A Yale professor’s brutally honest email about COVID-19 underscores how messed up things are

[Andy Meek]

• When it comes to schools reopening around the country, we're seeing the same story play out in many communities at the moment -- schools reopen, coronavirus cases are found, and a major course-correction has to be made.
• A Yale University professor recently sent out a pretty blunt, uncomfortably honest email to students, saying they should "emotionally prepare" themselves for death around them as they return to campus.
• The warning comes as more than 173,000 people have now died in the US from the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Did anyone really think that our attempt at some sort of semi-normal reopening of schools would play out any differently than what we're seeing unfold right now across the US? In communities around the country, we're seeing a pattern keep repeating itself because of the coronavirus pandemic -- a school reopens, cases are identified, and everyone quickly reverses course, most often via a closure and transition away from in-person learning.

In some communities, there are stories of teachers being required to sign coronavirus liability waivers, which state that by signing the document the teacher understands that they risk being exposed to the COVID-19 virus. Meanwhile, because of the stories about closures that keep piling up, one teacher in Kansas decided to launch a national database to track all of the school closings and related coronavirus cases around the country as they multiply. For me, though, few things have underscored how messed up things are right now when it comes to our perilous national experiment to reopen schools than an email that Yale Head of College and psychology professor Laurie Santos sent out to students recently, warning them in blunt terms not to expect a normal college experience -- and even to "emotionally prepare" for death around them.

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A Yale professor’s brutally honest email about COVID-19 underscores how messed up things are originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 20 Aug 2020 at 10:02:10 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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