So if this is happening with baseball why does anyone still think that it's a good idea for our schools to go through this too? I know that childrens' education is important, but there has to be a way to help them get it that accounts for these extenuating circumstances, but some states haven't even bothered considering them.
Unless there are articulated strategies besides "stay quarantined," the default will continue to be to move toward "normal." That's just the reality of it. So, we need our experts to understand that we inevitably aren't going to take a 110% epidemiologist-based strategy for an indefinite number of months, just as policy is never dictate by one sole field of expertise over the long haul, no matter how relevant the expertise is; there are just too many other factors that people start to consider after a while, with these two being especially important in the Chicago area:
1) Only one in three Chicago public school kids have access to a computer at home; that does not even account for children sharing in certain households, let alone having parents that will enforce the learning.
2) A huge number of parents in the Chicago public school system who are essential workers cannot afford regular childcare costs while they go to work.
Remaining locked down is not feasible in ANY community where there are enough ICU beds, and this has become obvious to 95%+ of all people. So, experts should throw their energy behind endorsing "reopening"-type activities and seizing the opportunity to put their stamps on it to make sure it's as safe as it will ever be. It's not really about "science" or "economics" or "moral concerns" anymore ... it's about what we can logically expect of a population of 300 million. There are communities with literally hardly any COVID, let alone community spread, and they are understandably annoyed at the idea of a one-size-fits-all strategy; similarly, there are people in large cities that had a lot of cases early on (e.g., Chicago) that have a different outlook, as they should.
I think people need to accept that you're either going to have too strict of measures that people will ignore or less-than-perfect measures that people might actually follow. The latter is better 100% of the time.
