by Wanting to open schools -Heartless?
More like awake and logical. Living is not safe. Every activity has risks. The flu and pneumonia kill people every year, as do bus rides to school. Car rides to school. Playing on the playground. Living with families. Working. Shopping. We have to accept risks but we can take reasonable measures to reduce the risk. The measures cannot be unreasonable or the population as a whole will suffer. Mitigation of one risk may increase other risks. A virus that kills no higher percentage of the population than others cannot require outsized mitigation. Will the overall detrimental effects of the mitigation for this virus out weigh the damage done by lost incomes, increased emotional tolls, decreased learning, increased domestic abuse or family dissolutions, more homelessness.
Keeping schools closed increases social isolation, hinders the education of students, prevents organized physical activities, imposes unnecessary obligations and expense on parents, reduces the exposure of children to other viruses and bacteria known to bolster the immune systems. The stated justification for keeping schools closed or partially closed is to stop the spread of the virus, that any risk of infection is unacceptable. Stopping the spread of any virus is near impossible. And this virus is really not as deadly as first thought, is manageable with precautions of protecting the known vulnerable (at risk) by imposing hygiene precautions of masks (for those at risk), hand washing, social distancing – by those at risk. There is no evidence of this virus spreading easily among children or by children to adults either at home or schools.
Keeping the schools closed or even just partially open is heartless.