Designed to fail

The 'proponents' of school reopening

Recently someone asked my opinion about a COVID pundit. I pointed out that this person had been wrong about schools. Kinda a big deal. They countered and said that this person was willing to open schools, if we could do it safely.

But that was precisely the problem.

Not opening schools and making impossible demands to reopen them are the same thing. This person demanded massive distance between pupils, and high grade, highly expensive ventilatory systems to be installed before you could reopen school-- but these are all interventions that are bioplausible, but lack good evidence.

Worse: By the summer of 2020, we had seen in many European countries that these interventions were not needed to reopen schools. It's easy to make a list of demands that cannot be fulfilled, but this is essentially the same as keeping schools closed.

The only thing we lacked for reopening schools was political will, and people who made impossible demands provided cover. But the bottom line is they've done incalculable harm.