Missouri Governor Mike Parson shared his thoughts on reopening schools in the state–thoughts he really should have kept to himself. Basically, his view on the subject is that yes, kids are going to contract the coronavirus and it’s fine because the kids will “get over it.”
“These kids have got to get back to school,” Parson said during a radio interview Friday (via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). “They’re at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will—and they will when they go to school—they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctors’ offices. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”
It is true that kids are believed to be a lower risk group for COVID-19. But there is still so much that health experts don’t know about how the virus affects children, in large part because schools have been closed and children have been kept home. When they haven’t been kept home, we’ve seen outbreaks of COVID-19 among kids, like that Christian summer camp that resulted in 82 new cases. In one Texas county, 85 infants under the age of one have tested positive. The information on how the virus affects different age groups is constantly changing as researchers work to fill in the many massive data gaps. For example, the symptoms adults experience have shown to be less severe in children and not last as long, but recent reports show there might be a link between the coronavirus and multi-system inflammatory syndrome–a rare and potentially fatal inflammatory disease in children.
So I don’t know what information Parson thinks he has that makes him so certain that kids will just “get over it” but that claim is wildly presumptuous and incredibly dangerous.
Opening schools will be a hell of a way to discover the reason Covid wasn’t too prevalent in kids is because schools were closed.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) July 18, 2020
Then, of course, there’s also the issue of who these kids interact with. What would Parson say to the parents of those children who are worried about them bringing the virus into the house? (And given that he likely wants schools to reopen in large part to remove any impediment to forcing parents back to work, so that the state doesn’t have to pay unemployment insurance, who does he expect to care for all these sick kids stuck at home who aren’t even “[sitting] in doctors’ offices”?)
And what would Parson say to the teachers, administrators, and other staff at all of Missouri’s schools? A lot of people are being asked (essentially forced) to literally risk their lives and they’re being offered basically no support whatsoever. Here’s an incredibly upsetting thread detailing what teachers are going through right now:
Saw my doc today for annual checkup. Her recommendations for me and my teacher friends:
1)have at least 5 n95 masks (no homemade masks) and label them mon-fri. Let them sit for a week between wearing. 1/— Abby Cornelius (@abrarian) July 17, 2020
2) with the n95, also wear a face shield.
3) wear mask in a high bun and cover hair because droplets can rest in hair and then spread if touched.
4) when getting home, clothes go straight to washer 2/— Abby Cornelius (@abrarian) July 17, 2020
4) don’t bring work stuff in house,
5) buy life insurance and update will.
She was livid and so was I that she had to advise me in this manner.— Abby Cornelius (@abrarian) July 17, 2020
On top of all of this, Missouri continues to break its own daily record for new coronavirus cases. So I don’t know why anyone would trust that Parson knows what he’s doing regarding any element of this pandemic or anything else, really.
I don’t know who needs to know this, but you can donate to Nicole Galloway who is running against this asshole:https://t.co/zTBa1bPpHd
— ✨ sara ✨ (@imsararaff) July 20, 2020
(image: Jacob Moscovitch/Getty Images)
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