If bars are open and schools are closed; if fans fills stadiums but kindergarteners are on zoom; if billions of dollars are waiting to be used on testing but we say that opening schools is too costly—if these things are happening, we cannot pretend we are prioritizing education.

Perhaps my intuitions are wrong. Perhaps there is no way to safely reopen K-5 under present conditions, even with testing.

But we are not making the concerted effort I would like to see to figure out whether this is a case. We're sitting back and waiting for a vaccine.

We can do better.

The first step is to stop pretending that nothing is happening, or that COVID is going to magically disappear. The second is to develop safe environments and to build testing capacity.

What we do now will pay rich dividends even once the vaccine has arrived.