1/ Schools. The most common response I hear: “I want to open them too . . . but not until we have gotten spread under control.”

Here is why this response makes no sense.

2/ Open schools are not what sustain (much less accelerate) spread.

So, closing schools isn’t what’s going to slow spread.

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/7/9/21318560/covid-19-coronavirus-us-testing-children-schools-reopening-questions#click=https://t.co/JmXPWlmeLm

3/ Case studies bear this out.

Sweden kept schools open during its entire pandemic—including periods of peak spread. Finland closed schools.

Closing or not . . . no measurable impact on the dynamics of transmission in either country.

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/c1b78bffbfde4a7899eb0d8ffdb57b09/covid-19-school-aged-children.pdf

4/ Denmark also reopened schools at a time of meaningful incidence.

And check out what happened once they did. Hint: nothing.

Thanks to @malkusm for the illustration.

5/ In fact, this German study went so far as to suggest that opening schools may even play a salutary role, since children are more like brakes than accelerators in the dynamics of transmission.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/07/13/world/europe/13reuters-health-coronavirus-germany-schools.html

6/ Closing schools could even make spread worse—as we saw in 1918.

Beware of paradoxical effect.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.552.1109&rep=rep1&type=pdf

7/ Thus, the idea that we can’t open schools until we first contain spread is irrational. Open schools aren’t the problem; closed schools aren’t the solution.

It is like a community saying we can’t open gay bars till the incidence of unplanned pregnancy is under control.

8/ This whole thing is not just unsound but stunning in its sheer cynicism.

Keeping the aristocracy online, plump, amply toilet-papered, quaffed, pedicured: essential enough to risk increased transmission.

But schools, nah?

The judgment of history is coming.