Vì sao chống dịch Covid-19 lần hai đơn giản?

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Hi, Dan.

As a teacher, I’ve been closely following the debate (thảo luận) over whether to reopen schools (mở lại trường học). My school district closed in March when there were just a handful of cases in the state. Now we have thousands of cases, but the schools are planning to reopen in the fall. Why have people’s perceptions of Covid-19 risk changed so much in the last few months?

—Ashe 

Deciding whether to reopen schools involves balancing many factors—not just the quality of remote versus in-person instruction but student’s need for school lunches (ăn trưa bán trú) and the economic burden of child care on working parents (gánh nặng kinh tế của việc chăm sóc trẻ em đặt lên vai các bậc phụ huynh). Our perception of risk (nhận thức/quan niệm về rủi ro), however, has been affected (bị ảnh hưởng/tác động) over the last five months by what psychologists call habituation (tập cho ai/cho mình quen với cái gì). When Covid-19 began to spread, the unknown nature of the virus and the rapid increase in hospitalizations (nhập viện) and deaths created widespread (lan rộng) fear (nỗi sợ hãi), making people very unwilling to take risks.

That level of alarm is hard to sustain. In general, people adapt to new realities surprisingly quickly. The danger of Covid-19 hasn’t gone away—in fact, in many places it’s worse than ever—but we soon stop paying as much attention to frightening statistics and headlines. We may start lowering our guard in small ways—forgetting to wear a mask or leaving our “bubble” to visit a parent or friend. When it comes to schools, the benefits of reopening now feel bigger to many people than the dangers, simply because we’ve gotten used to living in a risky environment.

Bài trước: Rất khó