Plans and demands for school reopenings are coming in fast and furious from government and nongovernment organizations alike. Some are hundreds of pages long, requiring a phalanx of Ph.Ds to sort through the details before implementation.

What seems universally clear is that no one is taking into account that the vast majority of us have immensely powerful immune systems that play a critical role in keeping us healthy and alive.

One plan calls for using sanitizing spray on all classroom surfaces multiple times per day, that children use hand sanitizer upon entering and exiting the classroom, and that all children and staff wear masks for the entire school day and of course, ensure social distancing. The bureaucrats at the CDC would be proud of the results.

But all of these "specialists" would have ignored the fact that from the day we are born we are assaulted by germs — by the millions, if not billions. Our very existence is dependent on a robust immune system — that is, the ability of our bodies to fight off any invasion of bacteria, viruses, fungus, mold, and other pathogens. Fortunately, we were created with a powerful internal standing army of cells ready to protect us in each battle and capable of winning most wars.

In order for our immune system to be prepared for those battles, it has to train regularly and bring new recruits to the effort. Even before we are born, our immune system is exposed to germs and working to protect us. The result is our body creates germ-specific special ops fighters to defeat a variety of enemies that life throws against us.

Each time we are exposed to new or old germs our immune system grows smarter and stronger. It is healthy and necessary for our very survival, to be exposed to different germs and to recover to fight another day. If we purposely prevent such exposure, we may gain in the short term, but we may also lose in devastating ways in the long term.