Should Children Return to School in the Fall? If so, how so?
I am writing this in response to a popular opinion piece that is making its way around, where a father from Fairfax County VA explains why he believes that children should not return to school in the fall. This article is deeply flawed in many ways, and as it is gaining in popularity - itâs even posted on a doctors website - I felt compelled to write my own opinion piece in response, in order to set the record straight on many of the issues he addresses.
Here is one publishing of this opinion: https://morettiphd.wordpress.com/2020/07/12/one-parent-outlines-his-and-his-friends-choices-for-his-children-this-fall/
I will attempt to address all the points with which I have issue in some sort of an order. I do not have issue with all the points, however. So, suffice it to say that if I donât mention it directly, I either make reference to it indirectly, or I donât think it is incorrectly stated. To start off, I must address the main issue of the article first, as it informs the majority of the talking points. And there are two main issues with this point, so bear with me. Firstly, the number 302 is wrong.....by a factor of 100. The article states, and I quote, âChildren only die .0016 of the time,â and continues to say, â[The] FCPS has 189,000 children. .0016 of that is 302.â So to start this explanation, I will begin with my assumption, which was that the article meant to read, âchildren only die .0016 percent of the time.â This was a point of contention with responses I received regarding whether the number was already converted to numerical form, or whether it was in a percent. And still there were some people quoting the number incorrectly as .016. When you read the article, it indeed says, .0016. So, assuming that would be a percent, we must calculate what number .0016% of 189,000 is. The number is 3.02, not 302. When reverse calculating percentages, you need to divide by 100 before you multiply by the total case number. For example, 20% of a 100 is not 2,000, itâs 20. Because when you calculate the percentage, you need to convert 20% to 0.20, and then multiply it by the total. 0.20 x 100 = 20. In short, no, 3 kids are at risk, not 302.Â
That however assumes that this .0016% is correct at all. This number can be found a few places: 1), the Wikipedia page, titled âMortality due to COVID-19â, where it estimates the death rates of children based on cases from China. If we did not already undervalue the source, because it is Wikipedia, although I tend to trust Wikipedia more than it is often given credit for, we should be doubly skeptical of the data as its own source is one of the most dishonest governments in our world today. The second place one can find this is from a tweet from sports commentator, Clay Travis, dated July 6th, talking about the death rate of COVID patients who died under the age of 54. Assuming the death rate of COVID patients under the age of 20 would be even less than that for the state of Florida (and it is!), we already have two terrible sources for data that do not represent our population. The third source I have recently found is from an empirical study from Switzerland, attempting to find the infection fatality rate (IFR) for COVID-19 patients of all ages, and their IFR for ages 5-9 was .0016.
As far as the US is concerned at large, the way that the CDC is releasing its information about COVID deaths by age is poorly executed. For the rest of the world, and even most states, childrenâs deaths are being split into 2 or 3 categories, all ending at age 17, the last age before legal adulthood. This also happens to represent the majority of children in primary and secondary school systems. The CDC has decided to break from this norm and have a very odd age range from 15-24. This age range is skewing data, as far as school aged children are concerned and should be viewed with a healthy skepticism, as the older you get, the more susceptible to the virus and its effects you are. With that being said, from information on the CDC website, updated as of the week of July 11th, there have only been 188 deaths ages 0-24. While there is no specific information available currently about child infection rates, this represents 0.136% of the deaths (138,000) due to COVID. This data is likely skewed by the statistics coming out of New York (possibly 17), as they have had an unusually high number of deaths overall, mostly due to a combination of factors including how early on they were struck by the virus, lack of preparation, and overall lack of adequate responsiveness to the severity of the situation. As far as children under the age of 15, the death rates are even lower, marking only 33 deaths nationwide, which is 0.024% of COVID deaths in the US.
