Dr. Oz, a Harvard graduate, television personality, cardiothoracic surgeon, and Columbia professor, was recently on Fox News. In his interview, he said, "I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3 percent, in terms of total mortality... that might be a tradeoff some folks would consider."

With coronavirus (COVID-19) spreading through community spread, even if the numbers are low in terms of total mortality for the whole country, that is still putting lots of people at risk for catching the disease. Dr. Oz is arguing that it might be acceptable to put people's lives at risk and to let the total mortality rate increase, just so children can get back into a physical classroom.

While many Americans desperately want to get back to their normal routines and lives, we all need to understand the risk the disease has of spreading even further if we push to get back to normal life before we really have this disease under control.

Dr. Oz has a massive following. He commands a following of 1 million people on Instagram and a following of 4 million followers on Twitter. When Dr. Oz speaks, he is not just speaking to a small fraction of our society, he's speaking to a massive following that believes in him and what he says.

Saying something like this is dangerous. Death is not worth sending our children back to schools. No matter how small the cost might be, it will always be the death of Americans.