vox--2020-08-03--The 6 most interesting Michigan races to watch in Tuesday’s primary

After its surprise swing for President Donald Trump in 2016 , Michigan will be one of the most highly watched states in the 2020 election .
Though the biggest question on everyone ’ s mind is whether Democrat Joe Biden can reclaim this Midwestern state , Michigan is boasting a number of other competitive races in November , including Sen. Gary Peters ’ s ( D ) bid for reelection and a slew of House races flipped by moderate Democratic candidates in 2018 .
Right now , the polls for Biden and the Democrats look pretty good .
The RealClearPolitics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both show Biden leading Trump by about eight points .
“ Michigan is moving out of the very top tier of swing states , ” Michigan State University political scientist Matt Grossman told Vox .
Numerous members of the House from Michigan , including Reps. Debbie Dingell and Elissa Slotkin , have cautioned Democrats to not get too comfortable , but Trump ’ s campaign has temporarily stopped putting up television ads in the state — ceding valuable airtime to Biden .
“ Trump is in much worse condition now than he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michigan pollster Bernie Porn , president of EPIC-MRA polling .
Coronavirus and the lasting economic decline are driving the drop , Porn noted , adding the president ’ s aggression toward nationwide protesters hasn ’ t helped him in Michigan .
Trump ’ s performance in November could have big implications for down-ballot races in the state as well , including Peters ’ s competitive Senate race and freshman Reps. Elissa Slotkin and Haley Stevens ’ s attempt to keep swing districts blue .
If Trump has a weak result in Michigan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
While Michigan ’ s Senate race is a big draw for November , it ’ s less exciting on Tuesday ; both Peters and Republican John James are running unopposed .
But there are a number of primaries for US House races , including a Democratic primary opponent challenging outspoken progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib , and Democratic and Republican primaries to replace outgoing libertarian Rep. Justin Amash .
Michigan polls will close at 9 pm ET , and Vox will have live results powered by our partners at Decision Desk .
Until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to know about the most important races .
The Michigan Senate race will be pretty quiet on Tuesday , but it will be an important one to watch in the fall .
Michigan is one of just two opportunities Senate Republicans have to flip a Democratic seat .
Still , actually beating incumbent Sen. Gary Peters could be much easier said than done .
This year , Peters will face Army veteran and businessman John James , who ran against Peters ’ s fellow Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow ( D ) in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Peters was first elected to the US Senate in 2014 , after a tenure in the US House of Representatives .
Peters is certainly not known for seeking the spotlight ; he keeps a relatively low media profile , and polling reveals a sizable chunk of Michigan voters don ’ t recognize him .
“ Peters is the sort of least-known of the incumbents running for reelection ; he just doesn ’ t have much of an image , ” said Grossman .
“ Other than Alabama , it ’ s the Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hoped for by James and other Republican candidates who tied themselves close to Trump has evaporated .
Even though James has out-fundraised the incumbent , Peters has a healthy lead in the polls .
The Peters campaign in particular has gone after James for his past statements in favor of defunding the Affordable Care Act , and James has softened his rhetoric on the issue .
“ Peters is running well among independents , getting 67 percent of the independent vote , ” Porn told Vox .
As for James , “ Right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s trying to erase association with Trump.
” Libertarian and outspoken Trump critic Rep. Justin Amash was first elected to represent the Third Congressional District in 2010 .
After switching his party from Republican to independent in 2019 ( before switching to the Libertarian Party ) , Amash announced he was stepping down .
Amash ’ s departure has set up a competitive Republican primary to replace him .
The GOP contenders on Tuesday include Iraq War veteran Peter Meijer , state Rep. Lynn Afendoulis , veteran Tom Norton , entrepreneur Joe Farrington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has the most money and national backing , including from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ( R ) .
But Meijer ’ s opponents have also attempted to paint him as not friendly enough to Trump , according to local news site MLive .
Whether that hurts Meijer or helps him in an uncertain political environment for the president remains to be seen .
The winner will face Democrat Hillary Scholten , an immigration attorney who is running unopposed .
Scholten has outraised her Republican opponents , a promising sign that the race @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be Republican , and Cook Political Report rates it Lean Republican , but Democrats are very much hoping to put it in play in the fall .
A field of Republicans is squaring off to see who will challenge Rep. Elissa Slotkin ( D ) , the moderate Democrat who flipped the district in 2018 .
The Eighth Congressional District encompasses parts of Lansing and its suburbs , and Trump won it in 2016 before Slotkin beat Republican Rep. Mike Bishop in 2018 .
Bishop is not attempting to reclaim his old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tuesday ’ s primary include former attorney Paul Junge , attorney Kristina Lyke , and businessman and veteran Alan Hoover .
Still , Slotkin has the backing of the Democratic party and significant fundraising .
A former CIA analyst , Slotkin was one of a number of women with backgrounds in the military or US intelligence to be elected to Congress in 2018 .
With incumbent Rep. Paul Mitchell ( R ) retiring this year , this district that sits on Michigan ’ s Lower Peninsula ( the so-called “ thumb ” of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans hoping to replace Mitchell include state Rep. Shane Hernandez , businesswoman Lisa McClain , and retired Air Force Brig .
Gen. Doug Slocum .
Democrats Kimberly Bizon , the 2018 nominee , and Army nurse Kelly Noland are also running .
This district is rated Solid Republican by Cook , so whoever wins the Republican primary will likely win the seat in November .
Republicans are also gearing up to face first-term Rep. Haley Stevens ( D ) .
Like Slotkin , Stevens flipped this formerly Republican-held district in 2018 , beating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The district , which sits in Detroit suburbs , narrowly went for Trump in the 2016 presidential election .
Epstein is forgoing a rematch in 2020 , leaving the competition to Republicans like lawyer Eric Esshaki , former fashion designer Carmelita Greco , director of diversity for the district ’ s GOP Committee Whittney Williams , businessman Frank Acosta , and former Rep. Kerry Bentivolio .
Most of the Republicans running on Tuesday have little political experience .
Although the 11th Congressional District was considered very competitive in 2018 , Cook Political Report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 .
Stevens has done a lot of fundraising and has the full support of the Democratic party .
Unabashed progressive and member of “ The Squad ” Rep. Rashida Tlaib ( D ) is up for reelection in 2020 .
In this safely Democratic district , her primary face-off against Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones — an influential Detroit politician whom Tlaib had run against in the past — will be where the action is .
Jones won a 2018 special election to replace the district ’ s former longtime Rep. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But Tlaib narrowly edged out Jones in the August 2018 primary election and prevailed in November , even after Jones launched a write-in campaign .
Even though she has been critical of House Democratic leadership in the past , Tlaib recently secured House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ’ s endorsement .
“ Rep .
Rashida Tlaib is a tireless advocate for the residents of Michigan ’ s 13th Congressional District , ” Pelosi said in a statement .
“ Her leadership has secured critical funding to stop water shutoffs and replace lead pipes.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ incumbent , but she and Jones have been in close matchups before .
This race will be one to watch .
Correction : Donald Trump won Michigan ’ s 11th Congressional District in 2016 .
An earlier version of this piece stated Hillary Clinton had won the district .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

After its surprise swing for President Donald Trump in 2016, Michigan will be one of the most highly watched states in the 2020 election.
Though the biggest question on everyone’s mind is whether Democrat Joe Biden can reclaim this Midwestern state, Michigan is boasting a number of other competitive races in November, including Sen. Gary Peters’s (D) bid for reelection and a slew of House races flipped by moderate Democratic candidates in 2018.
Right now, the polls for Biden and the Democrats look pretty good. The RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight polling averages for the state both show Biden leading Trump by about eight points.
“Michigan is moving out of the very top tier of swing states,” Michigan State University political scientist Matt Grossman told Vox.
Numerous members of the House from Michigan, including Reps. Debbie Dingell and Elissa Slotkin, have cautioned Democrats to not get too comfortable, but Trump’s campaign has temporarily stopped putting up television ads in the state — ceding valuable airtime to Biden.
“Trump is in much worse condition now than he was” even in 2018, said longtime Michigan pollster Bernie Porn, president of EPIC-MRA polling. Coronavirus and the lasting economic decline are driving the drop, Porn noted, adding the president’s aggression toward nationwide protesters hasn’t helped him in Michigan.
