Why is it that teachers can't wear N95 masks and face shields and blue nitrile gloves?

@Elessar That's true. However, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway seem to be reporting success.

They task parents with taking the kids temps every day before school, and any child with a temperature or any sort of symptom is kept at home. Also, any child with any pre-existing condition such as asthma needs to stay home.

Oxford has a successful vaccine. We think we will have it by late fall.

@4meAndyou I don't know about the U.S. but public school in those countries are radically different than for instance ours, aside from the fact those countries already had few cases on their own. In those they don't have more than 30 students per classroom, small spaces, old buildings that barely get regular maintenance.. let alone the hygienic conditions, they're essentially Petri dishes. I work with people whose children are in public school and every single winter (flu seasons) from when I started working up to today they're the ones who get sick the most often, earlier, and who typically infect my entire office.

Patents here wouldn't be reliable, they'd say the child is fine just not to have him/her around at home; I have friends who were sent into school even with 39°C temps because their parents worked. They should at the very least put a thermoscanner at the entrance but again.. schools in my area barely had the money to afford toilet paper, I don't see that realistically happening, and by the time one manifest a temperature, they have probably been infectious for 3-4 days already (the real problem with this damn virus, unfortunately).

Yeah, well, that's true, we're manufacturing that one here in Rome as far as I know, phase 3 clinical trials are ongoing until Summer 2021, and also due to limited supplies I doubt they'd give it that to anyone who's not an absolutely critical worker (i.e. healthcare operators and police forces), or at most, high risk individuals (65+ with at least one or two comorbidities), considering also that long term safety and effectiveness are yet to be demonstrated (testing can't be rushed too much). It looks promising, but children will be the last to get it I suppose, and reasonably.

@Elessar I considered the schools assigning one person at the entrance to scan temps. They do that at my doctor's office. We are met 6 feet from a central desk, and the workers there ask us where we have an appointment. Then we are met by the nurse, in an N95 mask and face shield, wearing blue nitrile gloves. She scans our foreheads with her temperature gun, and she takes us upstairs one by one, making sure we go directly to our appointment, and that we don't touch the elevator buttons.

I also considered the fact that so many children would be confined to one room. In California, I know for a fact that they are considering the use of tents, so they can properly space their students.

But I also thought to myself...everywhere I go there is a plexiglass shield between workers and customers. Why can the teachers not use the same? And why sit there without a fan to blow potential floating bits away from your area?

We know that schools are potential petri dishes, and I agree...when I was working in an office building with parents who had children, the parents were always sick during colds and flu season, and always passed that around the office. But neither were we this careful. No one was THIS cautious about cleaning their hands constantly. Nor did we wear any sort of mask, effective or ineffective.

@4meAndyou Even in that case the main problem remains: people tend to be the most infectious *before* manifesting symptoms/temperatures. In such case the thermoscanner would be useless. Dr. Crisanti here (the guy that prevented my region/state from ending up with the same situation as Lombardy) is against them for this reason.

If they can dedicate a single room per student it would work, but wouldn't you need one teacher for every student? Wouldn't it be more feasible just making them attend streamed lessons from home?

More than teachers, the real risk is student to student transmission and so household to household, and many young people especially kids won't be careful enough.. nor even adults I fear, judging by the curve.