Schools Reopening During a Pandemic?

Risk of infection for students, teachers, school staff and all of their families should be of prime concern.

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(SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.) - Many states seem schizophrenic about school openings, especially states that have done too little too late about curbing the pandemic.

Trump is pressuring schools to reopen without regard to whether it is safe to do so. And many red state governors are feeling the White House pressure to reopen in spite of the rising levels of new cases in their states, giving little or no consideration to the risk of infections to teachers, school staff, students and the families of these students.

Teachers should not be responsible for the recovery of the economy, babysitting children or “getting us back to normal.”

Why should the schools be used as guinea pigs for our federal government’s failure to act? School administrators and parents should wait until the health care experts, not the politicians, say it is safe to reopen schools. In most states, it is not safe to reopen.

COVID-19 doesn’t care about our shattered economy or the upcoming election or the age of its victims. The virus is gonna do what viruses do.

It would seem to follow that the priority should be to contain the causative virus and reduce the deaths associated with it as quickly as possible before reopening the economy, especially schools.

Instead, those in power are trying to have it both ways by continuing the fight against the virus while reopening our economy, resulting in a losing battle on both fronts.