6/ that said, ultimately @VPrasadMDMPH's argument seems to be there's no evidence opening schools makes pandemic worse, and there's evidence keeping kids out of school is bad. I agree with both. Then he says that the burden of proof is on those wanting to keep schools closed.

7/ while I get this point, I have a very negative reaction to this argument. Consider risk that kids spread this disease somewhat efficiently, even if less than adults. We know they're mostly asymptomatic. So kids would be spreading to each other in schools with little signal.

8/ if this is done in high prevalence settings to begin with, by the time we see the pandemic pick up in adults, we'd have pretty significant prevalence among kids. Who would, over the course of the next few weeks, even under shutdown, spread this to their adults.

9/ can we prevent this with systematic testing of kids? Maybe yeah, though that sounds awful for kids until we have truly noninvasive testing.

10/ so yeah, I'm not an epidemiologist, and i could be seeing this completely wrong, and i know there is clear harm of keeping kids away from school. But are we relatively certain reopening schools in high prevalence populations wouldn't be setting off a time bomb?

11/ on the flip side, is there consensus that the Sweden situation proves opening schools does NOT set off a time bomb? This stuff is so hard. Of course schools should be the last to close and the first to open. But should we open them? I'm still confused.

We have sent our 3rd grader back, and so far are very happy with the decision. Has only been a couple of weeks, but very positive on the social regressions we were seeing. And they honestly take so many precautions that I think likely low spread.

Yeah, I have zero doubt that for many kids, staying out of school is incredibly tough and damaging. What I can't figure out is what is the risk, population wise, of these reopenings at scale. We might be between a rock and a hard place.

I can’t find much evidence of problematic spread, can you?