Trump’s performance in November could have big implications for down-ballot races in the state as well, including Peters’s competitive Senate race and freshman Reps. Elissa Slotkin and Haley Stevens’s attempt to keep swing districts blue. If Trump has a weak result in Michigan, it could impact the entire GOP ticket.
While Michigan’s Senate race is a big draw for November, it’s less exciting on Tuesday; both Peters and Republican John James are running unopposed. But there are a number of primaries for US House races, including a Democratic primary opponent challenging outspoken progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and Democratic and Republican primaries to replace outgoing libertarian Rep. Justin Amash.
Michigan polls will close at 9 pm ET, and Vox will have live results powered by our partners at Decision Desk. Until then, here’s what you need to know about the most important races.
Michigan US Senate race
The Michigan Senate race will be pretty quiet on Tuesday, but it will be an important one to watch in the fall. Michigan is one of just two opportunities Senate Republicans have to flip a Democratic seat. Still, actually beating incumbent Sen. Gary Peters could be much easier said than done.
This year, Peters will face Army veteran and businessman John James, who ran against Peters’s fellow Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) in 2018 and lost — albeit narrowly.
Peters was first elected to the US Senate in 2014, after a tenure in the US House of Representatives. Peters is certainly not known for seeking the spotlight; he keeps a relatively low media profile, and polling reveals a sizable chunk of Michigan voters don’t recognize him.
“Peters is the sort of least-known of the incumbents running for reelection; he just doesn’t have much of an image,” said Grossman. “Other than Alabama, it’s the Republicans best offense.”
But the booming economy hoped for by James and other Republican candidates who tied themselves close to Trump has evaporated. Even though James has out-fundraised the incumbent, Peters has a healthy lead in the polls. The Peters campaign in particular has gone after James for his past statements in favor of defunding the Affordable Care Act, and James has softened his rhetoric on the issue.
“Peters is running well among independents, getting 67 percent of the independent vote,” Porn told Vox. As for James, “Right now in his messaging, he’s trying to erase association with Trump.”
Michigan’s Third Congressional District
Libertarian and outspoken Trump critic Rep. Justin Amash was first elected to represent the Third Congressional District in 2010. After switching his party from Republican to independent in 2019 (before switching to the Libertarian Party), Amash announced he was stepping down.
Amash’s departure has set up a competitive Republican primary to replace him. The GOP contenders on Tuesday include Iraq War veteran Peter Meijer, state Rep. Lynn Afendoulis, veteran Tom Norton, entrepreneur Joe Farrington, and attorney Emily Rafi. Meijer has the most money and national backing, including from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R). But Meijer’s opponents have also attempted to paint him as not friendly enough to Trump, according to local news site MLive. Whether that hurts Meijer or helps him in an uncertain political environment for the president remains to be seen.
The winner will face Democrat Hillary Scholten, an immigration attorney who is running unopposed. Scholten has outraised her Republican opponents, a promising sign that the race could be competitive. This district tends to be Republican, and Cook Political Report rates it Lean Republican, but Democrats are very much hoping to put it in play in the fall.
Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District
A field of Republicans is squaring off to see who will challenge Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D), the moderate Democrat who flipped the district in 2018. The Eighth Congressional District encompasses parts of Lansing and its suburbs, and Trump won it in 2016 before Slotkin beat Republican Rep. Mike Bishop in 2018.
Bishop is not attempting to reclaim his old seat; the Republican candidates vying in Tuesday’s primary include former attorney Paul Junge, attorney Kristina Lyke, and businessman and veteran Alan Hoover. Still, Slotkin has the backing of the Democratic party and significant fundraising. A former CIA analyst, Slotkin was one of a number of women with backgrounds in the military or US intelligence to be elected to Congress in 2018.
Michigan’s 10th Congressional District
With incumbent Rep. Paul Mitchell (R) retiring this year, this district that sits on Michigan’s Lower Peninsula (the so-called “thumb” of the mitt-shaped state) is open. Republicans hoping to replace Mitchell include state Rep. Shane Hernandez, businesswoman Lisa McClain, and retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Doug Slocum. Democrats Kimberly Bizon, the 2018 nominee, and Army nurse Kelly Noland are also running. This district is rated Solid Republican by Cook, so whoever wins the Republican primary will likely win the seat in November.
Michigan’s 11th Congressional District
Republicans are also gearing up to face first-term Rep. Haley Stevens (D). Like Slotkin, Stevens flipped this formerly Republican-held district in 2018, beating Rep. Lena Epstein (R). The district, which sits in Detroit suburbs, narrowly went for Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
Epstein is forgoing a rematch in 2020, leaving the competition to Republicans like lawyer Eric Esshaki, former fashion designer Carmelita Greco, director of diversity for the district’s GOP Committee Whittney Williams, businessman Frank Acosta, and former Rep. Kerry Bentivolio.
Most of the Republicans running on Tuesday have little political experience. Although the 11th Congressional District was considered very competitive in 2018, Cook Political Report has moved it to Lean Democratic in 2020. Stevens has done a lot of fundraising and has the full support of the Democratic party.
Michigan’s 13th Congressional District
Unabashed progressive and member of “The Squad” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D) is up for reelection in 2020. In this safely Democratic district, her primary face-off against Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones — an influential Detroit politician whom Tlaib had run against in the past — will be where the action is. Jones won a 2018 special election to replace the district’s former longtime Rep. John Conyers, who resigned in 2017. But Tlaib narrowly edged out Jones in the August 2018 primary election and prevailed in November, even after Jones launched a write-in campaign.
Even though she has been critical of House Democratic leadership in the past, Tlaib recently secured House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement.
“Rep. Rashida Tlaib is a tireless advocate for the residents of Michigan’s 13th Congressional District,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Her leadership has secured critical funding to stop water shutoffs and replace lead pipes.”
Tlaib has an advantage as the incumbent, but she and Jones have been in close matchups before. This race will be one to watch.
Correction: Donald Trump won Michigan’s 11th Congressional District in 2016. An earlier version of this piece stated Hillary Clinton had won the district.


vox--2020-08-03--Spend August reading the exquisite dark fairy tale The Vanishing Half with the Vox Book Club

The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers .
This August , the Vox Book Club will be reading one of the best new novels of 2020 : Brit Bennett ’ s exquisite The Vanishing Half .
And at the end of the month , we ’ ll be joined by Bennett herself to discuss the book live on Zoom .
The Vanishing Half is a rich , extravagant fairy tale of a book .
It concerns a set of twin sisters , Stella and Desiree , who grow up in an all-Black town @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that each successive generation has lighter skin than the one before it .
At 16 , light-skinned Stella and Desiree run away .
Desiree goes on to marry the darkest-skinned man she can find .
And Stella starts passing for white .
There ’ s a lot to delve into here : the history of narratives of passing , the power of American fairy tales , the question of how we are bound by our bodies and our families .
So , as we did in July , we ’ ll publish two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both on Fridays .
Each one will deal with different aspects of The Vanishing Half ; we ’ ll have expert guest stars , and both posts will assume you ’ ve already read the whole book .
( Consider this your spoiler warning ! )
Our virtual meeting with Bennett will happen August 27 , and it will be a culmination of the whole month ’ s worth of conversation .
I can ’ t wait to see you there .
Friday , August 14 : First discussion post on The Vanishing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discussion post on The Vanishing Half Thursday , August 27 : Virtual live event with author Brit Bennett .
Sign up for the Vox Book Club newsletter and we ’ ll send you the RSVP link as soon as it ’ s up !
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers.
This August, the Vox Book Club will be reading one of the best new novels of 2020: Brit Bennett’s exquisite The Vanishing Half. And at the end of the month, we’ll be joined by Bennett herself to discuss the book live on Zoom.
The Vanishing Half is a rich, extravagant fairy tale of a book. It concerns a set of twin sisters, Stella and Desiree, who grow up in an all-Black town where the population is devoted to ensuring that each successive generation has lighter skin than the one before it.
At 16, light-skinned Stella and Desiree run away. Desiree goes on to marry the darkest-skinned man she can find. And Stella starts passing for white.
