As much of the nation considers reopening its schools, author Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, recently told Fox News that resuming in-person education is the right choice and not as risky as some believe. 

Berenson told the news station that the COVID-19 pandemic requires a response similar to what a society would do in the case of a flu. 

“You don't shut down the schools,” he said. “You know, maybe you temporarily shut them down if there's a large rash of cases for a week or two. But you don't shut down the schools. You don't shut down society. You don't force people to wear masks in public unless there's really good evidence that doing so is going to reduce transmission, which we don't have.”

Alex Berenson | YouTube

Berenson is advocating for schools to reopen in the fall, explaining that most countries have already opened and resumed classes. The reason he is so confident about schools reopening is that children are remarkably unlikely to contract the virus, he says. Children are at a higher risk of contracting the flu, drowning, dying in a fire or a plethora of other risks, but the virus itself poses a very small risk to the younger population, he told the station. 

“Australia, Switzerland, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, some of the wealthiest countries in the world, countries where they really care about children, where they have a lot of childcare policies and maternity leave, paternity leave policies that people on the left would love for the United States,” Berenson said. “They have their schools open. Our schools should be open.”

Although Berenson was supportive of the country being shut down for a week or two earlier this year, at this point he believes the risk of “societal collapse” to be greater than the virus itself. 

Berenson is the author of “Unreported Truths About COVID-19 and Lockdowns.”