Eastern Middle student earns honors for COVID project

After two weeks of virtual judging, the CT Science and Engineering Fair awarded two first place prizes to an eighth-grader at Eastern Middle School.

EMS student Zara Haque was the only middle school student in the Greenwich Public Schools to participate in the fair. Zara won first place in life sciences and first place in the CT Science Teacher Association. She now has the opportunity to compete in the Broadcom Masters National Fair.

Zara’s project was called “Can Trust Kill? COVID-19 and Social Capital.”

“Zara shared her impressive research, all of which was completed outside of school hours, and I’m so proud of the recognition she received for this important work,” EMS science teacher Jessica Iannacone said.

Her abstract says: “COVID-19 is the most critical issue facing humanity right now. It is vital to conduct research on the factors that contribute to COVID-19 cases and deaths so that we can better understand which populations and communities are most vulnerable to this virus. My project investigates whether ‘social capital’ is correlated with COVID-19 cases and deaths. Social capital measures the amount of trust and web of connections among members of a community or region.”

She used county-level data from the U.S. Senate and The New York Times to statistically test the relationship between COVID cases/ deaths and social capital. After controlling for income, diabetes, minorities, density and age, Zara said she found that social capital had a positive and statistically significant correlation with COVID cases and deaths.

“The component of social capital that is most strongly correlated with COVID cases and deaths is family unity,” she said. “Overall, my findings indicate that a potential downside of high social trust is that it may lead to greater transmission of COVID-19. These results will be of interest to policymakers and healthcare providers in the fight against COVID-19.”