After nearly a year of on-and-off coronavirus lockdown provisions, many schools are finally beginning to reopen their doors. This is happening after the CDC released reports indicating that, with proper social distancing and protective equipment, children and teachers are at no greater risk for COVID-19 than any other demographic during the pandemic.
The reopening, however, is coming as different parents have dramatically different opinions on why the schools need to reopen, or, indeed, if they need to reopen at all. Some families are COVID hardliners, not agreeing to any activity that puts their children or themselves in the public until the pandemic is officially over. On the other hand, some families have never taken the pandemic seriously at all, and don’t understand why schools closed in the first place.
Is it Safe to go Back Now?
Many parents are agreeing with the CDC assessment that it’s getting safer to send kids back to school. The new COVID vaccines are incredibly good at preventing people from developing serious illness from COVID-19, and they’re leading to an increased fall-off in case numbers in much of the US. Experts are now projecting that the summer of 2021 is likely to look a lot closer to the summer of 2019 than the summer of 2020.
All of this has many parents pushing for schools to reopen as the biggest indicator of a return to normal. After all, the biggest indicator over the last year that things have been unusual has been everyone being home at once. Kids doing their schoolwork via distance learning, adults who can work from home holed up in home offices. The increased domesticity of daily life has introduced its own slew of challenges.
Are the Vaccines Working?
Early data suggests that the vaccination effort in the US is having a pronounced effect, when coupled with proper social distancing and mask-wearing. The virus is finally falling back to levels not seen since last summer, and data suggests that the vaccines are reliably preventing people from developing serious illness from COVID infections.
Indeed, experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have suggested that the vaccine rollout is the most realistic medical way to return the world to something like normal. However, even silver linings have a touch of gray: infectious disease experts believe that COVID-19 is here to stay. While it will become less deadly when societies develop herd immunity to it, it is likely to become a seasonal ailment not unlike the flu.
