One thing I am battling to make sense of is the closing of schools.
At first glance it seems sensible. Children can stay at home, don’t need to travel in these conditions to get to school etc. For us, it’s a non issue. Wife works for the university, which also cancelled all classes and told staff to stay home. I work from home anyway. Sure, productivity takes a nosedive needing to actually be parents for a full day for a change, but so what.
But for the real high risk people, whom they actually make these decisions for - they are in the poorer communities, and probably don’t really have the luxury of being able to take off work to look after kids. So now, there will be loads of unaccompanied minors staying at home in townships or informal settlements in these dangerous conditions without adult supervision.
Would it not be safer for them to be at school, where responsible adults can move them into safety in the school hall if needed, and where they get given a hot meal everyday at least (for many, their main meal of the day)?
I have worked in disaster management before, when I was working on projects in Mozambique, and I have a lot of respect for the people who do this full time. Doing the risk assessments, needing to issue directives based on that and then needing to stand by your decisions regardless of what happens is not an easy job, and these guys need to consider many different scenarios and datasets to do so.
But, with some of our local indigent communities, and I remember this from previous flood/weather scenarios, the school was often the safest place for these kids to be during these times.
