There's a fair bit of evidence that kids *are* less affected--but there's a big difference between "less affected" and "not affected." If you put 50+ million schoolkids back into in-person school, that's still going to add up to a lot of cases, some of which are going to be serious.

And the other thing is that the countries that *have* successfully reopened their school systems have A) broad consensus about necessary public health measures, like masks and social distancing, B) sufficient testing and contact-tracing capacity, C) adequate supplies of PPE and cleaning products, and/or D) systems for prioritizing schools when it comes to allocating B and C. The US has zero of those things, and no plan whatsoever for developing them on a nationwide level--instead, states and localities are trying to cobble them together on their own. Nobody else has tried reopening schools under conditions like that.

What I'm noticing in Dutch communications from our RIVM (comparable to the CDC), is that they cherry pick what they want to be proven or not. Children not transferring the disease is one of them. It has not been proven to be true or false, still we go with it has to be true (when it seems very unlikely considering how most viruses go round in schools) and also the effects of face masks on containing the virus hasn't been proven true or false, but the RIVM doesn't want them (even though all the signs show they might be useful if used on a large scale and we do use them in public transport and mayors are now allowed to put the measure into place in certain area's). It feels like they want to err on the wrong side, when we are clearly dealing with something where every error guarantees more very sick people and deaths. I just don't get it.

@lara What I'm saying is that actual live is not as black and white as always closed or back to exactly the way we were. And it seems odd that our governments don't seem to get that fact.

........ and mothers of those children don't care.

@lara, every day is a live experiment, it's about what you know and don't know and the intentions that lie beneath. We have a lot of lead in our piping system, but when it was found out it was there, responsibilty was taken to remove it as good as possible. Now with viruses, we know how they go around in germ factories like schools and it seems unlikely schools will not play a mayor role in transmitting the virus through populations based on current knowledge. Even if we are wrong, this is what we're dealing with. But. We seem to be ignoring what we know and just go ahead on basing actions on very unlikely information. And I'm not saying you have to keep schools closed indefinitely, but I am saying you have to think about how you're doing this. Maybe attend classes half of the time in smaller groups (and use online solutions for the rest of the week). That way you can keep an eye out for the children that are in unhealthy home situations and you provide some relieve for working parent

Stille20, what an excellent point.

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This may come as a shock to you, but they do that all the time. Our children are experimented on constantly, from food, to schools, to what they are allowed to do and what YOU are allowed to do.

There is also the risk of them having a "light" form of covid but infecting someone that is not going to have the same luck, including you.... being an orphan or living with the guilt of the survivor doesn't sound good either.

Not everyone CAN homeschool though! Online is a s****y option for a normal kid!

Here you go. 42 Americans under the age of 14 have died from COVID-19 so far: https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku

Genuine knowledge requires more than just "hearing" about something. Do your research, including the reliability of your sources, and don't just settle for what sounds comforting or "right"

Apologies, I was unnecessarily snippy in my comment to you.

Read some more!

Karin Jansen yes

Thanks for the source Kobayashi! As for the rest: hateful much? I did try to find more on this as in my country zero children were effected and this was an honest question.

Do you know how to read, Karin Jansen?

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Oh, you really shouldn't have asked that. You are just supposed to assume the position and do what the Nancys tell you to do. How DARE you think for yourself, that is now a criminal insult to all Nancys/