By Matt Vespa | Townhall.com
Source: AP Photo/LM Otero
It’s not like this was a controversial position when you
looked at the data. It’s not like there weren’t medical experts saying what The
Washington Post has reported recently about schools in the COVID era. Instead,
we got endless drama from teachers who didn’t want to work. We had to deal
with their nonsense about dying on the job, how they’re
signing wills in case they die,
and the media did well in peddling the panic porn to make these people
hysterical. Parents want their kids in school. And sorry, teachers, you
need to get back to work. If you don’t want to, that’s fine—you get no
paycheck. No work, no pay. That should be the rule because guess what—schools
haven’t had any outbreaks from COVID since re-opening. None. It’s not
happening. Why? Well, as the data showed from the outset of this
unsubstantiated freakout, kids really don’t get it. They account
for just two percent of all COVID cases in the US. Pediatricians gave their
stamp of approval too. This really wasn’t a scientific debate. The science was
clear: re-open the schools. Can we please kill this idiocy (via WaPo):
Thousands of students and teachers have become sick with
the coronavirus since schools began opening last month, but public health
experts have found little evidence that the virus is spreading inside
buildings, and the rates of infection are far below what is found in the
surrounding communities.
This early evidence, experts say, suggests that opening
schools may not be as risky as many have feared and could guide administrators
as they chart the rest of what is already an unprecedented school year.
“Everyone had a fear there would be explosive outbreaks
of transmission in the schools. In colleges, there have been. We have to say
that, to date, we have not seen those in the younger kids, and that is a really
important observation,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for
Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
[…]
… researchers at Brown University, working with school
administrators, released their first set of data from a new National COVID-19
School Response Data Dashboard, created to track coronavirus cases. It found
low levels of infection among students and teachers.
[…]
Teacher’s unions in Texas that keep track of infections
say they have been surprised by how low it was. In many parts of the country,
teacher’s unions have resisted school systems’ efforts to return to classes,
saying sufficient safeguards were not in place.
Yep. It’s time to get back to work. Daniel Horowitz of The Blaze added:
Well, knock me over with a feather. Studies
from countries including the U.K., Australia, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, France, Ireland, Taiwan,
and Iceland have all failed to find meaningful spread from
school-age children. Sweden kept the younger grades open throughout the entire
pandemic and didn't experience a single death. The
Public Health Agency of Sweden found no measurable difference in outcomes for children
between Sweden and Finland, even though Finland closed its schools.
The Washington Post also observes that data from 37
school districts in Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania that opened schools
shows "there have been 23 confirmed cases of the coronavirus across 20
schools and no indication that the virus was spread in schools."
In other words, what we are consistently seeing in grade
school is that, unlike in college dorms, there are just a smattering of cases
here and there with no evidence of children driving the transmission. A comprehensive review of COVID-19 cases in German schools
conducted by the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin found that "most school
outbreaks had few cases per outbreak, with more cases among older age groups
who could have been staff or other persons epidemiologically linked to school
outbreaks." Additionally, they observe, "considering class sizes
of usually 20 to 25 students per class the low number of cases in each age year
suggests rather limited onward transmission within classes."
The bottom line is that a mere discovery of some cases in
schools does not mean these kids were infected from the school setting or would
have avoided getting it by being out of school.
This debate is over. Teachers unions shut up and get the
hell back to work, and re-open the schools. Now.
