Use sense when opening schools

Despite all the fears about reopening schools, we actually know a fair amount from watching other countries about how to do it safely. Success looks a lot like Uruguay and Denmark. Not like Israel.

And it bears no resemblance at all to North Paulding High School in Dallas, where teenagers are packed into a hallway, few of them wearing masks. Even before classes began, members of the football team were diagnosed with Covid-19. On Sunday, the school announced that nine infections were reported in the first week of classes, and it was temporarily moving to online-only instruction.

In Corinth, Mississippi, a single infection became six cases within days, and the quarantine of 116. Two schools in Indiana reopened, then quickly closed again after outbreaks among many staff members.

If this is how large swathes of America plan to reopen schools, the nation is in even deeper peril than current virus surges have indicated. There are legitimate reasons to reopen schools. Remote education is a poor substitute for real classrooms, and children with learning barriers — poverty, language difficulties, special education needs — are at an even bigger disadvantage. Many parents need to leave home to work. Children need the stimulation, socialisation and, in too many cases, free lunches.

But in the calculus of whether and how to reopen, the debate too often isn’t about balancing educational needs with public health, mental health, Covid-19 science or any other important factor. It has become a political battle, with President Donald Trump trying to act as if our lives haven’t been upended by the badly handled pandemic.

Overall infection rates should be well below current levels in many states, and then a combination added of an incremental opening of campuses, a dramatic reduction in class sizes, physical distancing, better hygiene and masks and/or outdoor classes. /Los Angeles, August 10