Donald Trump's and Mitch McConnell's insistence that schools must be open in the fall, never mind the coronavirus pandemic that shows no signs of abating, is absolutely using children for their reelection and the pretense that everything is back to normal now. The only way Trump has any hope of winning, or McConnell keeping the Senate is with an economic miracle that is definitely not coming. But if they can try to force it by having kids in school and parents back in the job, that's what they'll do.
But it's not just the kids being held out as sacrificial lambs. It's a lot of their parents and especially their grandparents. The Kaiser Family Foundation warned this week that there are 3.3 million people age 65 and older living with school-aged children in the United State, 3.3 million people who are at high risk of having serious complications if they are infected with the COVID-19. What's more, older people of color are disproportionately more likely to live with a child, significantly so.
"Nearly one in five (19%) Asian and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander older adults live with a school-age child, as do 17% of Hispanic older adults, 13% of American Indian or Alaska Native older adults, and over one in ten (11%) Black older adults," KFF found. That means that if schools are open, kids are getting infected in schools, older people of color are at increased risk of exposure. The states where most of these older adults live are also hot spots: California, Texas, and Florida each have relatively large numbers of seniors living with children.
This follows on KFF's warning of the danger to teachers if schools are opened unsafely. As many as a quarter of teachers, 24% and 1.47 million people, "have a condition that puts them at higher risk of serious illness from coronavirus." It also puts the people they live with in jeopardy. Putting all these kids and teachers into potential Petri dishes of classrooms, and then sending them home to their parents, grandparents, and families is an even worse disaster in the making. And Trump and McConnell are fine with that.