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“47 percent [of Israel’s cases in June]… were infected by the coronavirus in schools.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-data-show-school-openings-were-a-disaster-that-wiped-out-lockdown-gains https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1284651955999199234
![“47 percent [of Israel’s cases in June]… were infected by the coronavirus in schools.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-data-show-school-openings-were-a-disaster-that-wiped-out-lockdown-gains https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1284651955999199234](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdQA18fUcAIR6Uz.jpg "“47 percent [of Israel’s cases in June]… were infected by the coronavirus in schools.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-data-show-school-openings-were-a-disaster-that-wiped-out-lockdown-gains https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1284651955999199234")
“How Sweden wasted a ‘rare opportunity’ to study coronavirus in schools” (via @red__RD) https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/how-sweden-wasted-rare-opportunity-study-coronavirus-schools
Putting people in poorly ventilated spaces for hours, with kids constantly around each other, and teachers projecting their voice logically would be prime areas for infection. If we are not taking any precautions, the default assumption is they will spread it.
There is evidence that preschool and elementary school can be safe, with precautions—kids are kept in smaller groups which don’t intersect, etc. Israel’s experience seems to show that, as does the YMCA here. That doesn’t mean all schools can be opened with minimal precautions.
It is even more difficult to justify when cases are growing nationally. Teachers and students will be more likely to get it as a result, and it would further increase spread. If we want to open schools, we should be clamping down hard now, and planning for dramatic precautions.
But there isn’t time to do that before schools open next month. Not enough time to get cases under control, not enough time to coalesce around a plan for precautions, pass funding, and roll it out.
And, of course, this president opposes doing any of that.
And, of course, this president opposes doing any of that.
What we are left with, then, are folks like Phil advocating that the president steal funds appropriated by Congress and withhold them from schools which don’t open—precautions be damned. The entire focus is on “opening,” not on how to do that safely.
Folks who haven’t treated the virus seriously are acting like petulant children. They agitated in April for things to open, while we could have kept pushing cases down while growing testing capacity and planning for national opening guidelines and contact tracing.
If we had done that, opening schools would be much more likely. We’d have more testing resources for schools. We’d have less community spread, endangering everyone. We’d have an ability to identify and squash outbreaks.
But they got what they wanted.
But they got what they wanted.
They got what they wanted. States opened, including states like California that initially proposed serious re-opening criteria. And now we have cases growing across the country, inadequate testing *now*, let alone to support schools. We have a mess.
They got what they wanted, and now we are living with the consequences. And now they are mad that there are consequences for their demands in April and May.