 If we are looking to find an accurate number for death rates among children, there was one major study done in the US, cited by the CDC, dated in April, observing case rates, hospitalization rates, ICU rates and death toll. They examined about 150,000 cases of the virus. Of those cases, only 1.7% were child cases (2,571). Approximately 73% experienced symptoms. Of those that had symptoms, approximately 20% were hospitalized. And of those that were hospitalized, there were 3 deaths.
In summary, 1.7% of the total cases were represented by children.
73% (1,876) of those had symptoms. That's 1.3% of the total number of cases.
20% (375) of those cases were hospitalized. Thatâs 14.5% of the child cases, but .25% of the total cases.
The 3 reported deaths represent 0.8% of those hospitalized, 0.117% of the child cases, and 0.002% of the total number of cases.
 I will not say that this research is definitive or even conclusive, but it does share a valuable piece of information with the reader: children are not dying of this virus at significant enough rate to close down schools. This is especially indicative of lower death rates among children, because testing has significantly increased since this study was done.
 The death rate of children is the most important statistic to take away from this. And this is very close to the number given in the article above (way to go China!). But to calculate with the correct number for the above article, 0.002% of 189,000 is about 4. If we're talking about infection rate, then yes, it would be closer to 3,200. And if we're talking about hospitalization rate, about 643.
But deaths are the minority, and the number we should be focusing on in my opinion.
 Here is some additional data from the US: Massachusetts with over 8,300 deaths has had 0 under the age of 18. California has had 0 deaths in that same age range. Florida appears to have had 2-3 deaths in that age range. New Jersey, 2. Texas, 0. Internationally, the entire country of Canada has had only 1 death under 18, with a case count of almost 8,000 child cases.
 I think the most important source for data on how children are faring with Coronavirus is the data coming out of Sweden. Some people have commented that the statistics involving children and COVID in the US and other nations are not entirely reliable, because the US and most other nations shut down their schools as a precaution to ensure the safety of their children. In this way, it is unfair to compare the common flu, which kills between 50 and 250 children each year, to coronavirus as we have not experienced a âflu-like seasonâ with COVID. This article even claims that children were not experiencing an accurate number of caseloads as compared to adults, because the schools were shut down early. First of all, this is a ridiculous misrepresentation of the facts. NYC announced they would close down schools March 15 and non-essential businesses on March 20. Thatâs a period of five days. Thatâs not a huge difference. By March 25, there were over 17,000 confirmed cases, and almost 200 dead. The virus had been spreading long before they shut down the schools or the businesses. There was a spike in cases across the board; essential work related groups being affected the most. Police, EMTs, doctors, they all started to see increased cases after that; much more than the rest of the population. Non-essential workers also saw a spike, lesser, but still a spike, where children did not see such a dramatic uptick. Children were also at home with their parents, from whom they may have contracted the virus. If children were so vulnerable to this virus, wouldn't it make sense that if the parents had it, they'd pass it to their kids? The numbers don't say they did, though. And when they did pass them on, the children only exhibited mild to no symptoms, with certain exceptions. Also, as has been pointed out, none of this is the case for Sweden. Sweden had largely left their schools open for the entire duration of the virus and has had only 1 death under the age of 20, with an infection count slightly under 4,000 for that same group.
 I will get more specific. As far as infection rate goes, dated July 4th, so far, Sweden has had 76,000 (updated today) infections nationwide, which sounds low, but is actually about .76% of their population. As their testing continues to increase, this percentage should as well. The US has a little under 3.48 million cumulative cases, which sounds like a lot, but for a country that is 30 times larger than Sweden, it is only about 1% of our population, a similar number that is sure to rise with increased testing as well. And as we have increased our testing more than most of the world, we are likely to reveal more cases than other countries. So, statistically we have not reached the end of our term with the virus. But we are in par with other European countries.
As for children (<20) Sweden has the data split into 2 groups, which I will show, and also combine. <9 is 441 cases, and 10-19 is 2,875. Collectively, 3,516, which is 4.62% of the coronavirus case pool (76,000). As Sweden continues to test, it is reasonable to assume that this number will go down collectively, as you can see in the data, the youngest children are much less represented.
