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[quote=Anonymous]Here's the problem.  While children themselves are at low risk, they are more likely to be carrying and spreading the disease. Parents are only expose to their own children, but teachers are exposed to all of the children.  It's bad enough if you are an ES teacher who is only exposed to 10-30 children, routinely, but there are MS and HS teachers that are exposed to dozens to over 100 students daily.  Imagine teaching six periods of class to 25-30 students per class and being exposed to all of those children.  Teachers risk is hundreds of times higher than parents when sending children to school.  The risk to parents and families is significantly lower than the risk to teachers.  This is why parents want schools open and teachers don't.

This article just came out describing how once they started to test asymptomatic children they discovered a very high rate of infection; children are more likely to have an be asymptomatic than adults, which can turn them into "super spreaders" of the disease.
[url]https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-researchers-find-children-are-silent-spreaders-of-coronavirus/33657423[/url]

And pretty much all of the studies show that while you can limit the chance of infection with social distancing, masks and limiting indoor exposure, all of them say that the longer you have expose to infected people in an indoor setting, the greater your odds of contracting the virus.  You may be safe passing by infected people with masks in the supermarket or in a typical office environment, but when you have to sit with people for 45-60 minutes at a time, the chance that someone infected can transmit to the people sharing the same air space goes up exponentially.

Add in that there are very few schools that are actually following the recommendations.  The recommendation is to keep 6 feet apart.  In classrooms that are actually observing the rule, they can typically get about 6-9 desks into the space and those rooms are being assigned 15-25 students, so teachers are really ending up with 2-3 feet distance between the desks, and sometimes even between the children and the teacher.  Again, significantly increasing the chance of exposure and transmission.

I have a friend who is a teacher in the New York public school district.  Back in March when things were closing down, the NYC public school system did not shut down soon enough.  Many teachers were infected and several teachers died.  Teachers who were young and healthy.  At least 3 dozen teachers, many who were in their 20's and 30's died and many more were sick.  My friend is a young guy, 29 and healthy (he runs about 5 miles a day) and he contracted Covid and says he was sicker than he had ever been.  And one teacher in his school district who was a friend, a young healthy woman, aged 33, who he had known fairly closely, died.  He knows many teachers who were very, very sick and are still worried since there is a chance that immunity will fade after 2-3 months.  So even those who were sick in the Springtime may be vulnerable to the disease again.

My friend is one of the teachers in this interview:
[url]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-school-reopenings-teachers/[/url]
[quote][b]Mason:[/b] Do you think the kids are ready for this?

[b]Matthew Baker:[/b] I don't think you can be ready for someone getting sick and dying at your school. And I don't think you can be ready for taking this disease home and giving it to someone you love and dealing with that.

[b]Mason:[/b] Someone did get sick and die at your school.

[b]Baker:[/b] Yep. Lots of us got sick and someone died. And it was awful. …The risks, if we mess this up, are literally life and death. And we all want to be back, but … it doesn't seem safe yet.[/quote]

And this is why teachers don't want to go back.  Until schools plan for low attendance (like 20-25% capacity per room) to ensure appropriate social distancing.  Until, school districts can put in large scale plastic shielding between students and between teachers and students, provide appropriate PPE for teachers and students, and provide approved cleaning products that are known to work on Covid, we can't put students back in school.  Right now, people are so desperate for child-care that they are accepting half-measures, or worth, 1/4 or less of the necessary effort to open school safely.  Until schools can find solutions that actually incorporate the actual health recommendations, school needs to be remote.[/quote]

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