New CDC Study Says Schools Are Mostly Safe to Reopen

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Schools operating in person have seen scant transmission of the coronavirus, particularly when masks and distancing are employed, but some indoor athletics have led to infections and should be curtailed if schools want to operate safely, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded in papers published Tuesday….The review, which echoes the conclusions of other researchers, comes as many schools districts continue to wrestle with whether and how to reopen schools and as President Biden makes a return to in-person learning one of his top pandemic-related priorities.

Remember, just because Donald Trump was in favor of something doesn’t automatically make it wrong. Stopped clocks and all that. It’s true that the question of school safety isn’t 100 percent certain, but the large preponderence of the evidence now points toward in-person classes being relatively safe as long as reasonable—but not onerous—precautions are taken. So ditch the indoor athletics but open up the classrooms.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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