Economics is a quantitative science. How many elderly teachers are there? You know, how many not elderly teachers maybe live with their parent or have an elderly spouse at home)? We can calculate and I wrote a paper calculating these kinds of things. And yes, there were even if I acknowledge that there would be some extra deaths by having schools open,. They would be quite rare compared to all the lost human capital among the children. So that's a very strong economic case for having the schools open.
When there's no vaccine on the market, people will look for other ways to be safe, including school closures and the handwashing of groceries. Listen as economist Casey Mulligan of the University Chicago talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the costs of delaying a vaccine, the hidden costs of FDA regulation, and what we learned and failed to learn about the Covid pandemic.