Many conservatives have criticized teachers' unions for being reluctant to return to the classroom, quoting the experts who say almost no children experience Covid as worse than a cold. For now, let's assume the experts are correct.
For the first 5+ years of our marriage my wife, who subsequently became "the other DrC," was an elementary school teacher. After earning her PhD, she taught people to become elementary school teachers which, in part, involved coaching student teachers.
In the early years she got sick a lot, because the children would bring bacteria and viruses to school and inadvertently share them. Later she would note that student teachers got sick a lot, with something medical folks call the "pediatric crud," generic slang for the many respiratory diseases which circulate in a child population.
If adult school personnel are concerned about catching things the children bring to school, it is only because they've experienced it repeatedly. Eventually they build up immunity to the usual cold viruses, and are ill no more often than anyone else.
My experience suggests school personnel view the various strains of Covid-19 as "new" viruses to which they've no hard-won immunity. They are loath to go through the get-sick process once more, especially since a fair number of adults are having a hard time with the corona virus, even dying from it.
In addition, some percentage of them are in the so-called "sandwich generation" who are also taking care of elderly at-risk parents to whom they don't want to bring the virus.