There’s a lot to delve into here: the history of narratives of passing, the power of American fairy tales, the question of how we are bound by our bodies and our families. So, as we did in July, we’ll publish two book club discussion posts in August, both on Fridays. Each one will deal with different aspects of The Vanishing Half; we’ll have expert guest stars, and both posts will assume you’ve already read the whole book. (Consider this your spoiler warning!) Our virtual meeting with Bennett will happen August 27, and it will be a culmination of the whole month’s worth of conversation. I can’t wait to see you there.
Here’s the full Vox Book Club schedule for August 2020
Friday, August 14: First discussion post on The Vanishing Half
Friday, August 21: Second discussion post on The Vanishing Half
Thursday, August 27: Virtual live event with author Brit Bennett. RSVP now!


vox--2020-08-03--Scientists say the coronavirus is airborne. Here’s what that means.

Since the beginning of the pandemic , the World Health Organization has stressed that , primarily , Covid-19 spreads through very close personal contact .
The virus-laden droplets exhaled from a sick person ’ s mouth and nose , the thinking goes , are heavy , and fall to the ground before they can get much farther than 6 feet .
But as the pandemic has unfolded , contact tracing studies have shown this isn ’ t always the case .
In China , an air conditioner pushed virus-laden air across three tables in a restaurant , infecting people seated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the restaurant and saw many of these patrons were more than 6 feet apart from one another , suggesting that the virus traveled through the air .
In Washington state , one person at a choir practice infected 52 of the other participants ; it ’ s thought the singing could have led more virus to linger in the air .
Carefully controlled laboratory studies are also suggesting that under the right indoor conditions , SARS-CoV-2 , the virus that causes Covid-19 , can float in the air and , to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In July , the WHO changed its language to recognize that fact .
“ Short-range aerosol transmission , particularly in specific indoor locations , such as crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces over a prolonged period of time with infected persons can not be ruled out , ” the WHO now states .
Previously , the organization maintained that airborne transmission was unlikely to occur outside the hospital setting , where some procedures can generate super-small particles that linger in the air longer than large respiratory drops .
This change came after a letter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , co-signed by 239 scientists and engineers , which implored WHO and other public health agencies that “ it ’ s time to address airborne transmission of Covid-19.
” With the WHO ’ s recognition of this mode of transmission , the authors hope , communities can think more about the ventilation of indoor spaces and perhaps engineer solutions to make these spaces safer .
It turns out scientists have been debating whether respiratory diseases like the flu and coronavirus should be labeled “ airborne ” for a century .
More commonly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ applicable to extremely contagious diseases , like measles .
A lot of these terms are confusing ( even to the scientists ) , and they don ’ t answer the question laypeople care about : Which air is safe to breathe in during the Covid-19 pandemic , and which air is not safe ?
To answer that question , it ’ s helpful to understand two different scientific perspectives on the matter .
One is : What physically happens when a sick person breathes , sneezes , or coughs into a room ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ epidemiologists observed in the way people are exposed to the virus and get sick ?
Let ’ s start with the first .
There ’ s a relatively simple , if outdated , way of thinking about how respiratory diseases can spread .
It starts like this : When you exhale , sneeze , or cough , you release a cloud of gas and liquid droplets .
If those droplets are relatively big , they ’ re heavy and fall to the ground before evaporating , like raindrops do .
Others are smaller @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
These smaller droplets can linger in the air longer , drifting on air currents for perhaps hours .
If a droplet is small enough , the moisture in it evaporates before it has the chance to reach the ground ( provided the humidity in the room is average ) .
If there ’ s stuff like germs in that droplet , they become light enough to float on air currents , like the dust you can see suspended in the air .
These particles are often called aerosols .
This framework is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wells , a scientist who studied tuberculosis transmission in the 1930s .
In a 1934 paper , Wells concluded : “ It appears , therefore , that transmission of infection through air may take one of two forms depending upon the size of the infected droplet.
” When it comes to Covid-19 , one of the first questions epidemiologists tried to answer was : Is the virus spread in the dust that floats or the big drops that fall ?
If it ’ s the small dust , alarm bells go off .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ They include measles , chickenpox , and tuberculosis , and they are extremely contagious .
On average , one person infected with measles will infect 12 to 18 others .
If it ’ s the big drops , it ’ s still concerning .
Diseases like the flu , whooping cough , the common cold , and coronaviruses are primarily large droplet-borne .
With these diseases , only the closest contacts to an infected person get infected because large droplets quickly fall to the ground ( within 6 feet or so ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ big drops to fall on surfaces , and those surfaces can become contaminated too .
Luckily , in the case of Covid-19 , there ’ s a growing consensus that getting sick from touching contaminated surfaces is rare .
But keep washing your hands !
A part of why the terminology here is so confusing , and there ’ s so much debate about it , is that the words “ aerosol ” and “ droplet ” mean different things to different scientific disciplines .
“ An aerosol is a particle in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an engineer and the director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at Queensland University of Technology .
“ A droplet is a liquid aerosol.
” To her , the distinction between droplets and aerosols doesn ’ t make any sense .
To her , they are all aerosols .
Wells ’ s droplet versus airborne distinction is still used today .
It ’ s outdated .
Wells outlined a clear distinction between droplets and aerosols according to their size .
Big drops fall , and little aerosolized drops float .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ actual picture is a lot more complicated .
“ We ’ re always exhaling , in fact , a gas cloud that contains within it a continuum spectrum of droplet sizes , ” says Lydia Bourouiba , an MIT researcher who studies the fluid dynamics of infections .
And , as she explained in a March paper in JAMA , the conditions of the cloud itself can affect the range of some of the droplets .
If propelled by a cough or sneeze , Bourouiba finds , droplets can travel upward of 20 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not the drop sizes , determines the initial range of the drops and their fate in indoor environments.
” The speed of the cloud , the temperature and humidity of the environment , and the individual droplet makeup of each cloud determines how long the droplets persist in the air , Bourouiba explained in JAMA .
Which is to say : There are conditions ( coughing and sneezing ) under which large drops don ’ t immediately fall to the floor and can spread more than 6 feet away from a person , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for longer .
( It ’ s also possible SARS-CoV-2 may be in some of the smaller , floatier drops expelled by our breath too . )
There ’ s growing theoretical evidence for the airborne spread of the coronavirus .
Lab studies , in idealized conditions , also show that the virus can live in an aerosolized form for up to 16 hours ( the scientists in this case intentionally created aerosolized droplets with a machine ) .
Another study tracked with lasers the various droplets expelled from a human mouth during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ generates airborne droplets that can remain suspended for tens of minutes or longer and are eminently capable of transmitting disease in confined spaces.
” Multiple studies have found evidence of the virus ’ s RNA in the air of hospital rooms .
But the WHO notes “ no studies have found viable virus in air samples , ” meaning the virus was either incapable of infecting others or was in very small quantities unlikely to infect others .
“ What we are trying to say is , well , let ’ s not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or whether you call it a droplet , ” Morawska , the co-author of the recent commentary imploring the WHO and others to address airborne transmission of Covid-19 , says .
“ It is in the air , ” she says , “ and you inhale it .
It ’ s coming from our nose from our mouths .
It ’ s lingering in the air and others can inhale it.
” That the WHO updated its language is a sign that it ’ s starting to appreciate this perspective .
( That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ droplet as a particle larger than than 5-to-10 microns , and an aerosol as something smaller , despite many scientists arguing the cutoff is meaningless . )
But this perspective is limited .
These lab studies can ’ t perfectly generalize to the real-world conditions in which the virus spreads and infects others .
Just because a virus travels far in a drop doesn ’ t mean it can infect people across great distances .
Viruses can degrade quickly outside the body .
Also , dose matters .
Small exposures to the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person sick .
So to find out how people actually get sick with Covid-19 , we need contact tracing studies .
Contact tracing studies show airborne transmission may be possible in confined indoor spaces Lab studies note the theoretical possibility of airborne transmission .
But that ’ s only one part of the answer to the question “ which air is safe to breathe ?
” Epidemiologists come at this question from another angle , looking at patterns of virus spread observed in the real world and working backward to determine if airborne @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show us that while droplets being inhaled by people within 6 feet of an infected person explains most of the transmission of Covid-19 , there are limited times and environments in which SARS-CoV-2 can behave a bit like an airborne virus .
“ So we need to define which types of contact , which type of environments , lead to that type of transmission , ” Muge Cevik , a physician and virology expert at the University of St. Andrews , says .
