Are Teachers Like Nurses - Essential Workers? Are Expectations for a Covid-19 Vaccine Too High?

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "So I can understand that teachers are nervous about returning to school. But they should take a cue from their fellow essential workers and do their job. Even people who think there’s a fundamental difference between a nurse and a teacher in a pandemic must realize that there isn’t one between a grocery-store worker and a teacher, in terms of obligation. People who work at grocery stores in no way signed up to expose themselves to disease, but we expected them to go to work, and they did. If they had not, society would have collapsed. What do teachers think will happen if working parents cannot send their children to school? Life as we know it simply will not go on." This paragraph comes from an essay in the Atlantic titled: "I'm a Nurse.  Teachers Should Do Their Jobs, Just Like I Did."  It is written by Kristen McConnell. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/im-nurse-teachers-should-do-their-jobs-like-i-did/614902/ Zac and Don discuss if teachers should be considered essential workers like nurses.  They discuss if the hospital and school comparison is a fair one. Another Best Paragraph I've Read: "As the plot line advances, so do expectations: If people can muddle through a few more months, the vaccine will land, the pandemic will end and everyone can throw their masks away. But best-case scenarios have failed to materialize throughout the pandemic, and experts — who believe wholeheartedly in the power of vaccines — foresee a long path ahead. “It seems, to me, unlikely that a vaccine is an off-switch or a reset button where we will go back to pre-pandemic times,” said Yonatan Grad, an assistant professor of infectious diseases and immunology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Or, as Columbia University virologist Angela Rasmussen puts it, “It’s not like we’re going to land in Oz.” This paragraph comes from a Washington Post Article titled: "A Coronavirus vaccine won't change the world right away."  The article is written by Carolyn Y. Johnson. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/02/covid-vaccine/ Zac and Don discuss whether America has unrealistic expectations surrounding a Covid-19 vaccine.   Here is a link to the Bill Gates interview that Zac and Don refereced. https://www.wired.com/story/bill-gates-on-covid-most-us-tests-are-completely-garbage/