Even if opening up schools were to cause 200,000 extra deaths, it would still be a close call. Fortunately we are gathering evidence that schools are nowhere close to that level of danger.
I would appreciate if someone could explain to me the linked thing, and check whether the methodology is sound.
Because it seems to me that schools are the obvious places where the virus spreads. First, many don’t have good ventilation (ok, this may vary strongly geograhically), you need to remove the face mask when eating, etc. Second, whatever safety rules you make up, I don’t really believe that 6-10 years old kids will follow them properly. So to me it seems like “in theory” schools should be safe, but in practice, they are anything but.
(It is hard to distinguish between all things that happen in the same time, but my anecdotal evidence is that in Slovakia, during spring the schools were closed immediately, and we had the best outcomes in the region. From September the schools are open again, and the infection graphs skyrocketed; now we are the second worst in the region. But of course, many other things happened too, so this is no hard evidence.)
My prejudices run the same way as yours. The most encouraging thing in the linked charts is that the fraction of staff infected doesn’t seem outrageously large. (But I would be happier if I could compare with corresponding infection rates for the general population.)
I would appreciate if someone could explain to me the linked thing, and check whether the methodology is sound.
Because it seems to me that schools are the obvious places where the virus spreads. First, many don’t have good ventilation (ok, this may vary strongly geograhically), you need to remove the face mask when eating, etc. Second, whatever safety rules you make up, I don’t really believe that 6-10 years old kids will follow them properly. So to me it seems like “in theory” schools should be safe, but in practice, they are anything but.
(It is hard to distinguish between all things that happen in the same time, but my anecdotal evidence is that in Slovakia, during spring the schools were closed immediately, and we had the best outcomes in the region. From September the schools are open again, and the infection graphs skyrocketed; now we are the second worst in the region. But of course, many other things happened too, so this is no hard evidence.)
My prejudices run the same way as yours. The most encouraging thing in the linked charts is that the fraction of staff infected doesn’t seem outrageously large. (But I would be happier if I could compare with corresponding infection rates for the general population.)