Let me be clear upfront: I do not have a single child. I do know many and all attend public schools. I also know teachers and staff. Many adults, be they parents, staff, or teachers, are afraid for themselves and for the children given Trump’s attempt to sacrifice the children so he can be seen as doing something.
Trump’s sycophant, Devos woman claims there is no data to show schools present a danger in this time of COVID-19. Wrong. There is data but the Trump administration seems, as always, uninformed, ignorant, and just stupid.
The Daily Beast reports that Israel opened its schools when its COVID-19 numbers were low. It started schools with the very young and instead of seeking advice from experts on how to proceed, after a short while, it opened schools to everyone.
The results, as Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist at the Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and chairman of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians were contrary to advice and “predictable.” Levine was part of the group of physicians and scientists who offered advice on how to proceed to fully opening the schools. They were ignored.
Not only were the results predictable but the infection rate was fast, with teachers, staff, and children infected well within the COVID-19 infection window after the schools fully opened.
On June 3, two weeks after schools opened, more than 244 students and staff were found to test positive [note: this is a .pdf of the data] for COVID-19.
According to the education ministry, 2,026 students, teachers, and staff have contracted COVID-19, and 28,147 are in quarantine due to possible contagion.
Just in the first two weeks of July, 393 kindergartens and schools open for summer programs have been shuttered due to cases of COVID-19.
Two thousand plus children, staff and teachers are infected. Almost thirty thousands are quarantined because they might be infected.
Is this our future if we follow Trump and DeVos?
Our future is likely to be worse since COVID-19 in the USA is not the few Israel had (10) when it opened its school. Our COVID-19 numbers are growing almost exponentially and daily. To open schools, risking children and teachers is idiotic, given our reality.
I hope everyone with a child and every school board, governor, and responsible adult refuses to sacrifice lives so Trump can be seen to be doing something.
We, as a society, must say no. We must point to Israel as an example of what happens when government ignores COVID-19 even when it thinks it has won. Israel thought it beat COVID-19 and opened its schools. Now many students, staff, and teachers are infected, which ignores all the family members those individuals also infected because they assumed there was no risk.
This is the data Devos and Trump ignores. We must show the truth.