NY Times: Pandemic School Closures were Harmful and Useless

@wildgrass said
I mean, it's not opinion. The referenced articles in the NYT are highly rigorous scientific research from major medical journals. Sometimes needs to be dumbed down for the rest of us, but you're welcome to read them and provide a real rebuttal of the findings.

The article has no links to "highly rigorous scientific research from major medical journals." Here's the entirety of its discussion regarding the health benefits of school "closures":

"Perhaps the biggest question that hung over school reopenings: Was it safe?

That was largely unknown in the spring of 2020, when schools first shut down. But several experts said that had changed by the fall of 2020, when there were initial signs that children were less likely to become seriously ill, and growing evidence from Europe and parts of the United States that opening schools, with safety measures, did not lead to significantly more transmission.

“Infectious disease leaders have generally agreed that school closures were not an important strategy in stemming the spread of Covid,” said Dr. Jeanne Noble, who directed the Covid response at the U.C.S.F. Parnassus emergency department.

Politically, though, there remains some disagreement about when, exactly, it was safe to reopen school.

Republican governors who pushed to open schools sooner have claimed credit for their approach, while Democrats and teachers’ unions have emphasized their commitment to safety and their investment in helping students recover.

“I do believe it was the right decision,” said Jerry T. Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which resisted returning to school in person over concerns about the availability of vaccines and poor ventilation in school buildings. Philadelphia schools waited to partially reopen until the spring of 2021, a decision Mr. Jordan believes saved lives.

“It doesn’t matter what is going on in the building and how much people are learning if people are getting the virus and running the potential of dying,” he said."

That isn't very specific nor does it deny that there was some health benefits. How many approximately were saved from death, hospitalization and sickness by these measures even if some "experts" say in school learning didn't lead to "significantly more transmission"? I also note that the type of "safety measures" recommended to resume in-person learning like say the mandatory wearing of face masks was strongly opposed by the same folks who now feel like they can run a victory lap based on such opinion pieces (sh76 claimed it would be "torture" to require a student to wear a face mask).

Absent a full and realistic assessment of the health benefits the policy obtained (an approximation would do but I've never even seen that), it is impossible to claim that the early resumption of in-school learning was worth the costs.

@mott-the-hoople said
not true…the money was not given to them and they did not steal it. as opposed to you bottom dwellers being given my tax dollars

black

Never heard of the largest welfare system in the world?

It's called Corporate Welfare. This is where the government gives them money, mainly in the form of Trump tax cuts and over-the-top defense contracts.

And they do steal it from their consumers. They laugh at the concept of "value per dollar". Ever hear of shrinkflation? This is getting more money for less product. I'd call that stealing. And their employees. They'd be nothing without the people they pay minimum wage to making them rich. More stealing.

@mott-the-hoople said
only an idiot could read that chart and say lockdowns were a good thing

You misspelled 'bad thing'.

Lives were saved.

@mott-the-hoople said
You might want to check some of the latest polls…seems an overwhelming majority agree with me. 😉

More victims of the greatest con man the world has ever seen.

@wajoma said
Agreed wildgrass, the only thing Trump did wrong during the wuflu drama was bend to the so called power tripping experts. History has totally vindicated the anti-lock downers.

Never again, people need resist more next time, a lot more.

"Next time?" you ask. That's right, the next time they pull this stunt you better grow a pair.

' "Emergencies" have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded' Hayek

Like Trump was "vindicated" by the Mueller Report?

@suzianne said
Like Trump was "vindicated" by the Mueller Report?

No ijit, the Great Barrington Declaration

https://gbdeclaration.org/

@suzianne said
You misspelled 'bad thing'.

Lives were saved.

Not compared to countries that didn't lock down, therefore the lock downs cost lives.

@no1marauder said
The article has no links to "highly rigorous scientific research from major medical journals." Here's the entirety of its discussion regarding the health benefits of school "closures":

"Perhaps the biggest question that hung over school reopenings: Was it safe?

That was largely unknown in the spring of 2020, when schools first shut down. But several experts s ...[text shortened]... hat), it is impossible to claim that the early resumption of in-school learning was worth the costs.

The article has no links to "highly rigorous scientific research from major medical journals." ... Absent a full and realistic assessment of the health benefits the policy obtained (an approximation would do but I've never even seen that), it is impossible to claim that the early resumption of in-school learning was worth the costs.

Sure, mate. I feel we've been down this same path before, and you seem uninterested in actually seeking information on the subject. Of course these assessments have been done. But it isn't easy to compare the societal value of losing kids' brain cells (who will eventually grow up), the lost earning potential of low-income families (because their kids can't go to school), against the possibility that grandma may die a few years early. The math is hard, and the "worth" depends on perspective, but the studies have been done.

Here's just one of the articles linked in the NYT article you apparently didn't see.

"Given the strong connection between education, income, and life expectancy, historical school closures have long-term deleterious consequences for child health, likely reaching into adulthood. School closures also affect parents’ ability to work."

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30095-X/fulltext

Here's one that wasn't directly cited by NYT reporters, but tests to the point:

"...keeping lower-secondary schools open had minor consequences for the overall transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in society."

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2020834118

Overall lockdown efforts (not school-specific) had a dramatic effect EARLY, but after it was everywhere, blanket district-wide school closures were meaningless from a transmission standpoint and clearly detrimental to child welfare.

