Keeping schools locked down is not costless. There’s substantial evidence that this simply doesn’t work for younger children, and the negative impacts are worse for children that come from disadvantaged backgrounds. The impact of lost educational attainment can be just as lifelong and damaging as any disease.

Then you add the lack of social interaction, which can lead to mental health problems for students and the burden on working parents, particularly those that can’t afford additional childcare. It should start becoming clear that this isn’t a simple or straightforward decision. If there’s anything we’ve learned from COVID to date, it’s that one-size-fits-all policies are generally a bad idea. But one thing is clear: you can’t cite science when it happens to support your positions, then ignore it when it doesn’t.

Both Spain and Italy have suffered more severe lockdowns than the USA. And both countries are going to open schools. They are taking strict measures to open them safely. Rulers in Spain have already said that schools are going to open even if COVID spreads again.

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The New Zealand approach was a hard lockdown based on the state’s assuring wages. They had so few infections overall, as they acted definitively, and early, there is no valid conclusion there. To even use them as an example is hilarious – following their approach would have been great in March. Australia had similar figures in March, April, and May, but now, with a staunch second wave in Victoria, schools are CLOSED. Even though children may be most likely to catch it at home, the movement of people to and from schools represents part of the risk. Cherry-pick some more. Go on. We can all play that. Just don’t use a successful overall model as New Zealand and pretend it’s that simple.

Our more prominent issue is that the country is now caught up in mass hysteria. When people hit people with bottles or pepper spray over social distancing or not wearing a mask, you see mass hysteria. When social media continue to stop any speech on alternatives, whether they work or not, you see mass hysteria.

It’s amazing how many teachers have no problem going to the grocery store where clerks are working, stocking shelves, and checking out their purchases among many people. It seems to me that being in a classroom with children is a much lower risk than working in a grocery store, so why do teachers want an exception? It has nothing to do with their safety; it’s all about power & politics.

When you see political correctness stop speech, you have to expect violence. There is no tolerance for different views, even when the views are from skilled professionals. You can explain that COVID-19 is a little bit worse in deaths than the regular flu, but that is an appeal to reason. People caught up in mass hysteria can not reason. They are members of a cult. Instead, you have to go around in the open, in your car, and your home without a mask. You don’t argue. You just go around being happy and talking to your friends. Joy and hope and fun reduce the mass hysteria. In the meantime, the reality is coming. Parents need to get their kids to school so they can work. And the evictions, foreclosures, and bankruptcies are starting. The food lines are forming. The layoffs are coming for government workers. People need to get back to work desperately.

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Amazingly, Democrats do not see that their ugliness is transparent. Children are more important than your political proclivities. They are five to ten times more likely to die from the flu. Dems have jumped the shark. Their idiotic no school position will render a more significant than expected Trump victory, and a faster and more widespread school choice reform push all over the country.

The claim that children “cannot” infect adults seems to be preposterous. That said, the effect of this disease on children is very low. Teachers are people too, and they should take precautions. Every child should be tested for fever upon entering schools. It is easy to do, and in flu season, a good idea anytime. The lack of date of checking everyone is why disease of all kinds runs rampant in schools. How many of us went to work at some point while feeling a little sick. That was never a good idea, and less so now.

I think the country may not have one honest politician. There may be a few that get voted in that do indeed want a better America. But the political system soon wipes those ideas out. The political office becomes a career.

Looking for magic saviors in our public offices is a fool’s errand. This is why the government WAS designed to be LIMITED. However, “the people” seem to want a DADDY or MOMMY to rescue them from reality. Politicians, being natural grifters, understand this childish tendency and exploit it by producing “benefits” and, after exhausting the tax base, borrowing to provide them. That it is a house of cards is pretty much irrelevant to them because it is not “their” money.

Term limits will empower the parties who will line up candidates for offices and move them onto another once they “term” out.

This piece was written by Wayne Dupree on July 31, 2020. It originally appeared in WayneDupree.com and is used by permission.

The opinions expressed by contributors and/or content partners are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Steve Gruber.