Here ’s What the Science Actually Says About Kids and COVID-19

Benjamin Knorr, a 40-year-old single father in Janesville, Wisc., says there’s about a 50-50 chance he’ll send his two teenage sons back to school this fall. His 13-year-old, Aiden, would especially like to get back to his friends, sports, and regular life. But Knorr, an independent contractor, has asthma, and fears that his health and finances would be imperiled if one of his boys brought COVID-19 home from school. “If the numbers go up in Dane County and Rock County, where I work and live, it’s over. We’re just doing the online school,” Knorr says. “We already got through two months of it, and yeah, it was hard. It was stressful. And yeah, it was more work on my part to come home and do the online schooling with them and stuff. But we can’t be homeless.” As school districts across the United States decide whether to welcome kids back into the classroom for in-person education this fall, administrators find themselves weighing a complex set of variables. There’s the risk of children, teachers and staffers getting sick or spreading the disease, on the one hand. But on the other, there’s evidence that being out of school can degrade children’s long-term learning prospects and mental health; make it harder for many to get the food they need; and make it difficult for parents to work—especially mothers, who are often expected to handle a disproportionate amount of childcare duties. Millions of student...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 UnitedWeRise20Disaster Source Type: news