities like Duke and New York University understand they are trading their silence for a growing market. The supposedly principled nature of the work on critical inquiry and free thinking makes this an untenable tradeoff for universities.

One cannot stand on virtue as the foundation of your business while trading it for market access and remain virtuous. Universities reduce liberal education to a valueless transaction when they collaborate with the Chinese Communist Party.

China has changed. Chairman Xi Jinping has led the harshest crackdown on speech in China and universities since Chairman Mao. Student monitors report on professors and China arrests foreign academics after inviting them for lectures. American universities cannot remain silent in the face of this assault—yet, to date, only Cornell University has modified exchange and university relationships with Chinese universities.

Universities are entirely right to stand on principle against racial profiling or injustice. They are entirely wrong to remain silent on China with its accompanying risks and threats.

Unfortunately, staunch opposition to any restrictive policy removes their voice and input from reasoned debate and policy formation. I have been a staunch advocate of engagement with China and other emerging market communist countries, but that does not mean ignoring the risks and challenges. By denying valid threats like Chinese military infiltration in science labs, universities seem out of touch and welcome more extreme voices to design important policies.

China in 2020 presents a variety of challenges. We cannot turn our back on Chinese students, many of whom seek freedom, but neither should universities be blind to the risks. Universities should not pursue engagement at all costs. Instead, they should pursue principled engagement that predicates any cooperation with China on values like the discussion of democracy, Chinese history, and the ability to criticize the Great Leader.

Engagement without principles is not worthy of the great mission before American universities.

Again, China has changed. Universities have a mission and must change the rules of engagement. The current strategy of appeasement will only make college leaders complicit in providing cover for an authoritarian state. For extra revenue, they’ll offer prestige and a valueless education.

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The Sudden 'Shift in Narrative' on the Reopening of Schools

It seems as though as soon as Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that he's authorized the reopening of all school districts in New York State, Democrats on Capitol Hill are suddenly fine with it. Having looked at the infection rate in the state, Cuomo announced on a phone conference with reporters on Friday that it would be safe to resume in-person learning. But he wants individual plans from schools by the end of next week on how they plan to safely reopen.

Suddenly, the likes of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are also urging schools to safely reopen.

"If we don't open up the schools, you're going to hurt the economy significantly, because lots of people can't go to work," Schumer said at his Friday presser.

He may be late to reach this conclusion, but he's right. As Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin noted a few months ago, children's education isn't the only thing that would be negatively affected if they are forced to continue distance learning. Parents will struggle economically if they're not able to find temporary guardians for their kids as they try to return to work.

But teachers' unions made a show of their disapproval. Some placed body bags in front of schools, while others wrote mock wills, predicting their demise if they were forced to return to the classroom with the threat of the coronavirus. And until now, I don't recall Democrats trying to calm their fears and siding with President Trump that we need to put kids back in class. Or, "SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL," as POTUS tweeted.

Viewers suggested that this about-face from leading Democrats has something to do with the upcoming election.

The minority leader also touched on the state of negotiations on the next coronavirus relief package. In sum, it's not going well. "They don't want to spend the necessary dollars to get America out of this mess," Schumer asserted.

Yet, Republicans say it's the Democrats who are holding up a compromise because they want to extend the $600 a week unemployment benefits until January. The GOP called that a "disincentive" for Americans to return to work.

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