Last week, Thomasi McDonald wrote about the Durham public school system’s plan to partially reopen despite rising COVID-19 cases in the state. The plan would see “a select group of students” returning to the classroom starting in January. Some readers had thoughts.

“This remote ish is NOT working!” wrote Facebook user VERONICA JAMES. “Not academically, emotionally, or mentally.”

“Well, now that the pandemic is the worst it has ever been and getting worse by the day, I guess it makes sense for the Pro-COVID crowd,” wrote BROCK SAYRE.

“We have schools open here—cases in the schools are very low,” replied JEFF VANWILLIGEN. “Classes are isolated from each other and many precautions [have been] put into place. As far as I know, there has been very, very low transmission with the schools. Most are linked to transmission out of the school.”

“I’d be fine with opening schools if the overall community rate was lower and everything else was being kept clamped down as much as possible,” SAYRE responded. “If schools being open was the riskiest thing going on, instead of leaving everything but schools open for months and letting the numbers explode.”

“I guess it also helps that we have a government that acknowledged there was a problem right away instead of insisting it was hoax,” VANWILLIGEN wrote.