@wajoma said
Agreed wildgrass, the only thing Trump did wrong during the wuflu drama was bend to the so called power tripping experts. History has totally vindicated the anti-lock downers.

Never again, people need resist more next time, a lot more.

"Next time?" you ask. That's right, the next time they pull this stunt you better grow a pair.

' "Emergencies" have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded' Hayek

Of course, but isn't not bending to so called power tripping experts the entire point of leadership?

Trump was a terrible leader because he told his minions at the CDC and DOE to do one thing while the cameras and social media weren't running, then he back-door undermined all those minions on camera, blamed them for all the problems.

Many Republican governors followed suit. These were leaders, they were in the meetings that decided to lock schools down, they voted. Then, the politician had their unelected bureaucrat deliver the news to media, released a statement saying they disagreed with the person they hired to do the job, and all the sycophants went along with it.

Sheep. All y'all. The politicians are playing you.

@no1marauder

In person schooling has clear, obvious benefits. For the period of time when we had NFL stadiums open, kids camps, children's museums, zoos, kids soccer/basketball/wrestling all going on full-tilt, all of this stuff was open but the schools were freakin' closed?

Net negative on society. I blame Trump.

@wildgrass said

The article has no links to "highly rigorous scientific research from major medical journals." ... Absent a full and realistic assessment of the health benefits the policy obtained (an approximation would do but I've never even seen that), it is impossible to claim that the early resumption of in-school learning was worth the costs.

Sure, mate. I feel we've ...[text shortened]... re, blanket district-wide school closures were meaningless and clearly detrimental to child welfare.

It's absurd to keep discussing these matters with people so prone to histrionics as to claim an, at most, small drop in test scores is akin to "losing kids' brain cells". And neither one of those links is very helpful to your arguments when looked at rationally.

The first is a very early study (April 2020) looking at data from prior outbreaks of non-COVID pandemics. Even at that, it says:

" Recent modelling studies of COVID-19 predict that school closures alone would prevent only 2–4% of deaths," (In the 2020-21 school year, there were more than 400,000 deaths caused by COVID19 in the US meaning "only" 8,000 to 16,000 lives would have been saved even if this lowball estimate is accepted)."

The second is even worse for you though it is, again, an early study (February 2021) concentrating on only one country (in this case Sweden). It says:

" We find that exposure to open schools resulted in a small increase in infections among parents. Among teachers, the infection rate doubled, and infections spilled over to their partners. "

Sorry, but these studies both show that school "closures" had clear health benefits.

I will forego comment on your idiotic "grandma may die a few years early" sneer but it would probably be best if you simply deleted it.

@sh76 said
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/upshot/pandemic-school-closures-data.html

History is coming for the into-2021 school closure champions.

Of course closing schools is never a good thing.

But, sometimes you have to make tough decisions based on the information at hand.

And evaluations shouldn’t be about pointing fingers, they should increase knowledge so better decisions can be made in the future.

Typical, ill-informed, extremist malarkey.

Oh, and by the way, studies have shown that missing out on the last year of primary school does not have any serious or long lasting effect on students.
And since that last year is basically a round-up of what’s already been taught, it is also used to being students up to the norm for going to high school. So, basically, missing 1 year of education isn’t a tragedy.

Obviously “preferably not” , but if it happens, the world isn’t going to end.

@mott-the-hoople said
somehow you think your post addresses SH.’s post?

It does though because I’m saying that claiming school closures are harmful is like claiming water is wet, but Covid was deadly, debilitating and had the potential to wipe out your medical care system

@shavixmir said
Of course closing schools is never a good thing.

But, sometimes you have to make tough decisions based on the information at hand.

And evaluations shouldn’t be about pointing fingers, they should increase knowledge so better decisions can be made in the future.

Typical, ill-informed, extremist malarkey.

Oh, and by the way, studies have shown that missing out on ...[text shortened]... on isn’t a tragedy.

Obviously “preferably not” , but if it happens, the world isn’t going to end.

===Oh, and by the way, studies have shown that missing out on the last year of primary school does not have any serious or long lasting effect on students.===

What about the first year? Or second?

Not every child was in his/her last year of primary school in 2021.

Anyway, as I've been on record saying many times, I don't blame anyone for closing schools in the initial panic of the Spring of 2020. I blame those who made the same decisions after there had been plenty of time to clear their heads.


===Typical, ill-informed, extremist malarkey.===

I have to ask. do you have digital Tourette's or something? I notice this over and over again with you, where you are in the middle of what is otherwise a normal, level-headed post, and all of a sudden you lash out into nobody-can-really-tell-what; and then you go right back to "normal." Like, seriously, what's up with that? Is it just a rule you have that every post has to have at least one wild element?

@no1marauder said
It's absurd to keep discussing these matters with people so prone to histrionics as to claim an, at most, small drop in test scores is akin to "losing kids' brain cells". And neither one of those links is very helpful to your arguments when looked at rationally.

The first is a very early study (April 2020) looking at data from prior outbreaks of non-COVID pandemics. Ev ...[text shortened]... ic "grandma may die a few years early" sneer but it would probably be best if you simply deleted it.

These are the highly cited seminal papers, something like 2,000 plus citations in follow up studies so it was correct for NYT to use it in their analysis. More recent studies are still using this datasi your "early" criticism isn't founded. It fits the time period being discussed here, and the conclusions drawn in the NYT article are supported by this rigorous well controlled dataset.