In households , she says , an infected person can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread the virus to others in the home ( if they remain isolated ) .
A systematic review of studies in The Lancet of both SARS-CoV-2 and similar viruses found large reductions in risk if people just stay 1 meter ( 3 feet ) away from one another .
This suggests a lot of the risk of catching Covid-19 is from the large drops that fall quickly to the ground .
But then there are cases where people are packed together in an enclosed space — like a church , with singing or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little more like airborne transmission .
The infamous choir practice in Washington state is an example of where airborne transmission might have happened .
But what made this event so risky was the convergence of many risk factors : the singing activity ( during which the infected person released viral particles into the air ) , the time spent together ( the practice was 2.5 hours ) , and the interaction between the choir members in an enclosed space ( not only did they all practice together , they also split up into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
Another study from China investigated an outbreak that started at a Buddhist temple event , tracing much of the spread to the confines of one of the buses transporting people to the function .
The bus had one sick person aboard , and 24 out of 67 people on that bus got sick , possibly indicating airborne transmission .
Those who sat by the windows fared better , indicating the importance of ventilation .
“ I think we just need to get away from this terminology and give much more clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her , it ’ s about getting people to think critically about which situations are riskier than others .
“ Risk is a spectrum .
It ’ s not only the distance , but it ’ s about timing , what type of activities you ’ re involved in .
I know it ’ s a bit complex , but that ’ s the reality.
” “ Airborne ” transmission means something very specific for doctors and health care workers Perhaps part of the reason the WHO has been slow to address the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a health care setting , “ airborne ” means a very specific thing .
Though infection prevention experts know there ’ s a fuzzy boundary between drops that fall and specks that float , the dichotomy between airborne and droplet-borne is baked into how health care workers are trained to respond to outbreaks .
“ We ’ ve trained [ health care workers ] for decades to say , airborne is tuberculosis , measles , chickenpox , droplet is flu and pertussis and meningitis , ” Saskia Popescu , a hospital epidemiologist in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s , unfortunately , kind of antiquated .
But that ’ s how we ’ ve always done it.
” They do it because there are very specific sets of guidelines in place to deal with extremely contagious airborne diseases in a hospital setting .
For instance , a patient with a dangerous airborne disease often needs to be put in a room with an air pressure lower than the rest of the rooms in the building .
That way , no virus in the air of that room can escape it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to low pressure ) .
For droplet transmission , health care workers can be a little more lax ; they can wear simple surgical masks during routine care and can save high-filtration ( and sometimes scarce ) respirators for the most dangerous procedures and cases .
In this light , it makes some sense that the WHO has been hesitant to label Covid-19 an “ airborne ” infection .
It ’ s not an airborne infection like measles is .
It is not as contagious .
Contact tracing studies consistently find that Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the closest physical contact to one another .
“ Airborne ” means something very specific , very resource-intensive , and very scary for hospitals and the people who work in them .
And Covid-19 doesn ’ t match that definition .
“ The debate often isn ’ t very nuanced because of these rigid categories , ” Daniel Diekema , an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist at the University of Iowa , says .
“ As soon as you say ‘ airborne ’ in the hospital infection prevention world , it brings to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chickenpox .
It ’ s clear the respiratory viruses , influenza , coronaviruses , are not airborne in the same way that the measles , varicella [ chickenpox ] become airborne.
” But at the same time , with Covid-19 and other respiratory viruses , “ there definitely are small-particle aerosols produced , ” he says .
“ And in the right setting , where there ’ s poor ventilation , indoors , and a crowded environment , there is a risk for transmission among individuals , even if they may be more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do we do with this information ?
Neither contact tracing studies nor lab studies can perfectly answer the question of “ which air is safe ?
” But that ’ s science for you .
Scientists use imperfect methods , attacking from many angles , to try to arrive at the truth , which can take a while to nail down precisely .
Overall , the recognition that Covid-19 can spread through the air shouldn ’ t really change how we , individually , protect ourselves and others against it .
Six feet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good barrier to prevent spread via large drops .
Mask-wearing could help prevent both large drops and small drops from being released in the first place .
Time matters too : the longer we spend in an enclosed , poorly ventilated space with others , the greater the chances of being exposed to an infectious dose of the virus .
The bottom line , as a trio of engineers from Clarkson University writes in the Conversation , is that “ while staying six feet from other people reduces exposure , it might not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as in enclosed , poorly ventilated rooms.
” We still need to think about the environments we ’ re in : Indoors is much riskier than outdoors ( where greater airflow can disperse drops and aerosols more quickly , and where the environment is less conducive to SARS-CoV-2 survival ) .
And indoors , ventilation can make a big difference .
An indoor space where the air is constantly refreshed with air from the outdoors is better than one where the air is stagnant .
( The American Society of Heating , Refrigerating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on how to reopen buildings with increased ventilation during the pandemic . )
We also still need to think about the activity we ’ re engaging in .
Shouting , singing , and other such activities produce more droplets ( of any size ) than just sitting quietly .
Morawska hopes that in bringing attention to airborne spread of Covid-19 , there can be more attention paid to engineering solutions for indoor spaces to mitigate the spread of the pandemic .
Public health officials have continually stressed social distancing , mask-wearing , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Covid-19 .
“ But have you ever heard a restaurant reopening announce they ’ ve improved ventilation or increased ventilation ?
No .
This is really the point , ” Morawska says .
If Covid-19 is in indoor air , we should also be doing something about the air .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the World Health Organization has stressed that Covid-19 primarily spreads through very close personal contact. The virus-laden droplets exhaled from a sick person’s mouth and nose, the thinking goes, are heavy, and fall to the ground before they can get much farther than 6 feet.
But as the pandemic has unfolded, contact tracing studies have shown this isn’t always the case. In China, an air conditioner pushed virus-laden air across three tables in a restaurant, infecting people seated at each one. Researchers reviewed video from the restaurant and saw many of these patrons were more than 6 feet apart from one another, suggesting that the virus traveled through the air.
In Washington state, another study showed one person at a choir practice infected 52 of the other participants; it’s thought the singing could have led more virus to linger in the air. Carefully controlled laboratory studies are also suggesting that under the right indoor conditions, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, can float in the air and, to a certain degree, spread that way.
In July, the WHO changed its language to recognize that fact. “Short-range aerosol transmission, particularly in specific indoor locations, such as crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces over a prolonged period of time with infected persons cannot be ruled out,” the WHO now states. Previously, the organization maintained that airborne transmission was unlikely to occur outside the hospital setting, where some procedures can generate super-small particles that linger in the air longer than large respiratory drops.
Then, on October 5, the CDC updated its guidance to say that “Covid-19 can sometimes be spread by airborne transmission,” explaining that “there is evidence that under certain conditions, people with COVID-19 seem to have infected others who were more than 6 feet away.” With recognition of this mode of transmission, scientists hope, communities can think more about the ventilation of indoor spaces and perhaps engineer solutions to make these spaces safer.
The CDC had posted a similar update on September 20, which it quickly took down (the agency claimed the update had been posted in error). Overall, it’s been clear for quite some time that the 6 feet guidance was insufficient to explain all the facets of the risk in catching Covid-19.
Overall, the public communications on the aerosol issue have been something of a mess. It turns out scientists have been debating whether respiratory diseases like the flu and coronavirus should be labeled “airborne” for a century. The “airborne” designation is more commonly applied to extremely contagious diseases, like measles.
A lot of these terms are confusing (even to the scientists), and they don’t answer the question laypeople care about: Which air is safe to breathe during the Covid-19 pandemic, and which air is not safe?
To answer that question, it’s helpful to understand two different scientific perspectives on the matter. One is: What physically happens when a sick person breathes, sneezes, or coughs in a room? The other is: What patterns have epidemiologists observed in the way people are exposed to the virus and get sick?
Let’s start with the first.
Big drops versus little drops
There’s a relatively simple, if outdated, way of thinking about how respiratory diseases can spread.
It starts like this: When you exhale, sneeze, or cough, you release a cloud of gas and liquid droplets.
If those droplets are relatively big, they’re heavy and fall to the ground before evaporating, like raindrops do. Others are smaller, and made smaller still by evaporation. These smaller droplets can linger in the air longer, drifting on air currents for perhaps hours. If a droplet is small enough, the moisture in it evaporates before it has the chance to reach the ground (provided the humidity in the room is average). If there’s stuff like germs in that droplet, they become light enough to float on air currents, like the dust you can see suspended in the air. These particles are often called aerosols.