Of the general population though, 3,516 only represents 0.035% of the population at large (over 10 million).
I think, especially since Sweden left their schools open largely, and Sweden is more likely to be completely transparent with their data than some other countries, we can look to Sweden for realistic infection data across the board.
As far as hospitalization, so far I have only been able to find a statistic that tells me about intensive cases. Of the 76,000 cases in Sweden, only 2,484 have been sent to intensive care - a little less than 3.3% of cases. Of the total population, that is less than 0.025%. These numbers seem on par with the study you sent about the US cases and hospital records.
It stands to reason that if hospitalization rates and ICU rates are that low all toll, then those for children, 90% of whom in the US have seen moderate to no symptoms at all, are lower still.
 Now, to the point about trading childrenâs lives for a better learning environment: children (yes, children, I'm not including adults), are at less risk to corona than to the common flu. While, whoever said âthe flu kills more people every yearâ does need to get their head checked, the majority of people arenât saying such things. And worldwide, this virus is killing fewer children than the flu does, even on an average year. Remember, the flu kills between 50 and 250 children in the US alone per year, and flu season runs right through our normal school year. We don't shut down school for flu season. As a matter of fact, no one has even proposed shifting the school year to times of year that would lower the risk of kids to flu exposure. Itâs not even an agenda, because that would be insane! Certainly, we have shut down schools for outbreaks of the flu, but those are exceptions, not the rule. We donât have these types of responses for other instances where are children are at increased statistical risk. Younger drivers are notorious for getting into the most car accidents. We donât refuse to let our children learn how to drive until they are 30. Why donât we? They could easily take public transit and ride services when we are unavailable to drive them ourselves. Why arenât we protecting our children from this dangerous activity? The reason is that the risk is worth it for the potential benefits. Young adults often need to go places that public transit canât take them. Lift services are expensive and sometimes a bit shady. The independence of driving on their own allows them to learn valuable life lessons and enhances their freedoms. We take risks every day as we take our kids out of the home, more often than not, not so heavily calculated, because if we did the calculations like we're doing here, we'd be afraid to take our kids into the bathroom for fear of drowning in our tubs! I reject the sentiment that exposing our kids to these risks makes society or parents unreasonable, irresponsible or bad. It makes them understanding of the world around them. Children can't grow without taking risks. Undue risks, when presented, certainly must be mitigated as much as possible, but this is not one. If my child dies of the flu, I wonât be marching around advocating for school term rearrangements. Likewise, the coronavirus and its minimal risks to our children shouldnât terrify us into mediocrity for our educational system. So, no, no one's children are being sacrificed; no one need volunteer their children for the proverbial chopping block of COVID. Stop fear mongering, because it's useless and cruel to your children
 I have a few points on the objectivity-absent terminology. "Released from the hospital" means exactly that. It implies, however, that you are no longer at such a severe health risk that you need to be monitored 24/7. "No longer infected" also means exactly what it says. No one has claimed there wouldn't be long-term effects of a virus that attacks you. When has anyone ever assumed that? Dozens of diseases have similar long-term effects even after infection has passed. Neither of these points, nor the anecdotes changes the fact that most people DO recover. Most people, who survive this virus, have little to no long-term effects. These people without long-term effects are the one who were less symptomatic to begin with, yes, but those are most people, I should specify. The fewer symptoms you have, the less likely you are to have long-term effects. The ones who are more likely to have long-term effects are also the ones more likely to contract and die from it. So, the older you are, the more likely you are to get, have symptoms from, and have long-term effects from said virus. Children, to reiterate, who are less likely to contract and have symptoms of the virus, are thereby even less likely to have any long-term effects. And children are the focus of this debate, no? Not adults? That's what I thought.
