A Warning to Pennsbury School District Superintendent and PHS Co-Principals: On Irrational and Unsafe Quarantine of Your COVID-Recovered and Already Immune Students.
Pennsbury school district’s policy of quarantining the COVID-recovered and already immune, but not the “fully vaccinated”, is irrationally discriminatory and unsafe for the mental and educational health of these already immune students.
Honorable Superintendent Smith, Principals Becker and Meadows,
I write this letter of serious concern to you as a physician in Bucks County, a public health advocate and a taxpayer in the Pennsbury School District.
Recently, through a patient of mine, I was made aware of a Pennsbury high school COVID-exposure quarantine policy that I know is severely harmful to the mental and educational well-being of a specific group of students at Pennsbury: The COVID-recovered and already immune.
It is my professional opinion that when Pennsbury High School imposes a 7–10 day quarantine policy on COVID-recovered students with definitive evidence of antibody immunity to SARS-CoV-2, BUT not to their “fully vaccinated” counterparts, when these students have experienced a potential exposure to COVID, a discriminatory and harmful policy error is being committed.
To begin, as you likely know, up to 20–30% of the students at your high school are COVID-recovered at the moment. The vast majority of these students will almost certainly be serologically immune as demonstrable by the presence of antibodies in their blood. In fact, despite the Biden administration’s serious failure to acknowledge the science of acquired immunity from infection, the preponderance of epidemiological data very strongly demonstrate that such COVID-recovered and already immune individuals are at least equally, if not better, immune to infection as are uninfected persons who are “fully vaccinated”.
On the other hand, we also know that with COVID-19 vaccine efficacy ranging from 66–95%, depending on the brand used, somewhere between 5% and 34% of “fully vaccinated” persons are still susceptible to infection. That is one out of every 3–20 fully-vaccinated students are still susceptible to infection — this, according to the published efficacy rates from the vaccine manufacturers and the FDA, themselves.
So, it makes no sense for Pennsbury to be discriminating against COVID-recovered and serologically immune versus “fully-vaccinated” students in any of its policies. Therefore, it is my respectful suggestion that you seriously consider one of the following option in order to correct your irrational and unsafe discriminatory practice against this sizable subset of people: A) quarantining EVERYONE who is exposed irrespective of vaccination status, B) give a pass to COVID-recovered/antibody positive students as you do to fully vaccinated students or C) impose a “one-size-fit-all” vaccine policy on ALL Pennsbury High School students and staff.
Of course, my personal recommendation is that you go with the most rational, scientific and ethical option B.
To be clear, I am not advocating for ANYONE to seek natural infection as the means to acquiring immunity to COVID-19. To do so, would be dangerous not only to the infected persons, but to his/her community. However, I am stating that if a person is lucky enough to have survived a COVID-19 infection unscathed, most such persons have a robust degree of immunity against reinfection, comparable if not better than that of the “fully vaccinated”. Therefore, you ought not discriminate against them or exclude them from full participation in their taxpayer right to a good public education.
I hope that you recognize that many families with COVID-recovered children in your school district are hesitant about getting vaccinated. In my professional opinion, most of these folks have a legitimate case for exemption — specifically when their blood tests demonstrate antibody immunity. To mandate vaccination in such already immune persons, or to discriminate against them with irrational quarantine policies when they are potentially exposed, is unscientific, unethical, and likely, unconstitutional — especially when “fully vaccinated” students a fraction of whom are likely to be inadequately immune to infection are given a free pass.
To assure you of the scientific and clinical grounding of my position, recently my colleagues and I performed a comprehensive meta-analysis of the very large available datasets and confirmed the equivalency of acquired natural immunity to COVID-19, when compared to vaccine immunity.
You may read a a pre-print version of our meta-analysis, HERE. This paper was recently peer-reviewed and will be published in about a week from now.
I respectfully ask that you carefully consider the following: though it is true that CDC guidelines are not acknowledging the the efficacy of natural immunity against re-infection, these incomplete federal guidelines ought not allow you to make harmful policy errors in Pennsbury School District. Federal “guidelines” do not constitute legal constraints on state actors. Especially when such guidelines are incomplete and do not accommodate realities and the needs of specific subsets of people — and if the policy stands a chance of irrationally discriminating and harming a fraction of students under your care.
My respectful recommendation is that you treat “fully vaccinated” students and those who are “COVID-recovered and antibody positive” equally when it comes to your quarantine policies (Option B).
Alternatively, you can consider the draconian options of quarantining EVERYONE, irrespective of their vaccination status — OR requiring EVERYONE to be vaccinated (i.e., Options A and C, above). I do not recommend either of these courses of action, because thought they are non-discriminatory, they are detrimental to either the peace-of-mind or health of the constituents of the Pennsbury School District.
In summary, here I publicly attest to my opinion as a physician and immunologist from Yardley, PA that COVID-recovered and naturally immune students in Pennsbury School District are at least equally, if not better, immune to subsequent COVID-19 infection as are their fully-vaccinated counterparts. As such, the district’s current discriminatory quarantine policies against the COVID-recovered and in favor of the “fully-vaccinated” are inappropriate and harmful.
I am sure that you will immediately recognize that missing 7–10 days of school for any given student and their family is a significant cost — especially because the school is no longer offering robust remote learning options to the quarantined students. This cost is not only to a the student’s educational needs, it is also a tangible cost to working families in the district. When you integrate this cost over the entire population of your district, it becomes non-negligible.
As a local physician and as a public service, I’d be happy to help your district and students determine who amongst you carries antibody immunity against SARS-CoV-2, whether or not they have been vaccinated. After all, consider that serological IMMUNITY against COVID-19 is the ONLY real and gold-standard metric of susceptibility to infection that we know of — NOT vaccination status, per se. In the absence of a vaccine requirement, it may be useful for folks to know if they are susceptible to infection.
Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions or comments.
Respectfully,
Hooman Noorchashm MD, PhD
Yardley, PA.
