 So, I want to take some time to talk about something that happened in May and it's only a new story now because we're all just finding out about this. But this story is important because it really highlights the importance of having the right policies, you know, mask mandates, social distancing in schools to make sure that we protect children and their parents. But equally important is the necessity of enforcing these policies because you could have the correct policies, but if they're not actually enforced and nobody follows it, it's not going to make much of a difference. And that's what this story here is about. Now keep in mind this took place in May and this story relates to the former COVID-19 strains, not the Delta variant. So if this story talks about a massive outbreak relating to the original COVID-19 strain presumably then imagine how bad things can be this time around if something like this happens again. So this is about a teacher who infected lots of students because she did not follow the proper protocols. So as Mary Popinfoos of HuffPost writes, a single unvaccinated teacher at a Northern California school triggered a COVID-19 outbreak in May that infected 26 others including a total of 18 students, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday. News of the startling rapid spread in the school and to students families emerged as administrators grappled with vaccine and mask regulations for another school year in the face of Republican governor's blocking mask mandates. At least 90,000 students across the nation have already been quarantined at the start of this school year after contracting COVID-19 or being potentially exposed to the coronavirus. Children accounted for more than one in five new cases last week according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The recent case examined by the CDC involves a Marin County school with 205 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. Although teachers and students at the school were required to wear masks and maintain social distancing indoors, the unidentified teacher who caused the infections had removed her mask on occasion to read aloud in her class the CDC noted. Student desks were placed six feet apart, windows were left open and all classrooms had high efficiency air filters the study noted. The teacher worked on May 19th and 20th while experiencing early COVID-19 symptoms before testing positive and taking sick leave. By May 22nd, students also began experiencing symptoms the CDC reported. Of the teacher's 24 students, 12 tested positive, eight of them were seated in the first two rows of the classroom. An additional six students in another grade also tested positive, parents and siblings of students in both grades were also infected, three of the adults who tested positive were fully vaccinated according to the CDC. So look, I just spoke with an epidemiologist about this very thing and I posted a video about this on the channel about the potential, you know, transmissibility of the Delta variant among children as kids enter a new school year. And Dr. Caitlyn Jettalina said that, you know, you can actually have kids return to school in person relatively safely by doing mask mandates, you know, social distancing. And there weren't as many cases with kids, you know, last year. But things like this explain how it can be a disaster. If you have one teacher not follow the proper protocols, she took off her mask to read aloud to the students. You don't have to take off your mask to read aloud. We can still hear you. The students can still hear you. So her recklessness led to multiple children being infected. And if this is what the older strain, the original strain, imagine what can happen this time. If a teacher does this with the Delta variant, how many more people will get infected? Now what this also speaks to is the importance of educating children about the dangers of COVID-19. I'm not saying that we teach children to be overly fearful and we teach them to become hypochondriacs. Like, that's not what I'm advocating for, but children need to know about the dangers of COVID-19. So that way if they see behavior that's improper, they know to report that to someone. Tell their parents about it. If their teacher is taking off their mask and reading to them, let someone know, right? Because this is a very contagious deadly virus, so they have to know what to look for. Kids are smart enough if you just explain it to them. And I see all these really weird posts on Facebook, this concern trolling using kids as a political tool to explain how we shouldn't have mask mandates because it's child abuse. People who say that don't take them seriously. Do not take them seriously. It doesn't have to be this scary thing like, oh, we're going to put a mask on you kids. Make them pick out a mask that they like. I don't know, a princess mask. If I were a kid, I would think that I was dressing up as a ninja or something. Kids love wearing masks during Halloween. It doesn't have to be the scary thing, but kids need to know what's happening in the world. Educating children is really important, especially if you have a lot of teachers who probably, like other individuals, are anti-mask, anti-vax. So from time to time, maybe they violate protocol, but this story shows the severity of what could happen if they're not following this procedure. I mean, kids, they have to know what to look out for. They should know that during a pandemic, taking off your mask in public is inexcusable. So they should be able to look out for someone who's not doing what they should be doing. And it's hard because there's not a lot of adults currently who are good examples when, you know, we've politicized this pandemic. Or when I say we, I mean, Republicans have politicized this pandemic, but still, like this is this is awful. It's scary. So, look, I mean, all that we can do is educate children as much as we possibly can, but, you know, sending them back to school, if we're not enforcing these mask mandates that are in place, then they're going to be useless. They only work if people actually abide by these rules. And, you know, I don't want to train kids to be narks, you know, and tattletail on people. But this is a pandemic. This is a unique time. It's a bizarre time to be alive. So we need to make sure that kids are protected and they know that their teacher isn't, you know, going to follow the procedures. They can either tell someone about it or confront their teacher themselves. I mean, this is people's lives we're talking about. This is children getting infected. So they need to know what to look for. This is, this is horrifying.