 So, letâs talk about long-term effects in children. The only currently observed âlong-termâ effect in cases involving children is what is called Kawasaki Syndrome, originally known as pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome. This syndrome however, is extremely rare. To be clear, this particular condition is actually not classified as Kawasaki Syndrome, but Kawasaki-like in many ways. But for the purposes of this discussion we can treat them virtually the same. Kawasaki Syndrome is a condition that is uncommon in the world at large, affecting only children under the age of 5 at extremely low rates. Uofmhealth.org stated in an article, "The disease is rare, affecting 9 to 20 per 100,000 children under age five in the U.S. Itâs more frequently diagnosed in Japan and among Asian-American populations."
9-20 per 100,000 children under the age of 5. In percentages, that's 0.009% - 0.02% of children under the age of 5. This is a very small subset of the population, and an especially small subset of the subset of children.
So, it is exceedingly rare, but what about long-term, you might be asking. This same article (I'll put a link), tells us, ââEarly treatment usually prevents severe heart problems, and most children donât experience long term health issues from Kawasaki disease, says Mott pediatric cardiologist Gabe Owens, M.D., Ph.D.ââ
I know the word "recover" has been under some scrutiny, but for this particular case, Kawasaki Syndrome has been around for a while, and doctors have been able to successfully treat it as long as it is caught relatively early on. So, when they say "recover", they mean it.
The Kawasaki-like condition appears to develop as an immuno-response to COVID, as opposed to being a symptom of COVID.
Here's the article link: https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/.../rare-covid-related...
As far as the spread of COVID is concerned, children have been reported to not be significant sources of spread for the virus in multiple promising studies worldwide. I would actually like to defer this part of the discussion to an article that better explains this than me (very important, and short read): https://theconversation.com/yes-weve-seen-schools-close-but-the-evidence-still-shows-kids-are-unlikely-to-catch-or-spread-coronavirus-141445
I think a lot of the media is downplaying the significance of the studies listed in this article. This indicates that if you should chose to send your children to school, that there will not be a significant risk in your children bringing the virus home with them should you have vulnerable people living at home. There are certain populations where they have multiple generations living at home. For these families, perhaps it would be better if the parents opted to keep the children home for Zoom classes. Grandparents, if they are capable can be a relief of stress in that they can help out with the studentsâ classwork without significantly impacting the work schedules of the parents. This would be an âair on the side of cautionâ mitigation of any risk to their grandparents.
As for teachers, I have said this before in this thread, but I don't want to make you search for it. Despite the evidence that suggests that children are at a low risk for transmitting the disease, I still think it would be responsible to keep our teachers safe. My proposal for this is actually very simple. Students will attend school as usual. Some communities may feel safer reducing the number of students in a classroom, that's fine. Another good idea is increased hand washing with specific times for it. Masks are unreasonable and far less likely to effective in children as it is, and that is despite their already low propensity for infection and symptoms. As far as socialization goes, given that children are far less likely to contract the virus, far less likely to have symptoms of the virus, and far less likely to die from the virus, Iâm going to go out on a limb here and say, yes, children should be allowed to socialize normally. They should be able to sit at lunchroom tables together, play on the playground together, and sit in the classrooms in regular seating arrangements. No sharing your Lunchables, but overall I think the student experience should be relatively normal.
For the teachers, though, we don't want them needlessly exposing themselves, especially if they are not willing to expose themselves or others. Instead, for those teachers that are unwilling or unable to attend the class in person, a teacherâs assistant (younger than 25 to reduce risk) will proctor the class and monitor their behavior and guide them through activities and assist with classwork. The teachers themselves can be Zoomed in to administer the class from a safe distance. That way all the students are able to learn in a healthy and productive environment and our teachers stay safe.
This may cost a little more money from the state as far as educational budgets are concerned, but I believe it is a fair and reasonable compromise for our teachers and students that does not compromise anyone's health or the studentsâ quality of education in any serious way.
Comparing classroom environments to conference rooms or retail workspaces is intellectually dishonest.
