Keep schools closed and shift discussion to America’s broken social system

The American Academy of Pediatrics and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released statements urging schools to re-open. As a child psychiatrist and parent of two, I would love schools to re-open. We know the important role that schools play in kids’ lives. But in this country, at this time, I cannot imagine how that can happen in safe manner.

The U.S. last week had the highest number of new cases in the world.

Compared to countries with a similar population, the new caseload in the U.S. is roughly 50 times worse. Florida’s new record of 15,000 new cases in one day would place it as the 4th worst COUNTRY in the world. In one day last week, the new cases of covid-19 identified in Britain (650), Japan (373), Germany (138) and South Korea (44), add to 1,205 cases. Adding the populations of these countries is roughly the same as the population of the U.S. We had 58,349 cases in one day.

Without effective leadership, and worse, harmful leadership that makes false claims that the virus will disappear in April, or that injecting bleach will cure the virus, encouraging an anti-mask, and anti-science movement, Americans are behaving accordingly. We have no uniform approach at the citizen level, on how to protect from a public health threat – a virus. Individual behaviors affect the larger community.

Some schools are stating they’ll re-open fully without safety precautious. Others are stating they will remain online. There’s little funding allocated for schools to be able to implement the necessary precautions to keep students, teachers, and staff safe.

We need to shift the conversation to addressing why we are placing all our social needs on schools.

Our country places the burden on teachers and schools to solve homelessness, hunger, poverty, abuse, and caretaking. While also being tasked to educate – all with little funds/resources.

Feel free to read my entire piece on the Hill here, watch my video above on the topic, as well as my response to those who commented.