In America, this decision spills over from the deeply personal to the openly political. In Canada, our choice is disconnected from how we voted in the last election. Thank Heavens.

Still, virtually every family of Canada’s 5.5 million elementary and secondary school students is gnawing over how and when to send their kids back to school — as are Canada’s 15,500  schools over how and when to take them and teach them without turning their classroom into a COVID petri dish.

These are all urgent questions because they’re life-and-death ones.