Joe Biden Has No Realistic Plan To Reopen Schools

The first act of the final presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden centered on the two candidates’ very different approaches to reopening the country—schools in particular.

Asserting that the mitigation efforts to thwart COVID-19 cannot be worse than the disease itself, Trump echoed sentiments he has expressed since nearly the start of the pandemic. Biden, on the other hand, signaled a greater willingness to reimpose lockdowns on the areas of the country if coronavirus cases rise.

“I’m not shutting down today, but look, you need standards,” said Biden. “If you have a reproduction rate above a certain level, everybody says slow down, do not open bars and gymnasiums, until you get this under more control.”

On schools—a pivotal issue for many American families—Biden said that more funds were needed to make reopening safe: Schools need to be able to hire more teachers, improve their air filtration systems, provide socially distanced classrooms, and implement other procedures to counter the pandemic.

“Schools, they need a lot of money to open,” said Biden. “They need to deal with smaller classrooms.”

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