Some other countries have reopened their schools to in-person classes with little effect on their COVID infection rates. Will it work in the US? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Those other countries got the virus under control in the community before reopening schools. The virus is more out of control in the US than in almost any other country in the world. Reopening schools has the potential to be a disaster. And when I use the word "disaster," I mean it in its literal traditional unexaggerated sense.
Politically, the blame for a viral disaster related to school reopening can be laid squarely at the feet of the President, who repeatedly said that schools must reopen, who threatened to cut off federal funds from schools systems that do not resume in-person classes, who said his own CDC's guidance was too tough for schools, and who, in contrast, said it is too dangerous to open polling places in November.
When stories start to arrive about a few children bringing home the virus and making themselves orphans, can you imagine how it will affect politics? It's not too late for the President to change course and save himself from a horrendous backlash.
Three months from now, when it will be obvious that I was correct, you will want to look back with the benefit of hindsight and say of course anybody should have known better than to open schools in areas where the virus was out of control. If you think that, then now is the time to speak up. Speak now, before the many teacher funerals and before the swell in the number of orphans.
“This should show you how actively kids can transmit it,” he said. “If you have a low prevalence in your community, you can start to do things. If you have rampant and rapid community spread, then there is no opening school, there is no opening colleges. It is not going to work.”
More...