>> Given that we're the ~only country in the world

Well you're not the only country on the internet so...which country are you referring to? And how do you define "long after it was shown that schools pose miniscule risk"?

Seems to me many countries did this for a long time and at least in my country cases spike when schools open and infections spread to older family members. This is visible both in cases/deaths correlating with school reopenings + from what I've seen anecdotally.

> country cases spike when schools open and infections spread to older family members.

There have been multiple studies showing that this isn't true. The evidence is simply overwhelming now.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/01/three-st...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10235165/Teachers-N...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/opinion/omicron-schools-d...

Your feelings and perceptions of correlations are irrelevant and hopelessly confounded.

There’s a lot of nuance missing from this. Schools pose minimal risk when appropriate measures are taken. These measures are frequently not taken, a friend of mine just caught Covid from the school she works at last week. Masking and distancing are semi enforced, but the biggest issue is kids are being sent to school sick repeatedly. Parents have relied on and feel entitled to schools as free childcare, sometimes without much choice if their jobs are at risk. Framing the school closings as an overreaction to a minimal risk is incorrect and dangerous.

One of the teachers at my old high school died from covid a few months ago. She was in her 40s and left a few children without a mother. She most likely caught it at school from one of the kids that was mostly asymptomatic.

And apparently her natural immunity wasn't enough because she had caught COVID a year prior, also from school.

It's too bad she listened to all the idiots that convinced her that she didn't need a vaccine because natural immunity was best or that she was safe at school because kids don't really spread it. Had she listened to the actual experts, she likely would have lived and her children would still have a mother.

No. Schools pose minimal risk, period. There have been many studies, across countries around the world, that say the same thing. There was a big study from the UK in 2020 -- prior to vaccination -- which showed that teachers under age 65 have an equivalent or lower risk of death as any other job:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10235165/Teachers-N...

Meanwhile, there's no evidence for the "appropriate measures" (whatever those are) that you're using to cast allusions on the safety of schools. There's simply no evidence base to defend the claim that schools are unsafe, and a substantial evidence base showing the opposite.

Want to give elderly teachers leave or early retirement? Sure, fine. But especially after vaccination, the rest is complete theater.

> a friend of mine just caught Covid from the school she works at last week....framing the school closings as an overreaction to a minimal risk is incorrect and dangerous.

So...your friend caught covid, and therefore, everyone else is "incorrect and dangerous". Well, guess what: a friend of mine caught covid outside of work last week. So what's your point? That people get sick?

Also: how did your friend end up, again? You skipped over the part where a fully vaccinated person recovered from a mild illness with no problems.

This is not a rich school district. Many of the children live in multigenerational households, some with grandparents as primary caregivers. They can’t take an early retirement as you dismissively said. My friend will likely be fine, the people these children bring the disease home to might not.

Here are 3 studies from the CDC on the effect of Covid precautions on school outbreaks. The evidence does exist. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0924-school-masking...

This!