How politicians and education officials engaged scared parents made all the difference.

Central Falls, Rhode Island and Clayton County, Georgia communicated with parents in very different ways.

As cases and deaths tragically rose in 2020, many American parents were understandably scared about the risk their children faced from Covid-19.

Turn on the TV? They saw this:

Trying to relax with some funny cat videos on YouTube? They were likely served advertisements like this one — extreme fear-mongering about school safety — from the Democratic National Committee:

But, across the Atlantic, where it wasn’t a presidential election year and public health institutions weren’t captured by partisan politics, schools were reopening as politicians and education leaders leaned into encouraging evidence about school safety and acknowledged trade-offs. In those countries, politicians generally…