PrintDemocrats, COVID, and the War on Children
It’s a common knowledge that the most Democrats who call themselves pro-choice (although a “pro-death” definition would be more accurate), don’t see a problem in killing 345,672 unborn babies a year, or making it legal to barbarically terminate the life of a fully formed baby. Those are “blobs of cells,” after all.
The same approach may be observed in the Democrats’ harsh opposition to President Trumps’ and the House Republicans’ push to reopen public schools that have been shut since March. In-person education and opportunity to socialize are critical for students of all ages, especially the youngest ones. And the isolation and quarantine has already taken its toll on children’s psychological well-being, which manifests itself in anxiety, emotional disorders, depression, and developmental delay. Setting aside the remarkable inefficiency and even psychological harm of distance learning (not to mention the fact that 163,000,000 Americans still don’t have a high-speed Internet at home -- how are they to participate in online education?) We are talking about 51,140,573 students nationwide. Can they return to their normal routines? Luckily for some of them, the governors of the corresponding states and local school boards have decided that they can. What about the rest?
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden believes that basement environment is the best for children: “Forcing educators and students back into a classroom, into areas where the infection rate is going up or remaining very high is just plain dangerous.” How is infection rate going up in areas that remain closed? He added then that science, not politics, should decide school reopening. Biden certainly believes that the science is on “their” side, but we have almost become accustomed to his bizarre and inaccurate statements, have we not? Joe seems to adopt Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s notorious maxim that if facts contradict theory, then so much the worse for the facts. Even though it’s known that Joe choses “truth over facts,” those Americans who haven’t moved to the looney tunes universe completely should not disregard verified reality. Let us see whether the facts have once again failed poor ol’ confused Uncle Joe.
Children Rarely get and Transmit COVID-19
As per the University of Vermont study “COVID-19 Transmission and Children: The Child Is Not to Blame” based on the data and findings of the “COVID-19 in Children and the Dynamics of Infection in Families” research of the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, children are not driving the pandemic. “After six months, we have a wealth of accumulating data showing that children are less likely to become infected and seem less infectious,” doctors conclude. The same has been concluded by foreign colleagues: Britons, French, Germans, Australians, Canadians, even Chinese.
Additional support for the notion that children are not significant vectors of the disease comes from mathematical modeling, the authors say. Models show that community-wide social distancing and widespread adoption of facial coverings are far better strategies for curtailing disease spread, and that closing schools adds little.
Positive foreign experience
Even though there is still lots of confusion and uncertainty about COVID-19, thanks to the politics behind it, there is clear evidence that children should not be held hostage in that game. By early June, more than 20 countries had let the children back to schools. Some others, including Taiwan, Nicaragua, and Sweden, never closed their schools in the first place. Even though it was a vast, uncontrolled 
experiment, we certainly must learn from it. Thus, some schools imposed strict limits on contact between children, while others let them play freely. Some required masks, while others made them optional. Some closed temporarily if just one student was diagnosed with COVID-19; others stayed open even when multiple children or staff were affected, sending only ill people and direct contacts into quarantine.
According to a study by the American Association for the Advancement of Science that analyzed reopening strategies from South Africa to Finland to Israel, truly encouraging patterns were found. Together, they suggest a combination of keeping student groups small and requiring some social distancing helps keep schools and communities safe, and that younger children rarely spread the virus to one another or bring it home.
Politics, not science
War on parents and economy
Media routinely rumbles about the worst economy ever because of “orange man bad” -- because people, they believe, are not smart enough to connect the dots between the strict business lockdowns imposed by the local Democratic governments and the unemployment rates. In June, however, nearly 5 million jobs were regained by the U.S. economy, with promising trends for the following months. The parents of the children who will have to choose between a partial in-person learning and distance learning will be prevented from rejoining the workforce. Unemployment rate will remain high -- “Damn you, Trump!”
Teachers unions
Major teachers unions oppose the reopening as well, and sue those who dare to reopen. No wonder here, as teachers unions are closely associated with the Democrats. According to campaign watchdog Open Secrets, TUs have steadily amped up their political involvement: from 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million. Even more than most labor unions, they are giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties.
While working families are struggling, TUs insist not only on advanced safety measures, but also make demands that have nothing to do with the pandemic, like defunding the police and Medicare for All.
Free Money
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims that we shouldn’t even be thinking about sending them [children] back to school” without extra federal funding of the schools, which echoes the concerns of her TU sponsors. President Trump has threatened to cut federal funding of schools that are unwilling to reopen, but is also considering their demands and is likely will meet them in part. The CARES Act passed in March allocated $13.5 billion to K-12 education, but, naturally, educators want much more -- in a recent letter to Congress, the Council of Chief State School Officers, a nonprofit organization that represents public officials who lead state departments of elementary and secondary education estimated that the cost of safely reopening is between $158.1 billion and $244.6 billion. That is the bail price – inflated and unjustified.
The bottom line is the children need to get back to school, because it is safe -- even the Washington Post admits that reopened schools have largely avoided COVID outbreaks. Parents need to get back to work. As White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow argues, “[I]f we don't reopen the schools, that would be a setback to a true economic recovery.” And that is exactly what the Democrats try to avoid on the eve of the November elections. And that destructive desire -- “The worse, the better,” drives all their agenda.
