Closing schools was the right call, like it or not
We are all connected.
If that hasn’t been one of your top takeaways from the ever-evolving COVID-19 crisis, you’re missing the point.
Badly.
Thursday — like seemingly every day since the outbreak in Washington began — brought another jolting wave of reality to the region.
In a move that was as predictable as it was sobering, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee issued a mandatory closure of schools in King Snohomish and here in Pierce County — until late April. On Friday, he extended that closure statewide.
It was the right call, like it or not. It’s what the situation calls for.
It also will be devastating.
Some have flippantly suggested the infection of Tom Hanks or the cancellation of basketball will be nationally remembered as the moment coronavirus got real.
In the Puget Sound region, my guess is that, for many, the moment the schools shut down will provide the solemn touchstone — and understandably so.
The last two weeks here have been surreal, but for families, schoolchildren and communities throughout the region, the closure of schools over the coming weeks will have ramifications and consequences we yet to fully comprehended.
This will not be good.
As Tacoma Schools spokesperson Dan Voelpel told me this week, the district has “so many families … who live close to the edge of survival.”
Voelpel predicted that the closure of schools would hit Tacoma and “other urban low-income districts” particularly hard.
Closing schools, he said, will have a ripple effect like few previously imaginable — potentially causing kids to go hungry and families to fall into homelessness.
“I have no doubt that many negative consequences that we can’t even anticipate right now will emerge,” Voelpel said.
In other words, the district is painfully aware of what closing schools will mean, at least in the terrifying abstract.
Like all of us, it’s also left to grapple with the real-life consequences while it tries to do its best to deal with a dangerously fluid situation during an unprecedented time.
Even with the obvious implications and the alarming unknowns, Inslee’s call to shutter public schools and send more than 136,000 public school children home for the foreseeable future was the only one for the governor to make.
Why? Simple.
We are all connected, and the most vulnerable among us — the elderly, the sick, the pregnant, the unhoused — depend on tough but correct decisions like the one made by Inslee Thursday.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped the new and seemingly unending ranks of amateur public health experts from weighing in against it, as they have with other emergency measures, like shutting down large gatherings and sporting events.
Frankly, it’s long past time for these folks to get a grip. Not only is their math wrong and priorities misplaced, but the vocal objections act as a slap in the face for all of us for whom coronavirus is more than a flu.
Yes, at least when it comes to schools, many have legitimate concerns about what the closure will mean. Given everything we know, we’re in a bad spot and things are going to get worse, whether we’re talking about the economy or the number of ill.
But that likely prospect — things getting worse — is precisely why the public health recommendations and mandates being handed down are necessary. If you don’t think the local officials who made the tough decisions know exactly what is at stake, you haven’t spent all week listening to the torment, stress and fear in their voices as they face and feel their way through the unknown.
Sure, there are graphs made by public health experts that illustrate how mandatory social distancing and school closures can slow the spread of infection and save lives. There are also stories from other countries, foreshadowing the importance of the decisions we make today. You may have seen them.
Really, though, these things are unnecessary.
All you should need to grasp the magnitude of the moment and what’s at stake is before your eyes. It’s the neighbors who live alongside you, almost all of whom are either directly or indirectly affected by the public health directives currently being issued.
I think of our disabled son, whose fragile medical condition puts him at risk. I think of the other school kids that ride his bus. I think of grandparents and caretakers, the homeless moms and their kids. I think of the sick and those without a platform to raise their voice in a crisis.
I think of that picture of 88-year-old Dorothy Campbell talking to her 89-year-old husband, Gene, through a pane of glass as the novel coronavirus ripped through Life Center in Kirkland.
We are all connected.
They aren’t vulnerable. We are vulnerable.
That’s the lesson.
That’s the only answer.
This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 5:15 AM.