This is a serious flaw in this logic. If you asked a bunch of adults if they want to get in conference rooms together for 45 minutes, of course theyâre going to say no. Adults (meaning older ages) are far more likely to be affected by COVID than children. That would be an unreasonable risk in the scenarios when the exact same job could be done from home. As for retail, neither classrooms nor conference rooms are more dangerous than retail work environments. This was a ridiculous contention. Let me explain something about retail. Supermarkets are retail, certainly. And yes those rooms are huge, and most stores have a capacity limit on current shoppers. With the exception of Supermarkets and department stores, most retail stores are small. Some are no bigger than a small lecture hall. Some are smaller than classrooms. I'll tell you, it is NOT a job you want during a pandemic. Nevertheless, none of those factors matter to the virus. Retail workers handle money (germs), rewards cards (germs), touch surfaces (germs) and actually have to breathe from time to time (germs). Gloves? Well, they arenât fool proof. They rip and need to be changed. Not changing gloves frequently enough is common. Touching surfaces without gloves can happen. Constant washing of hands and wearing gloves makes skin raw, and it can crack and develop cuts, which could increase the risk of infection. Thankfully, the virus isnât known to transfer from surface contact as much. We have those social distancing procedures and Plexiglas in front. Have you been in a store in the past 3 months? The 6ft guidelines are regularly broken due to crowding, asking questions, and people just passing each other. The Plexiglas: itâs a spit guard. Spit guards protect people from spitâŚthatâs it. They are NOT effective at reducing the spread of infection except in instances where people are spitting on you, but as long as youâre wearing a mask, that shouldnât be a problem anyway. As a matter of fact, the CDC states that personal face shields are virtually useless against the spread of infection. So, whatâs the main issue? Well, customers come and go, sure, but the nano-particles that they leave behind stay in the building long after they leave. So, when one hundred customers come in and leave, and the next hundred come and leave, and the next hundred come and leave, the nano-particles from the first group are still there. Now you have the nano-particles of 300-400 people in this environment, floating around possibly inflecting others. This is especially true in air-conditioned environments without outside air recirculation. Nano-particles are sometimes capable of remaining in the air for 8 hours after their host leaves. So, this brings us to the masks! Everyone is on the mask craze. Youâre stupid if you donât wear one and youâre saving the world if you do. How much of this is actually true? Well, the CDC has research about the masks and the various materials being used to make such masks, and how they perform, comparatively. They concluded that homemade masks have the "potential" to lower the risk of contracting COVID. That's a paraphrase, but the word "potential" is used specifically, because they are not fool proof. I read up about these, because I wanted to understand what type of risks I'm encountering. The evidence is scary. Unless you have a mask without any gaps (a tight fitting mask), most of the homemade masks are only between 10 and 45% effective at reducing the chance of infection within the margins of error, depending on the material combinations. There are possibly 3 combinations that are effective enough to significantly reduce the chance of infection, but most masks are not made up of these combinations. Additionally, when there are gaps in your mask, even of the smallest size, the efficiency rate for all the masks, no matter the material goes down below 40%. Even N95 masks â yes, the most famous masks in the world, now â and other surgical masks go down to a 60% effective rate, if they are not worn properly or are not properly fitting. All in all, the average mask is feel good effort at best in most circumstances. This is not an argument against wearing them. Certainly, most masks of any material are effective at preventing macro droplets from escaping, and that is significant enough, but we should not fool ourselves into a false sense of security. So, children have an extremely low chance of dying from COVID, an extremely low chance of contracting it, and an equally low chance of passing it to others. However, a retail worker may ordinarily have an increased chance of catching COVID due to their working conditions and regular interactions with the general public. Now, if a retail worker is older, they are more likely to experience adverse effects, which make my point for me, but letâs say theyâre younger: 16 â 25. Many workers in that age range, live with their parents. They may even be asymptomatic, but are likely to be carriers to their parents, who are at higher risk and have a higher probability of death. All of a sudden, retail doesnât sound so safe, now does it? I'd say comparing retail jobs and schools reveals that theyâre not even close in risk level.
