I continue to be very confused that major European countries are keeping schools open while otherwise locking down, but don’t have anything useful to add on that subject.
Months ago I heard that kids are more resistant to COVID-19, not sure if this is still considered true.
The reason to keep small kids at school is that otherwise one parent needs to stay at home with them. If you close schools, a large part of population cannot work anymore. Presumably those countries want to avoid the economical consequence of this.
I am explaining the policy here, not defending it. I suspect that when a large part of population gets into hospitals, it will be worse than merely having them stay at home with kids. But perhaps people feel that the cure will come soon, or the exponential curve will stop being exponential, or simply most people only care about short-term consequences.
In Germany, one reason for keeping older kids at school is the fear that underprivileged children would be disadvantaged by distance learning (not having the necessariy technology, not having a quite room for themselves, having less parental support) thereby further widening social disparities in school outcomes that are already being seen as highly problematic without that effect.
(I am explaining the policy here, not defending it.)
An interesting question is what leads to this kind of reasoning?
Of course, in theory it could be a set of preferences, assigning a very high value to the learning chances of underpriviledged groups compared to the health of mostly elder people. But that is not very likely because in that case this quite extreme set of preferences should manifest itself in other political decisions, too. Which it doesn’t.
I suppose it is a little bit of magical thinking—implicitly thinking the virus can be negotiated with, if the goal of a public policy is worthy enough.
Months ago I heard that kids are more resistant to COVID-19, not sure if this is still considered true.
The reason to keep small kids at school is that otherwise one parent needs to stay at home with them. If you close schools, a large part of population cannot work anymore. Presumably those countries want to avoid the economical consequence of this.
I am explaining the policy here, not defending it. I suspect that when a large part of population gets into hospitals, it will be worse than merely having them stay at home with kids. But perhaps people feel that the cure will come soon, or the exponential curve will stop being exponential, or simply most people only care about short-term consequences.
In Germany, one reason for keeping older kids at school is the fear that underprivileged children would be disadvantaged by distance learning (not having the necessariy technology, not having a quite room for themselves, having less parental support) thereby further widening social disparities in school outcomes that are already being seen as highly problematic without that effect.
(I am explaining the policy here, not defending it.)
I do hear similar arguments a lot. It’s a hell of a reason to not deal with a pandemic, but that’s where we are.
An interesting question is what leads to this kind of reasoning?
Of course, in theory it could be a set of preferences, assigning a very high value to the learning chances of underpriviledged groups compared to the health of mostly elder people. But that is not very likely because in that case this quite extreme set of preferences should manifest itself in other political decisions, too. Which it doesn’t.
I suppose it is a little bit of magical thinking—implicitly thinking the virus can be negotiated with, if the goal of a public policy is worthy enough.