DESE (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) released Initial Reopening Guidance on June 25, 2020. You can find the document here.

A few facts:

• The report uses 84 footnotes to cite 53 unique sources:

  • 3 Massachusetts public-facing websites

  • 8 public-facing CDC sites

  • 2 school reopening plans from other states

  • 2 World Health Organization pages

  • 1 Toronto Children's Hospital document

  • 4 news articles

  • 18 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles

  • 5 pre-print (not yet peer reviewed) scientific manuscripts

  • 6 scientific journal articles/manuscripts for which peer review status was unclear

• DESE released the guidance 2 hours before the closing of the public comment period for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting of June 30 closed. The Board does not have another meeting scheduled until September.

• Only two consulting doctors who have been named in conjunction with the guidance. Dr. Sandra Nelson is an Infectious Diseases doctor at Mass General. Dr. Lloyd Fisher is a pediatrician and the incoming president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

• None of the studies cited by DESE include information about transmission, symptoms, or complications from COVID-19 in adults.

• Students are referenced in the DESE guidance (student, students, child, child's, children, children's) 219 times. School staff (staff, staffing, teacher, teachers, educators) are referenced 63 times.

• The 3 studies of school based transmission of COVID-19 cited by DESE have sample sizes of 1, 18, and 6.

• Many of the sources cited by DESE are from areas with much lower prevalence of COVID-19.

• There is citation inconsistency. Footnote 8 and footnote 17 are the same source, cited differently without an explanation as to why. Additionally, many citations do not include links, making it harder to find the sources.

• The report has at least one factual error. In Appendix A, a claim is made about New York City household transmission, citing footnote 70. The study linked in footnote 70 does not include any data for New York City, rather it includes data for New York State excluding New York City.