 Some people have attempted to brush off COVID as not as dangerous or not that important, which as you can tell from the extent of the research Iâve done, those are contentions with which I do not agree. We can all appreciate the severity of the issue at hand and still come up with different solutions to the problems we face.
 This article has made mention of a few of these ridiculous brushoffs, and I donât think they accurately represent the majority of the population and werenât appropriate to include, but I will address them anyway.
 "People get sick" Well, for my part, I don't mean other people. I mean me. Yeah, I get sick. You get sick, we all get sick. It's a fact of life. While this uncultivated statement grossly underplays the current situation (a point I will concede), I fail to understand how it truly relates to the topic. Frankly, I'm not looking for an explanation. I understand that it's something some dunderhead mentioned and you took it as an explanation for why they didn't care about other people. It sounds really good to retort in a rant, but it's not really relevant. I think a more accurate and more sensitive point would be that spreading the virus to those less vulnerable helps us on the path to herd immunity. That was the initial goal, right? The more people who get "sick" and are less susceptible to symptoms, the better the situation is actually. I put sick in quotes because asymptomatic people can hardly be considered sick, and can only be noted because of carrier status. So, allowing our children to contract the virus when they are least vulnerable instead of waiting on some unknown day to come when we might have a vaccine when they also might be more vulnerable. . . That's just bad parenting, honestly. If my son at age 7 has a 0.002% chance of death by contracting a virus. But he may contract it at age 38 if we never have a vaccine, and by then he may have a 6% chance of death for example, then...yeah! I'm willing to risk him getting it now! The odds only get worse with time! So, more aptly put, people will get sick eventually. Our children will come in contact with this virus more likely than not. Wouldnât it be wiser to risk their exposure when they are in their least vulnerable demographic?
 "I'm not going to live my life in fear"
Well, this is another innocuous statement that really doesn't bear too much weight on the argument at hand, but watch me twist it to my favor since the writer decided to. You're right, children don't have the luxury of whether to live in fear or not. They live in fear of many things already: spiders, the dark, loneliness, bullying, etc. Why add something else to the list when we don't need to? Children have no chance of dying from a common house spider â none; itâs a common house spider â but they fear them. Do you encourage that irrational fear? If you do, you are perpetuating a fear that need not exist. Children have virtually (I said virtually) no chance of dying from COVID either. Do you terrify them with stories of other children dying from the flu? No? They are more likely to die from it! Oh, you just tell them to wash their hands and not to lick doorknobs? Well, how irresponsible of you, no?
Why terrify our children from something that is less likely to harm them than the flu, when we donât do the same for the flu? Once again, itâs fear mongering and itâs needless and cruel.
 "I talked it over with my kids"
Well, this is something that the writer and I might agree on. I generally donât believe that parents should defer to their children for any sort of life-altering decision-making. Although I can think of many concepts that some parents think are perfectly acceptable to heed the words of their children blindly, I digress. There is a decent point to be made with regards to talking to your children. I firmly believe that children are capable of handling hard truths. They are surprisingly resilient. Explaining the current situation and being honest about their risks and what they can do to mitigate them can have a profound effect on your children.
Lastly, I want to address more of the burdens â financial, mental stress, emotional turmoil â in a community. This is the last factor I'm talking about because I want to show I am putting life before quality of life.
One main reason why going completely virtual in the classroom is a bad idea, is that there are many reports of students NOT attending these virtual classes, and even when they are, they are not focusing. Now, maybe there can be mitigations and improvements made to the system to ensure proper learning. Yes. Fine. Wonderful. But where are these ideas? Very few, if any, seem to be addressing them!
