Serious question. At this point, why can't teachers wear n95 masks? Data has shown they adequately protect even healthcare workers that are constantly exposed to heavy viral loads.
> “They said we’d have masks and face shields and everyone is going to be covered, but it’s a school district — sometimes we don’t have soap,” he said.
We've had trouble getting enough N95s for healthcare staff, let alone teachers.
Meanwhile multiple N95 production lines are sitting dormant in Texas and elsewhere. You're confusing not being willing to make masks with having trouble getting enough. No, we have no trouble getting enough. We have no willingness to make any. Those two couldn't be further from each other.
Even if N95 masks worked, do you think school districts will give every teacher an N95 mask every day? AFAIK there are way more teachers than "healthcare professionals" and we failed to get all the healthcare professionals N95 masks. I highly doubt we'd be able to get teachers the same amount.
That gets you only a small handful of reuses; it renders the mask safe pathogen-wise, but it doesn't clean the accumulated gunk out. A juicy sneeze will still render the mask useless.
Schools generally do not provide many supplies to teachers. Given that many teachers do not receive basic supplies like paper from the schools, why do you think schools would purchase sanitation machines and tens of thousands of N95 masks?
>why do you think schools would purchase sanitation machines and tens of thousands of N95 masks?
Because the alternative of telling parents that their kids are either not going to school or will have to attend from home is a worse option to some school districts.
Schools are on some level accountable to the communities they serve. If the community wants to blow a five figure sum so that parents can have their kids in "daycare with learning" and be freed to go back to work then I see no reason the school or municipal government couldn't make that happen.
There's tens of thousands of schools in the US. They're not all operating under the same constraints and likewise the decisions they make with regard of if/when/how to reopen are gonna have a lot of variation.
Healthcare workers are constantly replacing those masks with new masks and have vastly better protection than the average teacher, who usually has to buy their own supplies with their meager salaries.
