REAL data on schools from Sweden
Schools open Mar-June
2 mil kids

No MASK
Soc distancing
No HVAC renos

No change in death for kids
15 -> ICU
0 deaths from COVID

RR of being teacher & requiring ICU for covid
= 1.10 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.49 to 2.49

[thread]

The fear-mongering on this topic is absolutely incredible.

Folks saying that opening schools means dead kids and dead teachers.

These data show that is absolutely wrong

Kids were in school and there was a very very low risk of severe covid for the kids (15/ 2mil), and 0 kids died of covid.

This risk is on par with risks for which parents send their kids to school YEAR after YEAR

If you think this risk is exorbitant, you are wrong

The next objection is that the risk to teachers is catastrophic. That is also fear mongering.

The occupational risk to teachers is no different than non teachers in Sweden at this time with open schools, and the CI excludes serious risks

School unions in the US are demanding 20 million dollar ventilation system upgrades, but Sweden didn't have that.

Sweden didn't even routinely use masks at this time!

Side note:

People who cite aerosolization studies and say schools need ventilatory X or Y are performing the lowest level of science, as it is the most reductionist

This is broad, empirical data that shows without that mitigation things go... dare I say... well.

The final question is whether schools fuel transmission in the broader population, and there is scant good data on that question. @apsmunro is the person to follow there.

However, the major objections I hear on this website are
Schools opening kills kids and teachers.
Not true

The challenge with the schools impact on the population question is the number of places that institute multiple measures at once making it very hard to separate the impact of any one.

Lastly, I have not come to the key point.
Schools provide a vital good
they are the ONLY safety net left in the USA

Arguably the good they provide in the US is greater than Sweden, which has other safety nets

Thus, we should be more willing to open them

It's called trade-offs.

That's the forbidden word of the pandemic, and a word that doesn't enter the vocabulary of fear-mongerers on twitter who have a PhD in twitter followers, but lack the discipline to openly discuss a complex societal tradeoffs

We have excluded disciplines that thrive at trade-off analysis, such as economics, public health, decision science, philosophy and others, to our detriment in this pandemic

Some "experts" do not even believe in debate with folks who view the trade-offs differently! They espouse all the popular slogans these days why you should never allow your ideas to face challenge via debate.

And some go even further.. they are mad at me for being pro-debate!

This attitude is unfortunate, and is a pandemic raging inside the academy.