Another day, another confirmation that it is perfectly safe for kids to be back in school. Today's case comes from the Chicago Sun-Times, using data from the Illinois Dept of Public Health:

Even as the region enters its worst period of the pandemic thus far, the vast majority of public and private schools in the Chicago area that have reopened in some capacity this fall have had little confirmed exposure to the coronavirus in the past month, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of state data.

A small fraction of schools have had outbreaks where virus transmission has been traced to school buildings, while high schools have shown to be more likely to experience COVID-19 scares than elementary schools, records show.

Those findings match nationwide figures showing relatively low instances of significant spread in educational settings, especially among younger students, and provide some insight into why health officials nationally and in Chicago have expressed strong confidence that schools are safer to reopen than first thought, even as the pandemic rages on.

The difference between elementary and high school infections also partially explains why Chicago Public Schools has prioritized the return of its youngest students as the district makes its third attempt in January to open its classrooms for the first time since March.

“It’s safe to keep schools open,” said Dr. Daniel Johnson, chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Johnson said evidence has shown minimal spread of the virus in school buildings even as transmission rises in the surrounding community.

Note that even with climbing community infection rates, they are stressing that it is safe. On the other side of the coin, of course, for reasons unfathomable, Oregon has used its arbitrary "community infection" rates as an excuse to keep kids out of school. And this is in spite of the fact that even here in Oregon, it is also perfectly safe to have kids back in school, according to a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital..

Dr. Johnson, the University of Chicago pediatric infectious diseases chief, said chances of in-school transmission are very low no matter the level of community spread because of layered mitigation protocols at schools. When one piece fails, like a student taking off a mask for a few minutes, there’s still social distancing, ventilation, hygiene and smaller class pods for protection, he said.

“If you institute those and actually follow those mitigation steps, then you can operate schools safely, and that’s what datasets have shown,” Johnson said. “The proof is in the pudding. What we’ve seen is that yes, in most school settings, students, just like teachers, follow the rules.”

In instances when schools reopened this fall only to go back to remote learning weeks later, those closures generally did not have to do with confirmed in-school transmission through contact tracing, the Sun-Times found.

And yet Kate Brown, Colt Gill, Pat Allen and Dean Sidelinger still refuse to get our kids back in school.