Like everyone, I am desperate to send my kids back to school. Remote learning is hard on my wife and me, and terrible for our kids. If we thought it were safe to do so, we wouldn't hesitate. But there's no way we're going to risk their health or ours IF IT'S NOT SAFE.
We are fortunate to live in a good school district with a well run public school. But it's still a school that struggles with basic student hygiene, because...kids are kids. We've turned our kids into little hygiene narcs but most aren't.
So thinking that our school, much less *every* school, could realistically adhere to the kind of rigorous distancing, masking, airflow, hygiene, etc etc etc standards that would be required to reopen amidst significant ongoing transmission...WITHIN THE NEXT 6 WEEKS.....
There is still a ton we don't know about how actively kids can spread the virus, as @HelenBranswell summarized here. There is huge uncertainty. More clarity on this would be helpful, but we have to decide on fall school based on what we do know.
statnews.com/2020/06/18/how…
statnews.com/2020/06/18/how…
And we do know that schools present near-ideal super spreading conditions. The highest risks are in settings with large groups of people, in enclosed spaces, for prolonged periods, in close proximity, with a lot of vocalizing.
Much like a classroom, schoolbus, or cafeteria.
Much like a classroom, schoolbus, or cafeteria.
Now, if there's low ongoing local transmission, quick and widely available testing, and solid contact tracing, that's maybe a manageable risk. If a kid or a teacher becomes sick, they'd be rapidly ID'ed and isolated, and the class (or perhaps whole school) temporarily closed.
But when there is a lot of ongoing local transmission, inadequate and slow testing, and insufficient tracing, it's not a manageable risk. One pre-symptomatic case could expose numerous others and spawn several generations of transmission before being detected.
And those cases are not just exposing other kids; they're exposing adult teachers, school staff, and students' family members. Within 1-2 generations of transmission a sick student can be endangering high-risk adults.
So I think @ashishkjha is right when he says it will be extraordinarily hard to safely open schools without first suppressing transmission. And that deeply sucks. It is bad for kids, it is bad for families, it is bad for society.
But it is a direct parallel to the mistakes much of the country made on restarting the economy. By approaching that as something separate from controlling the virus, the result has been prolonged economic damage AND more sickness.
The White House, having learned nothing, is now teeing up THE EXACT SAME PLAY here. "Schools are so important we can't wait to control the virus first." And in so doing, they will prolong both the outbreak and the disruption to education.
There's no silver bullet fix for our economy or or schools. We have to do the hard slog of containing the virus before we can start getting back to a new economic and educational normal. The longer we treat those as distinct priorities, the longer we're screwed.
