Five Pediatricians on Coronavirus: ‘Benefits of Being in the Classroom Far Outweigh the Risk of the Disease’
“I have no concerns about sending my child to school in the fall.”
I believe education is the most local issue. I’m not even talking state or city. Education should be up to the school districts.
But we have a Department of Education, which thinks America could reopen schools in the fall. The left has demonized President Donald Trump and Secretary Betsy DeVos, yet it seems a few pediatricians agree with them.
Respiratory viruses usually affect children first. This isn’t the case with coronavirus:
In the U.S., children make up about 22 percent of the population, but kids account for only 2 percent of coronavirus cases so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s not yet known what accounts for that disparity, said Dr. C. Buddy Creech, an associate professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
“This has been a strange pandemic because usually for respiratory viruses, children are the first and most substantially affected,” Creech said. “This has really been a flip of that, where it’s our adults, and particularly older adults, that have been more affected.”
The children infected by the coronavirus rarely “develop serious complications or require hospitalization.”
So should schools reopen?
NBC News interviewed five pediatricians. All five of them said they would put their kids back in the classroom.
Five pediatricians interviewed by @NBCNightlyNews agree the benefits of being in school “far outweigh” the risks of #COVID19 for students. All 5 plan to send their kids back to school in the fall. We can reopen schools safely & ensure learning continues. https://t.co/bnRUB1S6vq
— Secretary Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVosED) July 14, 2020
The pediatricians told NBC’s Dr. John Torres that “the benefits of being the classroom far outweigh the risk of the disease.” They all agreed “the key is to reopen safely.”
The pediatricians responded to Torres:
- Dr. Yvonne Mondonado, California: “I would let my kids go back to school.”
- Dr. Shilpa Patel, New Jersey: “I will, my kids are looking forward to it.”
- Dr. William Raszka, Vermont: “Yes. Period. Absolutely.”
- Dr. Jennifer Lighter, New York: “Absolutely, as much as I can. Without hesitation, yes.”
- Dr. Buddy Creech, Tennessee: “I have no concerns about sending my child to school in the fall.”
Schools can achieve social distancing by “keeping desks apart, increasing classroom air flow, and putting gym classes outdoors.”
Masks are important mainly for grades where students change classrooms for subjects.
Schools provide more than education. The social aspect is important, especially for younger children.
Get the vaccine once they make one. Get your flu shot. Get your pneumonia shot.
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Comments
School district decision are not made for the youth. This is all about what the adults want.
“government school industrial complex” – to paraphrase Eisenhower
Just note that the Teachers’ unions are perfectly willing to let children go uneducated if they can get paid to not work, or hold your children hostage to unrelated political agendas.
In general, school boards and administrations are captured entities of the teacher unions, and generally work to advance the pecuniary and political interests of the those unions, as opposed to actual teachers, students or parents.
In a sane world, teachers or organizations purporting to represent teachers would not be allowed to make contributions in fact or in kind to political bodies that provide their oversight and pay.
This general rule should apply to all public employees.
Sir Robin, I’ll extend your idea to that of banning all political contributions by public unions of any sort. And this includes contributions to the so-call non-profit foundations many politicians have established to launder their bribe money. Oh, did I say ‘Bribe’?
I am ready to go back to work. My district is seeing a weird phenomenon where the parents of the well-adjusted high-performing (normal) students want to send their kids. The parents of the habitual tardy/absent/always causing trouble students would much rather do school digitally.
I wonder if that holds in other places.
My son’s high school was planning a fusion of in class and distant learning. Who knows now with San Diego city schools not having classes. Distant learning in high school is counterproductive for many youth, at least for the boys.
It was an absolute disaster for my district. I worked about twice as hard, but we couldn’t give grades. I hosted a full 20 online meetings with zero students attending. The only response I was able to get was from my junior and senior dual enrollment students.
Preach it, colleague!!!!! I am astounded by the number of teachers apparently terrified of being back in the classroom.
However, I am skeptical of the efficacy of masks and social distancing, never mind enforcing both. I teach 8th grade…
Facts don’t count. These global statements that it’s not “safe” to return to work or school are designed to cancel out any and all data.
Think about… ” systemic racism in America”….. All the data and facts to the contrary are dismissed as anecdotal. What is the real goal and end point with these political pronouncements?
The goal posts are constantly moving as the Wuhan virus is now a politically based disease. It is a tool to aid in the transformation of the USA by destroying the economy and conditioning the populace to conformity to decree. Schools are the least likely incubators for spread for this particular virus.
