So, the school discussion. Ugh. I listened to “The Daily” (a New York Times) podcast about a week ago. The host had an expert of some sort on. I don’t remember his name. They talked about the COVID-19 numbers being up because the current mutation of the virus is extremely contagious. It doesn’t seem to be as deadly as the first (still deadly, to be sure).

The expert remarked that the virus is more easily spread in closed spaces. Restaurants, theaters, etc. He said that the virus is less contagious outside because of the abundance of space and the wind blowing. Still he encouraged social distancing with masks on as much as possible because air seeps in and out from the side of masks. This, of course, led them to talking about schools.

The expert said that kids should be able to go back to school. His reasons were that kids haven’t been shown to pass the virus to parents. When kids get the virus it’s usually from a parent. He also stressed how much kids need the structure and interaction of school and parents need to go to work. This is where I waited for a follow up from the host because I had questions. If you’re telling me that closed spaces are the riskiest, and that kids usually get it from parents then how does this make sense.

So, Parents at Work…

If the parents are going back to work in closed spaces where it’s risky and coming home to their kids. Kids usually get it from parents. Then aren’t we greatly risking exposure to EVERYONE by sending kids back to school? Literally nothing has changed with this virus. It’s only gotten worse. As much as I want my kids to have some sense of normalcy, more than that, I want them here. I want to be here to raise them. Sending them back to school where other people may or may not have been wearing masks and social distancing (I’ve seen plenty) is a huge risk.

I wish we had followed the lead of other countries with a national lockdown. I wish we had paid people to stay at home. There’s more of an incentive to stay in when you still have a check coming in. Had we done that, we may not have been in such a dire situation for PPE for essential workers. Leaving everything up to local government caused some of us (like California) to be on lockdown for months before other states ever jumped on board.

When you do that, the first states to lockdown get tired. They are more willing to take risks and begin to be less careful. The result, huge spikes. As a whole, we’ve done nothing as a country to combat this and now people are acting like the pandemic is over. It’s far from over, the virus apparently mutates every two weeks. The symptoms of the virus and what it does to your body seems to change by the hour. So tell me again how sending kids back to school is the answer? It’s capitalism. How many times has capitalism sacrificed bodies for the economy?