BERKELEY (KPIX) – With many teachers and their unions resisting the call for the reopening of schools, the issue has reached a political stalemate and a rally in Berkeley on Saturday highlighted the passion for both sides.
Parents, students and medical professionals gathered Saturday morning at a park next to Berkeley High to discuss the health effects of not being in school.
“We are seeing rising rates of depression, anxiety, social isolation, children falling more and more behind academic and social,” Dr. Dan Drozd, an infectious disease doctor, told the assembled crowd.
Even the CDC now says that with proper masking and proper social distancing, the risk of infection for teachers and students can be offset by the damage that occurs from keeping them at home.
“There is no evidence that opening schools with these precautions increases community transmission and the transmission rate in schools is extremely low,” said Dr. Shelene Stine, a doctor at East Bay Hospital. “We need to think about the safety of our teachers and children from both perspectives.”
But not everyone was willing to hear that.
“Don’t love your teachers! … We’ve had enough!” called Berkeley computer science teacher Masha Albrecht, who interrupted the rally, saying she doesn’t feel safe going back to the classroom no matter what the medical professionals say.
“I’m especially upset by doctors saying‘ listen to science ’as if we didn’t know how to read science,” he said. “I am a mathematician, I can read statistical studies. Nobody has shared anything with me that convinces me that it is safe to return to this school with a whole group of children ”.
This was answered by Noa Teiblum, a Berkeley senior.
“They are experts in infectious diseases!” she said. “I mean, who are you to think you have more to say when deciding what is safe or not than CDC infectious disease experts? It’s frustrating! ”
Both sides are frustrated and neither seems to trust what the other says. A division is opening up between parents and teachers who may continue to live after containing the virus.