Trump doesn’t seem to understand that opening schools would make a bad situation worse

Aided and abetted by Republican governors, Trump is pushing hard for in-person classroom instruction this fall in all of the nation’s schools, some of which have already started the new year. He has threatened to withhold federal funding from public school districts that don’t fully open; and while the official White House position acknowledges that “flexibility” is needed, Trump continues to bully local officials to “open 100 percent.”

It would be wonderful for the economy, and for parents’ mental health, if this were possible — and it could be possible, if Trump had taken the novel coronavirus seriously and orchestrated a proper nationwide shutdown, like governments in other developed countries did, and driven the infection rate down to a manageable level. In that event, Americans would be preparing to safely and cautiously open schools from coast to coast.

[Muffled scream. Sound of palm thwacking forehead. Anguished sigh.]

In reality as we know it, some things go away and some don’t. Rainbows go away. Highly infectious novel viruses do not, according to Trump’s own medical experts, whose expertise he is foolish enough to dismiss.

Trump told his bewildered-looking “Fox & Friends” cheerleading squad that schools can safely open because children are “almost immune” to the virus — a claim so false and toxic that Twitter, Trump’s trusty megaphone, forced his campaign to delete the video clip. Every reputable study has shown that though the vast majority of children do not suffer serious illness from the virus, they do become infected and can pass it on to others.

The implications for older adults who live in those children’s households, such as grandparents, are obvious and dire. Kids will contract the virus at school, bring it home and sicken the elderly relatives. Some will have to be hospitalized. Some will die.

And even relatively young, healthy parents who become infected — and who, perhaps, have only mild illness or are asymptomatic — will spread the virus to others in their communities. The experience of other countries is instructive. Israel, for example, locked down and reduced the number of new covid-19 cases per day to double digits. Then the government opened schools as if everything were back to normal — and infection rates skyrocketed.

Also, there is the equally obvious fact that you can’t very well have schools without adults. That means teachers, administrators, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and others will inevitably be exposed. Even if one takes a callous attitude toward their well-being, what happens when they get sick and have to stay home? Are the children supposed to teach themselves?

And what to do when a student or teacher gets infected? Does everyone in the classroom have to go home and quarantine? What about the other students on that bus route? Does somebody — the school nurse, maybe — have to perform contact tracing to figure out who was playing with whom at recess?

Look, I understand that it’s untenable to keep schools closed and children home indefinitely. Distance learning and home schooling are poor substitutes, and parents can’t work and do all-day child care at the same time. But there is a reason, according to a Pew Research Center poll released this week, only 19 percent of U.S. adults believe there should be full-time, in-person instruction in the schools this fall. Americans seem to understand, in a way that Trump fails to grasp, that opening schools now would make a bad situation much worse.

Nations around the world are struggling with the pandemic. But those that have managed to reopen schools have done so with caution — and after first driving infection rates to very low levels. Here, the virus is still “extraordinarily widespread,” according to the head of Trump’s coronavirus task force, Deborah Birx. We’re not ready.

I’m afraid the virus won’t “go away” until Trump does.

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Source:WP