The most pressing issue concerning children returning to school are parents. Parents, who may also be working from home at the moment, are unable to babysit their children to make sure they do assignments and make sure they pay attention during class. Some students are turning in "completed" assignments, assuming the teachers aren't actually checking them, but that they are only checking that the assignments are "completed". So, the point saying that children don't want to go back to school is actually true. Most children aren't really a huge fan of school at all, having been a child myself at one point, having child friends, and understanding children in general having worked with them before. Although, my anecdotal evidence is by no means proof, all you need to do is consult a survey of children's favorite subjects and notice gym or recess being listed most to understand this concept. So, when they get to stay at home and pretend to learn and go along with the motions to make a teacher who isn't there happy, I'd say, yeah, they're having their cake and eating it too. But in your own words, âthe concept of adults effectively deferring this decision to children, the same children who will continue to stuff things into a full trash can rather than change it outâ is asinine. âKids are not mature enough for this moment.â (also you). And youâre right. They need constant guidance and discipline in the form of a classroom environment. And now, despite presuming that all parents have the type of freedoms and personal time to dedicate hours on end to their childrenâs education while working from home, to add insult to injury, are we to assume that when parents go back to work, and they undoubtedly will eventually, you are suggesting that they will magically have the ability to be in two places at once? Who will watch their kids from home? Should the schools stay closed and virtual classrooms are the new normal for the foreseeable future, this could bring unnecessary financial burdens on families who do not have the luxury of staying home with their children on a normal basis. Families in lower income brackets have been out of work largely for months, and although the federal and state governments have been compensating them, as they should, this is not sustainable for the foreseeable future. If both parents need to work in order to support their families but one is forced not to because they have to watch their children, who does that disproportionately affect: low-income, inner city, blue-collar workers. Nannies are not an option, because they would offset any of the additional wages made by the second parent going back to work. These are the parents that cannot work from home: retail workers, salons, movie theaters, many waitresses and waiters that have been furloughed due to the virus, which account for the lowest income brackets. If they are forced to keep their children at home, they will be unable to leave their houses as well, reducing their incomes.
Where will this extra money come from? The government cannot be expected to adequately compensate these parents. The government can hardly be expected to adequately do anything. Not to mention, that would increase taxes in these neighborhoods and across the country astronomically.
Instead, increase the budget slightly to support the increased precautions in our education system, allowing students the chance to go back to school and parents the opportunity to get back to supporting their families. So, yes, open schools to their full abilities, giving parents the option to keep their kids home if they are truly worried about their safety or the safety of older generations in the household. Also, give teachers the option to Zoom into the classroom with a young teacherâs aide assisting in the classroom to ensure their personal health. For the rest of the population, getting back to a certain level of normalcy wouldnât just be a welcome relief from this nightmare, but a responsible and compassionate option for those in our communities who need the resources of education, time, and opportunity the most. And I havenât even mentioned how many experts are concerned about domestic violence incidents increasing and not getting reported. Or the rising fears of suicide rates increasing. While there is no way to know at the current time whether these fear will bear fruit or not, they are worth mentioning nonetheless.
 To address one final point: this person has said they presume no expertise, and I commend the honesty in that regard. However, claiming you are not an expert does not diminish the effects or reach of your opinion. No matter your good intentions, people like you are flooding the information pool with mere conjecture instead of fact-based evidentiary propositions. Your ideas are nothing more than how you âfeelâ about the situation, but many people will read your words and see them as common sense arguments, with which they may make irreversible decisions on account of their childâs education. They will assume that you are making your statements based on at least some knowledge of the situation. It appears however that they would be misled, as most of your points are baseless, emotionally charged, or simply irrelevant. Is it their fault that they do not pursue the actual data? I will say no, because with such a flood of misinformation and differing sources of credibility, it is becoming exponentially difficult to weed out the good from the bad. Opinion pieces like this â uninformed and emotionally charged â are not the exception, but largely the rule from what Iâve seen. Itâs about time that people who claim âno expertiseâ leave the debate to those who do claim expertise. This will allow the flood of information, muddied by emotions and good-intentions to be reduced to a trickle of well-researched, well thought out, level-headed and credible sources. I hope you appreciate all the thought I have put into this, as I truly believe it is the best way forward for everyone.
As always, let me know if I missed anything. Tell me what you think? Am I dead wrong (pun intended), or have I finally wiped the crap off this issue? Until next time!
