Canton doctor Gregory Healy, who contracted COVID-19 but recovered, says reopening schools will likely lead to deaths in the community.

“Please don't do this. Don't resume in-person schooling. We will certainly kill a lot of people who don't need to die. We won't kill any students, most likely. We will kill only a few teachers and school staff, probably less than a dozen (in St. Lawrence County). But we will kill a lot of other people in the community by spreading Covid-19 all over,” he said in a letter to North Country This Week.

“We have been lucky here in St. Lawrence County so far. We have fewer cases per capita than our Canadian neighboring counties to the north. We have provided excellent hospital care to those unfortunates who have come down with the disease and have achieved a relatively low death rate,” he said. But we should not become overconfident. Re-opening society has proven foolhardy and lethal elsewhere. Our bars and restaurants need to remain closed. And schools should not re-open.”

Healy said college reopenings present a danger for the county as well.

“The colleges are dangerous enough, mixing students from all over the country, or the world, just doesn't make sense. I cannot imagine what loving parent would even send their child to the U.S. right now. But college students at least can self-quarantine and not see their parents and grandparents,” he said.

Healy said the problems faced by sending children back to school could present negative repercussions for their grand parents.

“Our school children, on the other hand, will go home every day, bringing with them whatever diseases they encounter. And most of the children infected will have no symptoms at all. If we could check each one of them every day for the COVID virus with a perfectly reliable test then it might be safe to resume classes,” he said. “But we do not have that technology yet, not by a long shot.”

Healy said he is confused by the state’s decision to reopen schools and he urged parents to keep their kids at home.

“I don ' t understand the decision to re-open schools. I realize that daycare is a problem for many families whose parents work, but those parents have been doing something to solve that problem for months now. I realize that social programming uses schools to achieve its goals but this can, and should, be done on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “They can't make you send your child to school so please don't. Our family will not be sending our children to school. I urge you, if at all possible, to keep your kids at home. As for teachers and bus drivers, good luck ... and God bless.”