The evidence suggests that young children are less likely than their older siblings to become infected with Covid-19 and spread the infection. Wherever school reopening must be phased in, the process should start with elementary schools.

Unlike adolescents, young children cannot be left unsupervised. Reopening elementary schools—allowing hard-pressed parents to return to their jobs—would do more to ease tensions between work and family obligations than any other step.

Measures such as these can narrow the gap between the interests of children and adults in the school system. Even so, tough problems remain. Wherever schools remain closed, nonteaching staff, most of whose jobs cannot be done remotely, will be laid off in droves. Where schools reopen, teachers must ask themselves whether and to what extent they have a professional and moral obligation to take risks for the sake of their students.

No doubt they will be safer teaching remotely than in the classroom. Does this mean that they have the right not to re-enter the classroom, even if society does everything possible to keep them safe? If they are older or especially vulnerable, they do. If not, they don’t.