Confessions of a Crap Psychiatrist

 The American Academy of Pediatrics has been vocal about the need for children to return to school. (https://www.aappublications.org/news/2021/01/05/covid-school-safety-010521). I've also had the misfortune of sitting through talks in which very small amounts of data are used, along with a sprinkle of ethics, to justify position statements on the need for children to return to school, using equity as the guiding principle (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7455545/). I have serious misgivings about the use of scientific and medical authority to weigh in on what has become a political decision. There is no medical or scientific argument against returning to school. Thus, you will never find a paper, or study, that will convince you not to open schools. The real questions are about how and when. When community transmission levels are high, these are the essential questions to ask. And here the answers become very difficult, because if, say, 1/15 individuals has COVID-19, i