Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: Reopening schools — harm of lost instruction outweighs COVID-19 risks
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: Reopening schools — harm of lost instruction outweighs COVID-19 risks

By Wall Street Journal Editorial Board | The Wall Street Journal

The losers, as ever, would be the children.

Everything else about the coronavirus has become politicized in America, so why not a return to school as well? That’s the depressing state of play as President Trump pushes schools to reopen while Democrats heed teachers unions that demand more federal money and even then may not return. The losers, as ever, would be the children.

The evidence — scientific, health and economic — argues overwhelmingly for schools to open in the fall. Start with the relative immunity of young children to the disease, which should reassure parents.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 children under age 15 have died from COVID-19. In a typical year 190 children die of the flu, 436 from suicide, 625 from homicide, and 4,114 from unintentional deaths such as drowning.

Only two children under age 18 have died in Chicago — fewer than were killed in shootings in a recent weekend. In New York City, 0.03 percent of children under age 18 have been hospitalized for Covid and 7.5 in one million have died. The death rate for those over 75 is more than 2,200-times higher than for those under 18.

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