The PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia supports schools returning to in-person learning after winter break.
CHOP released a statement Friday explaining the decision.
“Our statement this morning is upon careful review of the data that’s emerging,” PolicyLab Director Dr. David Rubin said in an interview.
Amid the rising rates of transmission among children, Rubin said, the data shows that the omicron variant is milder than earlier coronavirus strains, especially for those who are vaccinated.
“The sheer numbers of children have resulted in some increasing hospitalizations, but a lower proportion of kids are in our intensive care units,” said Rubin.
Children in the ICU are almost exclusively identified as unvaccinated, Rubin added.
The statement is a consensus across clinical and policy lab teams at CHOP, Rubin said, and stressed the need for returning to the classroom. Schools’ decisions to return to buildings should be more based on “an issue of staffing and operational issues and not related to concerns about the severity of the virus,” he said.