Rhode Island needs a reset of its attitude on COVID, because we’re compounding and extending the economic damage we’ve done through our reaction to the coronavirus by amping up psychological damage to our children.  Courtney Carter reports on WPRI:

When kids return to summer camp this year, they’ll still need to bring their face masks with them.

The Rhode Island Department of Health said as it stands right now, kids won’t need to wear masks while they’re outside, but they’re expecting further guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) within the coming weeks.

“Right now, the CDC is thinking about summer camps like school settings,” Joseph Wendelken, a spokesperson for RIDOH said. “That means that all children should continue to wear masks, whether they are fully vaccinated or not.”

I’ve fallen a bit more on the side of vaccination, including for minors, than some on the political right on the grounds that, though the risk of harm from the virus is small, the risk of harm from the vaccine appears to be smaller.  The fact remains, however, that the risk of harm from the virus is incredibly small among teenagers and children.

That means that the risk of psychological trauma from having to feel like the world is always and everywhere a deadly place where the air can kill is greater.

Let’s remember all those lessons about how contagion spreads that the news media promoted as part of the propaganda effort to “flatten the curve” last year.  There was one interactive tool (which I can’t find right now) that showed how a virus spreads through a population.  Dots moving across the screen changed color when they touched dots that were red to represent infected people, and then they turned another color when they recovered and were immune.  Eventually, the virus can’t get from an infected person to anybody who is no longer not immune.  This is herd immunity.

COVID isn’t a demon floating in the air seeking somebody to infect; except for brief jumps, it’s trapped in the people who have it.  If the state has herd immunity, the virus can’t get to kids at camp, and even if it does, the danger to them is vanishingly small.  If the people they encounter outside of camp, family or otherwise, are immune after infection or vaccination, those people are not at risk even if the children become contagious.  (And if adults aren’t immune, at this point, that’s a decision they have made.)

Let the kids have an unencumbered summer.  We’ve done enough to harm them already.

Featured image by Lee Vue.