Two groups of people are flounting good public health measures: the Deranged and the Deluded.
The Deranged are the Fox News/OANN consuming conspiracists that equate wearing a mask in Costco with Stalinism. These are Cult 45 members who are insisting that Covid is "just the flu" and therefore liberals are trying to destroy Trump's presidency by manufacturing a crisis where none exists.
The Deluded are those who simply think "It won't happen to me, and if it does, it won't be that bad." Of course, the odds are that it WON'T be that bad. It seems clear that 80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic. But that one-in-five ratio is worse than playing Russian Roulette.
I've seen increasing social media pushback against opening schools in the fall. The basic argument is that "Teachers should not be putting their lives at risk to cover up Trump's failures to contain the pandemic." OK, in an ideal world that's true, and I certainly would not be thinking about opening schools in the South right now. I feel pretty good about our plan, but I know it comes with some risks. I also am desperate to avoid prolonged online teaching, both for myself and my sons.
I worry that just as the Right took masking as a political football, the Center-Left will turn returning to school as a political football. There are profoundly important reasons to get students back into school that simply do not apply to re-opening bars, restaurants and movie theaters. I don't want the people who are legitimately angry about the clusterfuck that has been the Trump maladministration's response to Covid-19 to somehow turn this decisions into an absolutest position. We need to open schools, but we need a plan. My guess is that states that have done better so far will do better with planning school reopenings.
However, I do still worry about the Deluded, when it comes to schools. And by the Deluded, I mean the students. We know that teenagers have an over-inflated sense of their immortality. We know that they will not be diligent with their masking. We know that classrooms could become super-spreader events, even with good (but not perfect) masking.
I saw a post by an epidemiologist that outlined the three variables in a pandemic: Prevalence, Infectivity and Contact Rate.
Working backwards, Contact Rate must be addressed by rigorous testing and the quick removal of those who are positive and the isolation of those they came into contact with until they can be tested. I just don't know how much we - as a school - will be able to test people. We need to limit the number of contact points between those who are infected and everyone else. Tricky, but not impossible.
Infectivity can be greatly reduced by masking, washing hands and social distancing. We are looking at reducing class sizes, which is great, but it looks like we will be inside. (I was hoping we might set up tents in some areas.) How well will students comply with reducing infectivity by following these procedures. That's the wild card. Masks aren't perfect, but if we can get near-universal masking, we should be able to reduce infectivity enough for contact tracing to reduce Contact Rate.
Finally, our hope is that through testing and sanitary practices, we can reduce the prevalence of the virus. If the virus is simply not present, then we are safe. Most of the places where our students come from (in the Northeast) are doing a good job with this. We often talk about the "Taft Bubble," but hopefully we can create that in a positive way to create a pool of students, teachers and staff in which the virus is simply absent.
The lack of a national policy is a disaster. The lack of universal masking is a tragedy. If we masked everywhere in public for the next 2-3 months, I bet we could get the virus under control. (We are too big a country to eradicate it like New Zealand.) I think on a small scale states, cities and even my school can achieve this, but how will we contend with the Deranged and the Deluded?
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