This framework is old, and it comes from William Wells, a scientist who studied tuberculosis transmission in the 1930s. In a 1934 paper, Wells concluded: “It appears, therefore, that transmission of infection through air may take one of two forms depending upon the size of the infected droplet.”
When it comes to Covid-19, one of the first questions epidemiologists tried to answer was: Is the virus spread in the dust that floats or the big drops that fall?
If it’s the small dust, alarm bells go off. These are the prototypical airborne diseases. They include measles, chickenpox, and tuberculosis, and they are extremely contagious. On average, one person infected with measles will infect 12 to 18 others.
If it’s the big drops, it’s still concerning. Diseases like the flu, whooping cough, the common cold, and coronaviruses are primarily large droplet-borne. With these diseases, only the closest contacts to an infected person get infected because large droplets quickly fall to the ground (within 6 feet or so). It’s also possible for these big drops to fall on surfaces, and those surfaces can become contaminated too. Luckily, in the case of Covid-19, there’s a growing consensus that getting sick from touching contaminated surfaces is rare. But keep washing your hands!
(Interestingly, there’s no one reason a new virus, like SARS-CoV-2, would go one route or the other. It’s possible, says University of Leicester virologist Julian Tang, that there may be a difference in the immune response with these airborne diseases that makes saliva and mucous less viscous, leading to more virus in small drops. Also, Tang writes in an email, “it is possible (though no one has studied this yet) that exhaled breath from measles/chickenpox cases may just be shedding much more virus (maybe millions of virus per minute) compared to respiratory viruses, which only exhale 100s to 1000s of viruses per minute.”)
A part of why the terminology here is so confusing, and there’s so much debate about it, is that the words “aerosol” and “droplet” mean different things to different scientific disciplines.
“An aerosol is a particle in the air,” said Lidia Morawska, an engineer and the director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at Queensland University of Technology. “A droplet is a liquid aerosol.” To her, the distinction between droplets and aerosols doesn’t make any sense. To her, they are all aerosols.
Wells’s droplet versus airborne distinction is still used today. It’s outdated.
Wells outlined a clear distinction between droplets and aerosols according to their size. Big drops fall, and little aerosolized drops float. It’s now appreciated that the actual picture is a lot more complicated.
“We’re always exhaling, in fact, a gas cloud that contains within it a continuum spectrum of droplet sizes,” Lydia Bourouiba, an MIT researcher who studies the fluid dynamics of infections, said in a July interview. And, as she explained in a March paper in JAMA, the conditions of the cloud itself can affect the range of some of the droplets. If propelled by a cough or sneeze, Bourouiba finds, droplets can travel upward of 20 feet. “The cloud mixture, not the drop sizes, determines the initial range of the drops and their fate in indoor environments.”
The speed of the cloud, the temperature and humidity of the environment, and the individual droplet makeup of each cloud determine how long the droplets persist in the air, Bourouiba explained in JAMA.
Which is to say: There are conditions (coughing and sneezing) under which large drops don’t immediately fall to the floor and can spread more than 6 feet away from a person, and they can linger in the air for longer. (It’s also possible SARS-CoV-2 may be in some of the smaller, floatier drops expelled by our breath too.)
There’s growing theoretical evidence for the airborne spread of the coronavirus. Lab studies, in idealized conditions, also show that the virus can live in an aerosolized form for up to 16 hours (the scientists in this case intentionally created aerosolized droplets with a machine).
Another study tracked with lasers the various droplets expelled from a human mouth during speech. It found “normal speech generates airborne droplets that can remain suspended for tens of minutes or longer and are eminently capable of transmitting disease in confined spaces.”
Multiple studies have found evidence of the virus’s RNA in the air of hospital rooms. But the WHO notes “no studies have found viable virus in air samples,” meaning the virus was either incapable of infecting others or was in very small quantities unlikely to infect others.
“What we are trying to say is, well, let’s not worry about whether you call it aerosol or whether you call it a droplet,” Morawska, the co-author of a July commentary imploring the WHO and others to address airborne transmission of Covid-19, said that month. “It is in the air,” she says, “and you inhale it. It’s coming from our nose from our mouths. It’s lingering in the air and others can inhale it.”
That the WHO updated its language is a sign that it’s starting to appreciate this perspective. (That said: The WHO still defines a droplet as a particle larger than 5 to 10 microns and an aerosol as something smaller, despite many scientists arguing the cutoff is meaningless.)
But this perspective is limited. These lab studies can’t perfectly generalize to the real-world conditions in which the virus spreads and infects others. Just because a virus travels far in a drop doesn’t mean it can infect people across great distances. Viruses can degrade quickly outside the body. Also, dose matters. Small exposures to the virus may not be enough to get a person sick.
So to find out how people actually get sick with Covid-19, we need contact tracing studies.
Contact tracing studies show airborne transmission may be possible in confined indoor spaces
Lab studies note the theoretical possibility of airborne transmission. But that’s only one part of the answer to the question of which air is safe to breathe. Epidemiologists come at this question from another angle, looking at patterns of virus spread observed in the real world and working backward to determine if airborne spread factors in.
Contact tracing studies show us that while droplets being inhaled by people within 6 feet of an infected person explain most of the transmission of Covid-19, there are limited times and environments in which SARS-CoV-2 can behave a bit like an airborne virus.
“So we need to define which types of contact, which type of environments, lead to that type of transmission,” Muge Cevik, a physician and virology expert at the University of St. Andrews, said in a July interview. In households, she says, an infected person can be isolated in one room and not spread the virus to others in the home (if they remain isolated). A systematic review of studies in The Lancet of both SARS-CoV-2 and similar viruses found large reductions in risk if people just stay 1 meter (3 feet) away from one another. This suggests a lot of the risk of catching Covid-19 is from the large drops that fall quickly to the ground.
But then there are cases where people are packed together in an enclosed space — like a church, with singing or shouting — where the transmission looks a little more like airborne transmission.
The infamous choir practice in Washington state is an example of where airborne transmission might have happened. But what made this event so risky was the convergence of many risk factors: the singing activity (during which the infected person released viral particles into the air), the time spent together (the practice was 2.5 hours), and the interaction between the choir members in an enclosed space (not only did they all practice together, they also split up into smaller groups and shared cookies and tea).
Another study from China investigated an outbreak that started at a Buddhist temple event, tracing much of the spread to the confines of one of the buses transporting people to the function. The bus had one sick person aboard, and 24 out of 67 people on that bus got sick, possibly indicating airborne transmission. Those who sat by the windows fared better, indicating the importance of ventilation.
“I think we just need to get away from this terminology and give much more clear definitions,” Cevik says. For her, it’s about getting people to think critically about which situations are riskier than others. “Risk is a spectrum. It’s not only the distance, but it’s about timing, what type of activities you’re involved in. I know it’s a bit complex, but that’s the reality.”
“Airborne” transmission means something very specific for doctors and health care workers
One possible reason the CDC and the WHO have been slow to address the airborne transmission of Covid-19: In a health care setting, “airborne” means a very specific thing.
Though infection prevention experts know there’s a fuzzy boundary between drops that fall and specks that float, the dichotomy between airborne and droplet-borne is baked into how health care workers are trained to respond to outbreaks. “We’ve trained [health care workers] for decades to say, airborne is tuberculosis, measles, chickenpox, droplet is flu and pertussis and meningitis,” Saskia Popescu, a hospital epidemiologist in Arizona, said over the summer. “And that’s, unfortunately, kind of antiquated. But that’s how we’ve always done it.”
They do it because there are very specific sets of guidelines in place to deal with extremely contagious airborne diseases in a hospital setting. For instance, a patient with a dangerous airborne disease often needs to be put in a room with an air pressure lower than the rest of the rooms in the building. That way, no virus in the air of that room can escape it (since air flows from high pressure to low pressure).
For droplet transmission, health care workers can be a little more lax; they can wear simple surgical masks during routine care and can save high-filtration (and sometimes scarce) respirators for the most dangerous procedures and cases.
