In a quiet manner, the Center for Disease Control & Prevention has altered its previous guidance on opening schools to reflect Trump Administration policy that schools are safe for children and vital to children’s growth.

The problem:  the multiple caveats in the statement would exclude the United States from the areas that can safely open schools.  It also neglects to address the dangers to teachers, staff and parents from the transmission of the virus.

The statement concludes:

The best available evidence from countries that have opened schools indicates that COVID-19 poses low risks to school-aged children, at least in areas with low community transmission, and suggests that children are unlikely to be major drivers of the spread of the virus.

Unfortunately, the United States is experiencing record growth in the number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, particularly in areas that didn’t seriously address the virus early in the pandemic.  The countries noted as “areas of low community transmission”–such as Germany, Italy and Spain–have radically flattened the transmission curve, having minimal new cases reported.

Another danger can be found in the small print.  While most coronavirus fatalities are elderly or infirmed patients, there is a serious risk to children if they contract the virus, as is mentioned in a footnote at the end of the report.

*Some children have developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) after exposure to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). (https://www.cdc.gov/mis-c/cases/index.html)  In one targeted surveillance study for MIS-C associated with SARS-CoV-2, however, the majority of children who were hospitalized with COVID-related MIS-C (70 percent) had recovered by the end date of the study period.

So to the CDC, the fact that your child could develop a serious condition, for which they have roughly a 1-in-3 chance of experiencing lingering damage is just a small side note.