I am fully down with the idea that schools should open before bars. But I think underdiscussed in the convo is how in many, many places across the country, unlike restaurants, the school buildings are in such poor condition that properly ventilated classrooms require massive, 1/

...expensive upgrades/rebuilds, not just an open window. It requires a concerted investment from all levels of government, not just tweaks at the building level. This is the ventilation report from my daughter's Philadelphia public elementary school. /2

CFM (OA) = cubic feet per minute of outside air. Guideline is 15 CFM per occupant. Most classrooms, including my daughter's, have basically zero circulation. This is a COVID transmission disaster (and the school is responsibly not allowing in-person instruction in those rooms).

This raises all sorts of questions of what is going on during non-COVID times, when you have 20-30 humans in a very old room with no circulation. But for now, it's not so simple as getting kids back in classrooms if your school building is poorly ventilated.

Yes, open schools before bars, but to do that we're going to need billions of dollars of state and federal money to upgrade these buildings, which will provide health benefits beyond the pandemic. I wish it were simpler.