In this light, it makes some sense that the WHO has been hesitant to label Covid-19 an “airborne” infection. It’s not an airborne infection like measles is. It is not as contagious. Contact tracing studies consistently find that Covid-19 is spread most readily among people in the closest physical contact to one another. “Airborne” means something very specific, very resource-intensive, and very scary for hospitals and the people who work in them. And Covid-19 doesn’t match that definition.
“The debate often isn’t very nuanced because of these rigid categories,” Daniel Diekema, an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist at the University of Iowa, says. “As soon as you say ‘airborne’ in the hospital infection prevention world, it brings to mind pathogens like tuberculosis, measles, chickenpox. It’s clear the respiratory viruses, influenza, coronaviruses, are not airborne in the same way that the measles, varicella [chickenpox] become airborne.”
But at the same time, with Covid-19 and other respiratory viruses, “there definitely are small-particle aerosols produced,” he says. “And in the right setting, where there’s poor ventilation, indoors, and a crowded environment, there is a risk for transmission among individuals, even if they may be more than 6 feet apart.”
So what do we do with this information?
Neither contact tracing studies nor lab studies can perfectly answer the question of “which air is safe?” But that’s science for you. Scientists use imperfect methods, attacking from many angles, to try to arrive at the truth, which can take a while to nail down precisely.
Overall, the recognition that Covid-19 can spread through the air shouldn’t really change how we, individually, protect ourselves and others against it. Six feet of distance between people is still a good barrier to prevent spread via large drops. Mask-wearing could help prevent both large drops and small drops from being released in the first place. Time matters too: The longer we spend in an enclosed, poorly ventilated space with others, the greater the chances of being exposed to an infectious dose of the virus.
The bottom line, as a trio of engineers from Clarkson University writes in the Conversation, is that “while staying six feet from other people reduces exposure, it might not be sufficient in all situations, such as in enclosed, poorly ventilated rooms.”
We still need to think about the environments we’re in: Indoors is much riskier than outdoors (where greater airflow can disperse drops and aerosols more quickly, and where the environment is less conducive to SARS-CoV-2 survival). And indoors, ventilation can make a big difference. An indoor space where the air is constantly refreshed with air from the outdoors is better than one where the air is stagnant. (The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers has published extensive guidelines on how to reopen buildings with increased ventilation during the pandemic.)
We also still need to think about the activity we’re engaging in. Shouting, singing, and other such activities produce more droplets (of any size) than just sitting quietly.
Morawska hopes that in bringing attention to airborne spread of Covid-19, there can be more attention paid to engineering solutions for indoor spaces to mitigate the spread of the pandemic.
Public health officials have continually stressed social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand-washing as ways to stop the spread of Covid-19. “But have you ever heard a restaurant reopening announce they’ve improved ventilation or increased ventilation? No. This is really the point,” Morawska says. If Covid-19 is in indoor air, we should also be doing something about the air.


vox--2020-08-03--What scientists are learning about kids and Covid-19 infection

In mid-June , a sleepaway camp in Georgia opened for its first camp session of the summer , welcoming 363 campers and 234 staffers and trainees back for what was supposed to be a fun summer outdoors .
The camp followed most of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) guidelines , including keeping campers in cabin groups as much as possible .
But the campers were not required to wear masks for camp activities , including singing and cheering .
Six days in , a teenage staff member left camp after developing chills , and tested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of the campers , even children as young as age 6 , were found to have been infected , while 19 percent of trainees and 56 percent of staff were infected .
Notably , 26 percent of the cases reported no symptoms .
A CDC report on the Georgia camp joins a rapidly growing body of desperately needed evidence of how the coronavirus impacts children and young people .
In July alone , several studies of note were published , including new findings about infected children ’ s viral loads , lessons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and associations of transmission with US school closures .
The same CDC report showed that the virus spreads efficiently even in groups of young children in an overnight setting , resulting in rapid transmission in all age groups — despite efforts by the camp to reduce the spread .
It also finds that asymptomatic infection was common in children , and “ potentially contributed to undetected transmission.
” These findings come as some school districts are still debating reopening , and the US battles a surge in Covid-19 cases .
Although the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decline , most states are reporting uncontrolled transmission , with alarmingly high test positivity rates , and increasing hospitalizations .
Meanwhile , data discrepancies after the Department of Health and Human Services took over reporting Covid-19 data are also making it harder to track the impact of the virus .
Yet we do know substantially more about kids and Covid-19 than we did in March .
And even though we ’ re learning at a furious pace , it ’ s still not enough .
“ While it may feel like we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forever , we ’ ve only been studying this virus for six months , ” says Megan Ranney , an emergency physician and the director for the Center for Digital Health at Brown University , who researches pediatric mental health .
Scientists like to talk about making evidence-based decisions , but right now , there are enough inconclusive or contradicting studies about children that people are able to cherry-pick the ones that support their preexisting opinion .
So , Ranney says , “ You have to be suspicious of anyone who is dogmatic.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ priorities and how much risk is acceptable , it ’ s hard to make evidence-based decisions when we still don ’ t even definitively know how likely children are to transmit the virus .
With that in mind , here ’ s a dive into what we do — and don ’ t — know about Covid-19 , children , and classrooms .
Why researchers think Covid-19 is generally mild in children While children can get Covid-19 , the illness is generally less severe than in adults .
The CDC says that children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less than 7 percent of US Covid-19 cases and less than 0.1 percent of the deaths .
Most children with Covid-19 have mild symptoms , the most common being fever and cough , according to a comprehensive National Academies of Medicine report from mid-July on setting priorities for reopening schools .
This is supported by one of the largest-scale pediatric studies to date , which appeared in late June in Lancet Child & Adolescent Health .
It looked at data from 582 children under the age of 18 in 21 countries and found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disease in children.
” But , it acknowledged , kids can sometimes get seriously ill : More than half of the children in the study were admitted to a hospital , and four died .
That hospitalization rate may be higher than average because kids were included in the study only if they were sick enough to be tested or admitted to a hospital .
The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that somewhere between 0.6 percent and 9 percent of pediatric Covid-19 cases result in hospitalization .
A preprint study that has not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in five countries found that 12 percent of children had severe cases .
There ’ s growing evidence children with preexisting conditions like cardiac disabilities have an increased risk of severe cases .
Rarely , children with Covid-19 are also developing a severe , multi-system inflammatory syndrome that causes a high fever and a rash and can be deadly .
Out of the 342 children in the US with the syndrome , 71 percent were in Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black children — more evidence of Covid-19 ’ s disturbingly disproportionate impact on communities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re also still learning about long-term consequences and prolonged symptoms of Covid-19 , which appear to affect as many as 87 percent of adults , and we don ’ t know what that might look like in kids .
Ranney says , “ We just don ’ t know .
It would be disingenuous of me to say there ’ s no long-term risk , just because we don ’ t have data .
It ’ s also not fair to say kids are at high risk of long-term symptoms just because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kids matter when it comes to Covid-19 risk ?
There does appear to be a difference between younger children and adolescents , both in terms of their likelihood of getting infected with Covid-19 and the likelihood of more severe disease .
One study from late July of 16,025 people across the US showed that children over age 10 may get infected after exposure at rates on par with adults .
A study in Iceland also found that 10 years old seemed to be the threshold when incidence rates changed .
According to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 cases were between the ages of 15 and 17 , and the median age was 11 .
( As in adults , boys are slightly more likely to get sick than girls . )
This all suggests that middle school and high school may pose different risks for children than elementary schools — although there ’ s still a risk to teachers and other adult staff .
( The Kaiser Family Foundation found that about one-quarter of US teachers are at higher risk of severe Covid-19 cases because of their age or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still unclear why younger children may be less susceptible .
One possibility is they are more frequently exposed to related coronaviruses , like the common cold , and since immunity from these exposures lessens over time , kids who have recently been infected might have some protection that adults don ’ t .
Or , another new study suggests that the gene for a receptor the virus attaches to in the upper airway is expressed less in children than adults .
Generally , the immune system becomes less robust as you age , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s immune systems just mount a better response to the virus — not too much and not too little .
Or , because younger children don ’ t generate as much force when coughing or speaking to aerosolize the virus , they may be less likely to transmit the virus to others in indoor spaces , even if they are sick .
But overall , the jury is still out .
If kids can transmit Covid-19 , how often do they ?
