Centers for Disease Control & Prevention recommended schools reopen. Many people online said if schools should reopen, bars and restaurants must have to close.
The CDC recommendation was based, among other things, on a study in rural Wisconsin that found low transmission rates within schools when mitigation measures — masking, social distancing, etc. — were followed. The study did not, however, evaluate asymptomatic spread.
We’re in favor of opening schools. We’re not in favor of closing bars and restaurants. With reasonable protocols — extensive testing, contact tracing followed by quarantining/isolation, masking, etc. — it should be possible to reopen the economy to a large extent, understanding that the moment a positive case pops up, we need to pivot in that area.
If one school area in Los Angeles has a mass outbreak, does that mean that all of Los Angeles should be closed? Obviously not.
The key is widespread testing, accompanied by vigorous contact tracing, mask wearing, social distancing, travel bans, etc. This has been shown to work in colleges in this country, in Australia, in New Zealand, in South Korea, in Singapore, in China, in New Zealand, in Australia, and even in Singapore.
Likewise, we must be vigorous in searching for new strains. Those variants can be stopped if uncovered early, but that will require more genetic sequencing.