Virus: Imbalanced approach neglects school needs

Re: “School closure blame game needs to stop,” (TNT, 10/29)

Your Editorial Board observes that Dr. Anthony Chen, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department director, “is strongly urging all local schools to do remote learning; one should expect nothing less of a public health chief in a week when COVID-19 has flared to ‘high’activity level.”

You must have low expectations of a public health chief. I expect him to balance all threats that extend well beyond COVID-19. I expect him to follow more recent empirical data that strongly supports schools are not a significant site of transmission.

A monkey can follow the “decision tree” from the state. A public health professional uses his background and recent data trends to provide nuance and context to blanket guidance.

In 2019, TPCHD published a Community Health Assessment guided by the social determinants of health. The document states: “A higher educational level helps people take advantage of employment opportunities and earn higher incomes, which helps to diminish the burden of poverty on a community.”

What happened to this rhetoric? Chen should not get a free pass regarding his unbalanced approach to this crisis.

This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Virus: Imbalanced approach neglects school needs."