As school districts across the country grapple with how to safely re-open in the coming weeks, the reality of Covid-19 spread has teachers, parents, and health experts warning of imminent danger just as new polling out Monday shows the U.S. public is having serious second thoughts about sending kids back to the classroom for in-person learning.
“This push to open schools is guaranteed to fail,” Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and molecular virologist, and dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told The Atlantic. “The social-distancing expectations and mask requirements for the lower grades are unrealistic … In communities with high transmission, it’s inevitable that Covid-19 will enter the schools. Within two weeks of opening schools in communities with high virus transmission, teachers will become ill. All it will take is for a single teacher to become hospitalized with COVID and everything will shut down.”
A Gallup poll released Monday indicates just 36% of parents surveyed want full-time, in-person schooling—a 20% drop from a previous survey.
