This heartbreaking New York Times story is a perfect example of why I don’t support remote options.

Parents have struggled to assess risk during the pandemic.

I wrote last year that so-called remote options — offered by Atlanta, Los Angeles, and other U.S. cities, but uncommon in Europe — are a potential child rights issue, because children may be forced into remote instruction by scared parents when the ideal learning environment for the vast majority of children is the classroom. After reading an article today about parents isolating their unvaccinated children, I am more confident than ever about the potential harms of remote options.

In the article, parents describe how they’ve basically kept their unvaccinated children under five in extreme lockdown-type conditions since March 2020. It is heartbreaking to read.

Ms. Pratt’s son Julian is now 2½ and curious about everything. She ticked off what he missed as other Americans got vaccinated and returned “to the comfort of familiar routines and everyday freedom”:

“He has never even been to a grocery store or a mall,” she wrote. “Never gone trick-or-treating with friends. Never sat on Santa’s lap. Never been to an indoor family gathering. He has yet to meet or spend time with the majority of our friends and family.

“We are on the inside, looking out,” she wrote.