If children are exposed to the virus , it appears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of developing Covid-19 .
One study published in Nature in June with data from six countries suggests kids under the age of 20 are about half as likely to get sick after exposure as adults ; other studies in Israel , the Netherlands , and Switzerland consistently report children get infected less easily than adults .
But children can certainly transmit the virus both to each other and to adults .
The question is how often they do .
Scientists have repeatedly found infected children have similar viral loads to adults , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ JAMA found that young children may have even more of the virus .
It looked at different ages and found that children under age 5 had very high levels of the virus in their nose and throat , compared to adults .
( Some experts speculated there may have been sampling bias in the study — testing primarily children with symptoms , when children having symptoms may not be the norm . )
An important caveat , Ranney says , is this doesn ’ t necessarily mean the virus is infectious — the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ culture live virus from swabs of children .
And again , the age of the child likely matters when it comes to their ability to transmit the virus : A study in South Korea followed the contacts of 5,700 Covid-19 patients and found that children between ages 10 and 19 spread the virus at a similar rate as adults , while children under the age of 10 transmit much less .
A limitation of the study is that they looked at transmission in households , where masks and social distancing were less likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that hasn ’ t yet been peer-reviewed — from Italy that also came out in late July found that children under age 14 are slightly less likely to be infected than adults , but actually 9 percent more likely to transmit the virus overall .
Multiple studies suggest that children are rarely the first person in a household to get sick , meaning they ’ re more likely to get it from their parents than to give it to their parents .
But household studies are often biased because researchers are looking for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and kids are more likely to be asymptomatic .
Why community transmission is so central to the question of reopening schools Reports on how likely schools are to drive wider community outbreaks outside of households are mixed .
Even if children don ’ t transmit the virus as readily as adults , they have as much as three times the number of contacts — meaning they have three times the number of opportunities to transmit the virus .
Because schools in the US have been closed , we don ’ t yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A new study looked at how states with early closure of schools had reduced levels of Covid-19 compared to states that closed schools later — even after adjusting for other state policies like lockdown orders .
This does not mean shutting schools caused lower levels of coronavirus cases , but the researchers found a strong correlation .
This association would mean more if school closures hadn ’ t occurred within days of other measures , making it harder to measure school impact .
This is where comparing other countries ’ experiences may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kept elementary schools open and closed middle and high schools .
Finland closed all three .
When researchers compared the two Nordic countries , they found that because of limited testing , the infection rate in younger children was probably significantly underestimated .
They suggest given the available data , it did not appear that keeping elementary schools open drove Swedish community outbreaks .
But there have been Swedish school outbreaks — in one school , 18 of 76 staff were infected , and several teachers have died — although the lack of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to draw conclusions .
A Swedish Public Health Survey in May found a comparatively high antibody rate in children , suggesting there may have been significant transmission in schools .
In other places , school transmission has been more clear cut .
For example , one study in France found that new cases dropped when school holidays began .
When Israel tried to reopen schools in stages in May , within two weeks , over 20 schools had to close again , and hundreds of students were infected .
( That was when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than they are in most of the US today . )
Eyal Leshem , the director of the Institute for Travel and Tropical Medicine at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel , says , “ It has been known for many years that school closure is one of the highest impact interventions to stop a pandemic influenza outbreak.
” In a recent study of 727 people , the Israeli Health Ministry found 28 percent were infected in educational institutions .
Leshem adds , “ In retrospect , it could be expected that when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of respiratory viral outbreaks.
” One study goes so far as to suggest that closing schools might be the single most important non-pharmaceutical intervention in reducing rates of Covid-19 .
“ Based on the South Korean and Israeli school outbreaks , it ’ s clear schools do spread Covid-19 , ” says Chethan Sathya , a pediatric surgeon and assistant professor of surgery at the Cohen Children ’ s Medical Center in New York .
The reason why some countries seem to have school outbreaks and others don ’ t is likely linked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ circulating in the communities around the school .
And this brings us to a key point in thinking about kids ’ risk of Covid-19 : Their risk is largely driven by the extent of the community transmission .
For example , researchers from Stanford University , Georgia Tech , and the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory have developed an online calculator that tells you what the chances are of someone in a group having Covid-19 .
It says that right now a group of 20 people in Miami — like you would have in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of at least one person having Covid-19 .
In the last two weeks of July , Florida saw a 34 percent increase in new cases in children and a 23 percent increase in pediatric hospitalizations .
A small percentage of a big number still means a lot of kids are getting sick .
This makes families ’ choices about schools even harder .
“ It feels like a truly impossible decision for parents to make , ” says Julia Marcus , an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School .
“ There are so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Pooja Lakshmin , a perinatal psychiatrist specializing in women ’ s mental health and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at George Washington University School of Medicine , says she ’ s had a lot of parents ask her for a solid set of rules that can make things safe .
“ But this is about balancing multiple risks , ” she says .
As school districts and parents around the country weigh their options , Ranney says there are no universal right answers .
“ The tough thing is that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not just your kid but other families .
A risk you may be able to tolerate might not be okay with your community .
So you have to consider not just your family but the health of the community at large.
” Lois Parshley is a freelance investigative journalist .
Follow her Covid-19 reporting on Twitter @ loisparshley .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

In mid-June, a sleepaway camp in Georgia opened for its first camp session of the summer, welcoming 363 campers and 234 staffers and trainees back for what was supposed to be a fun summer outdoors. The camp followed most of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, including keeping campers in cabin groups as much as possible. But the campers were not required to wear masks for camp activities, including singing and cheering.
Six days in, a teenage staff member left camp after developing chills, and tested positive for Covid-19. Eventually, 49 percent of the campers, even children as young as age 6, were found to have been infected, while 19 percent of trainees and 56 percent of staff were infected. Notably, 26 percent of the cases reported no symptoms.
A CDC report on the Georgia camp joins a rapidly growing body of desperately needed evidence of how the coronavirus impacts children and young people. In July alone, several studies of note were published, including new findings about infected children’s viral loads, lessons from large-scale contact tracing in South Korea, and associations of transmission with US school closures.
The same CDC report showed that the virus spreads efficiently even in groups of young children in an overnight setting, resulting in rapid transmission in all age groups — despite efforts by the camp to reduce the spread. It also finds that asymptomatic infection was common in children, and “potentially contributed to undetected transmission.”
Three new important studies came out in the past week about kids & #COVID19. All have limits (the science isn't perfect). But together, they matter, & you deserve to know about them!
A thread on the takeaways for all of us, as parents / teachers / communities? — Megan Ranney MD MPH (@meganranney) July 31, 2020
These findings come as some school districts are still debating reopening, and the US battles a surge in Covid-19 cases. Although the new daily case average has started to decline, most states are reporting uncontrolled transmission, with alarmingly high test positivity rates, and increasing hospitalizations. Meanwhile, data discrepancies after the Department of Health and Human Services took over reporting Covid-19 data are also making it harder to track the impact of the virus.
Yet we do know substantially more about kids and Covid-19 than we did in March. And even though we’re learning at a furious pace, it’s still not enough.
“While it may feel like we’ve been in the midst of this forever, we’ve only been studying this virus for six months,” says Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and the director for the Center for Digital Health at Brown University, who researches pediatric mental health. Scientists like to talk about making evidence-based decisions, but right now, there are enough inconclusive or contradicting studies about children that people are able to cherry-pick the ones that support their preexisting opinion. So, Ranney says, “You have to be suspicious of anyone who is dogmatic.”
While many have strong opinions about priorities and how much risk is acceptable, it’s hard to make evidence-based decisions when we still don’t even definitively know how likely children are to transmit the virus. With that in mind, here’s a dive into what we do — and don’t — know about Covid-19, children, and classrooms.
Why researchers think Covid-19 is generally mild in children
While children can get Covid-19, the illness is generally less severe than in adults. The CDC says that children under the age of 18 account for less than 7 percent of US Covid-19 cases and less than 0.1 percent of the deaths.
Most children with Covid-19 have mild symptoms, the most common being fever and cough, according to a comprehensive National Academies of Medicine report from mid-July on setting priorities for reopening schools.
This is supported by one of the largest-scale pediatric studies to date, which appeared in late June in Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. It looked at data from 582 children under the age of 18 in 21 countries and found that “Covid-19 is generally a mild disease in children.” But, it acknowledged, kids can sometimes get seriously ill: More than half of the children in the study were admitted to a hospital, and four died.