The”new normal” as planned is abnormal. Unless the goal is a socialist paradise.
It IS true that it is NOT SAFE for kids in households with high risk members (e.g. grandparents) to return to school.
The virus is helping us by making us aware that the “one size fits all” model of government monopoly bureaucratic public education is (and has been) harmful.
Florida is pretty good on school choice, BTW. The Democrats fight it tooth and claw.
Is it true? Children are unlikely transmission vectors for covid-19. They don’t get sick from it and and don’t transmit it. This strange fact is quite unlike our historical understanding of diseases, which is that children are one of the primary vectors of disease transmission.
I’ve heard this, but since it goes against all experience I file it under “better safe than dead grandma”. But I could certainly be wrong.
The sheer amount of uncertainty and bad data is discouraging.
However, more educational choices would be helpful – and not just with the virus problem.
“They don’t transmit it?” Sorry, I’m dubious. Need much more proof. When my kids were in primary school, they could have transmitted paraplegia from a water fountain.
The most unsafe place when it comes to disease is a New York senior home. I’d take my chances in an auditorium with 500 sick kids aged 0-12 than spend one day where Andrew “Angel of Death” Cuomo could kill me and call it a success.
How anyone can call up to 30Ks in 4 months a success is beyond me.
The task force on reopening schools in my neck of the woods is heavily populated with union reps, both teachers and staff, so whatever the path may be for reopening, it must first serve the interests of the unions and their say-so.
Kids are a far less important consideration for these “educators”. The schools received their full $15K per student for the school year, yet performed only until March, then were closed altogether, providing only very spotty and ineffective remote stuff in May.
Reopen the schools!!!
Yet another problem with the government monopoly bureaucratic public school system. Parents and children are at the bottom of the pecking order.
Not the fault of the fine teachers and staff, however. It’s the system.
If the schools don’t re-open the teacher’s shouldn’t be paid. By all accounts, distance learning was a bomb. Encourage home schooling – the parents that value education for their kids will make sure their kids learn, the ones who don’t won’t. But most of those kids don’t learn much anyway.
You’re totally right. If I said that out loud I would get fired and blackballed.
I think this year has shown us the quality of what the schools are teaching our kids.
(“What’s an abolitionist?”)
If I were king, all government-run schools would burn.
They’re the one thing keeping it impossible for competent private schools to emerge everywhere, not just in far-flung locations.
Humans like it or not a social animal. Do you think there is a reason they are keeping you separated until you capitulate?
We need to see each other’s faces.
If children rarely get it and when they do they don’t actually get sick from it what’s the point of social distancing or masks?
excellent point
To ram home to the parents that they (the parents) are at the mercy of the government?
Because children tend to go home to… other people?
Seriously, when it comes to transmission of disease, schoolchildren run just under unprotected sex with the homeless, and just above shared street needles.
Symptom check at the door. Wash your hands. Avoid transmission interfaces and black holes… whores. h/t NAACP
When the American Academy of Pediatrics put out an official statement that said schools should reopen, the MSM reported it as good professional advice.
Once Trump repeated that advice, the MSM acted like it was all his idea, and he just wanted schools to reopen in order to get re-elected and he didn’t care if it killed children.
How can anyone fail to see the outright bias of the MSM?
Never get a coronavirus vaccine, a flu shot, or any other vaccine. First of all, they have never made a successful coronavirus vaccine in more than 50 years. Second, viruses mutate, so vaccines are typically effective less than half the time (bonus to the manufacturer who sells boosters). Third, vaccines have multiple ingredients which have NEVER been tested in concert and compared to double-blind placebo studies (haven’t gotten around to it). Fourth, immunity from illness is more complicated than stimulating antibodies (which in the case of coronaviruses seem to wane within three months). Finally, Covid-19 is not a serious infection (99% recovery): the vaccine is not worth the risk.
The opposition to the reopening of the schools is a power grab by the hate-America teacher unions. The plus side is that the result will be to speed up the exodus at least on the part of those who can afford it out a public school system that is increasingly a left propaganda machine. And to make that exodus more widely available legislation should be adopted to provide parents the amount per child spent by the local school system to pay for alternative schools.
“Schools can achieve social distancing by…”
Schools can achieve anti-bullying by dot, dot, dot, too… but the fact is, they can’t be bothered, and when they are, they just punish the victim along with (or even instead of) the bully. So, despite the possibility that they “could” do the right thing, why would I bank on it?