That hospitalization rate may be higher than average because kids were included in the study only if they were sick enough to be tested or admitted to a hospital. The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that somewhere between 0.6 percent and 9 percent of pediatric Covid-19 cases result in hospitalization. A preprint study that has not yet been peer-reviewed of 31 household clusters in five countries found that 12 percent of children had severe cases.
There’s growing evidence children with preexisting conditions like cardiac disabilities have an increased risk of severe cases. Rarely, children with Covid-19 are also developing a severe, multi-system inflammatory syndrome that causes a high fever and a rash and can be deadly. Out of the 342 children in the US with the syndrome, 71 percent were in Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black children — more evidence of Covid-19’s disturbingly disproportionate impact on communities of color in the country.
We’re also still learning about long-term consequences and prolonged symptoms of Covid-19, which appear to affect as many as 87 percent of adults, and we don’t know what that might look like in kids. Ranney says, “We just don’t know. It would be disingenuous of me to say there’s no long-term risk, just because we don’t have data. It’s also not fair to say kids are at high risk of long-term symptoms just because adults are.”
Does the age of kids matter when it comes to Covid-19 risk?
There does appear to be a difference between younger children and adolescents, both in terms of their likelihood of getting infected with Covid-19 and the likelihood of more severe disease.
One study from late July of 16,025 people across the US showed that children over age 10 may get infected after exposure at rates on par with adults. A study in Iceland also found that 10 years old seemed to be the threshold when incidence rates changed. According to the CDC, nearly one-third of US pediatric Covid-19 cases were between the ages of 15 and 17, and the median age was 11. (As in adults, boys are slightly more likely to get sick than girls.)
This all suggests that middle school and high school may pose different risks for children than elementary schools — although there’s still a risk to teachers and other adult staff. (The Kaiser Family Foundation found that about one-quarter of US teachers are at higher risk of severe Covid-19 cases because of their age or preexisting conditions.)
It’s still unclear why younger children may be less susceptible. One possibility is they are more frequently exposed to related coronaviruses, like the common cold, and since immunity from these exposures lessens over time, kids who have recently been infected might have some protection that adults don’t.
Or, another new study suggests that the gene for a receptor the virus attaches to in the upper airway is expressed less in children than adults. Generally, the immune system becomes less robust as you age, so it’s also possible children’s immune systems just mount a better response to the virus — not too much and not too little. Or, because younger children don’t generate as much force when coughing or speaking to aerosolize the virus, they may be less likely to transmit the virus to others in indoor spaces, even if they are sick. But overall, the jury is still out.
If kids can transmit Covid-19, how often do they?
If children are exposed to the virus, it appears they may be at a lower risk of developing Covid-19. One study published in Nature in June with data from six countries suggests kids under the age of 20 are about half as likely to get sick after exposure as adults; other studies in Israel, the Netherlands, and Switzerland consistently report children get infected less easily than adults.
But children can certainly transmit the virus both to each other and to adults. The question is how often they do.
Scientists have repeatedly found infected children have similar viral loads to adults, and a new study out July 21 in JAMA found that young children may have even more of the virus. It looked at different ages and found that children under age 5 had very high levels of the virus in their nose and throat, compared to adults. (Some experts speculated there may have been sampling bias in the study — testing primarily children with symptoms, when children having symptoms may not be the norm.) An important caveat, Ranney says, is this doesn’t necessarily mean the virus is infectious — the next step will be actually trying to culture live virus from swabs of children.
And again, the age of the child likely matters when it comes to their ability to transmit the virus: A study in South Korea followed the contacts of 5,700 Covid-19 patients and found that children between ages 10 and 19 spread the virus at a similar rate as adults, while children under the age of 10 transmit much less. A limitation of the study is that they looked at transmission in households, where masks and social distancing were less likely. And a preprint — a study that hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed — from Italy that also came out in late July found that children under age 14 are slightly less likely to be infected than adults, but actually 9 percent more likely to transmit the virus overall.
Multiple studies suggest that children are rarely the first person in a household to get sick, meaning they’re more likely to get it from their parents than to give it to their parents. But household studies are often biased because researchers are looking for who got sick first via reported symptoms — and kids are more likely to be asymptomatic.
Why community transmission is so central to the question of reopening schools
Reports on how likely schools are to drive wider community outbreaks outside of households are mixed. Even if children don’t transmit the virus as readily as adults, they have as much as three times the number of contacts — meaning they have three times the number of opportunities to transmit the virus.
Because schools in the US have been closed, we don’t yet have data on transmission from American classrooms. A new study looked at how states with early closure of schools had reduced levels of Covid-19 compared to states that closed schools later — even after adjusting for other state policies like lockdown orders. This does not mean shutting schools caused lower levels of coronavirus cases, but the researchers found a strong correlation. This association would mean more if school closures hadn’t occurred within days of other measures, making it harder to measure school impact.
This is where comparing other countries’ experiences may be helpful: For example, Sweden kept elementary schools open and closed middle and high schools. Finland closed all three. When researchers compared the two Nordic countries, they found that because of limited testing, the infection rate in younger children was probably significantly underestimated. They suggest given the available data, it did not appear that keeping elementary schools open drove Swedish community outbreaks.
But there have been Swedish school outbreaks — in one school, 18 of 76 staff were infected, and several teachers have died — although the lack of testing and contact tracing makes it difficult to draw conclusions. A Swedish Public Health Survey in May found a comparatively high antibody rate in children, suggesting there may have been significant transmission in schools.
In other places, school transmission has been more clear cut. For example, one study in France found that new cases dropped when school holidays began. When Israel tried to reopen schools in stages in May, within two weeks, over 20 schools had to close again, and hundreds of students were infected. (That was when transmission rates in Israel were much lower than they are in most of the US today.) Eyal Leshem, the director of the Institute for Travel and Tropical Medicine at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, says, “It has been known for many years that school closure is one of the highest impact interventions to stop a pandemic influenza outbreak.”
In a recent study of 727 people, the Israeli Health Ministry found 28 percent were infected in educational institutions. Leshem adds, “In retrospect, it could be expected that when you reopen schools, children are drivers of respiratory viral outbreaks.” One study goes so far as to suggest that closing schools might be the single most important non-pharmaceutical intervention in reducing rates of Covid-19. “Based on the South Korean and Israeli school outbreaks, it’s clear schools do spread Covid-19,” says Chethan Sathya, a pediatric surgeon and assistant professor of surgery at the Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York.
The reason why some countries seem to have school outbreaks and others don’t is likely linked to how much of the virus is circulating in the communities around the school. And this brings us to a key point in thinking about kids’ risk of Covid-19: Their risk is largely driven by the extent of the community transmission.
Realistically, we MUST control levels of community transmission of #COVID19 if we want kids & teachers in schools.
We may be able to send kids back, but we need PPE & regular, random testing of kids & teachers, whether in elementary, middle, high school, or college pic.twitter.com/8W5FsALGwv — Megan Ranney MD MPH (@meganranney) July 31, 2020
For example, researchers from Stanford University, Georgia Tech, and the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory have developed an online calculator that tells you what the chances are of someone in a group having Covid-19. It says that right now a group of 20 people in Miami — like you would have in a classroom — has a 98 percent chance of at least one person having Covid-19.
In the last two weeks of July, Florida saw a 34 percent increase in new cases in children and a 23 percent increase in pediatric hospitalizations. A small percentage of a big number still means a lot of kids are getting sick.
This makes families’ choices about schools even harder. “It feels like a truly impossible decision for parents to make,” says Julia Marcus, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “There are so many competing priorities and so little certainty.”
Pooja Lakshmin, a perinatal psychiatrist specializing in women’s mental health and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at George Washington University School of Medicine, says she’s had a lot of parents ask her for a solid set of rules that can make things safe. “But this is about balancing multiple risks,” she says.
As school districts and parents around the country weigh their options, Ranney says there are no universal right answers. “The tough thing is that, like with vaccines, your decision impacts not just your kid but other families. A risk you may be able to tolerate might not be okay with your community. So you have to consider not just your family but the health of the community at large.”
Lois Parshley is a freelance investigative journalist. Follow her Covid-19 reporting on Twitter @loisparshley.