NY Times: Pandemic School Closures were Harmful and Useless

@wildgrass said
@no1marauder
I will add that other mitigation strategies (distancing, masking etc.) did work. Closing schools did not. This is good information to know going forward.

You're wrong and I sincerely hope that when the next pandemic comes along, authorities aren't as stupid as to keep open places where large groups of people are in close proximity for extended periods.

@wildgrass said
Your use of bolding is suspect. Why not here?

...the authors of the paper conceded that the certainty of the evidence was low.

Where's this paper? Slate's trying to put forward a thesis using the most persuasive info they can find, and "low certainty" is their best effort. It seems like the low certainty, in light of the many studies showing no benefit, wou ...[text shortened]... why the Slate author chose not to cite this):

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01571-8

That study concluded that reopening schools in the South led to a more than doubling of COVID cases.

EDIT: Sorry, it was the other paper you cited: "In the South, there was a significant and sustained increase in cases per week among counties that opened in a hybrid or traditional mode versus remote, with weekly effects ranging from 9.8 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.7–16.1) to 21.3 (95% CI = 9.9–32.7) additional cases per 100,000 persons, driven by increasing cases among 0–9 year olds and adults."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01563-8

@no1marauder said
You're wrong and I sincerely hope that when the next pandemic comes along, authorities aren't as stupid as to keep open places where large groups of people are in close proximity for extended periods.

You seem to be engaging in self-delusion, cherry picking your opinion pieces but not reading the science. Did you read this tour-de-force article in Nature Medicine? I think I posted in some other thread on the subject (you did not read then either).

"After controlling for case rate trends before school start, state-level mitigation measures and community activity level, SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates were not statistically different in counties with in-person learning versus remote school modes in most regions of the United States... Schools can reopen for in-person learning without substantially increasing community case rates of SARS-CoV-2."

The biggest effect they found, in some regions of the south where there were no mask wearing or other mitigation strategies, schools remaining closed could account for 9-20 additional COVID cases out of 100,000.

That's the biggest effect. Results varying so strongly by region, and those results being the greatest magnitude where other mitigation strategies were ignored, strongly suggests that other mitigation strategies worked far, far better than school closures.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01563-8

@no1marauder said
That study concluded that reopening schools in the South led to a more than doubling of COVID cases.

EDIT: Sorry, it was the other paper you cited: "In the South, there was a significant and sustained increase in cases per week among counties that opened in a hybrid or traditional mode versus remote, [b]with weekly effects ranging from 9.8 (95% confidence interval (CI) ...[text shortened]... reasing cases among 0–9 year olds and adults."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01563-8

Jah, mate. Think about the number of people that is. I'm glad you like the study. Same paper:

"There was no impact of school opening mode on subsequent COVID-19-related deaths during the entire 12-week period after school opening in any region"

@no1marauder said
That study concluded that reopening schools in the South led to a more than doubling of COVID cases.

EDIT: Sorry, it was the other paper you cited: "In the South, there was a significant and sustained increase in cases per week among counties that opened in a hybrid or traditional mode versus remote, [b]with weekly effects ranging from 9.8 (95% confidence interval (CI) ...[text shortened]... reasing cases among 0–9 year olds and adults."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01563-8

Look at Figure 2, mate, and tell me why a parent (forced to work from home or quit or hire a full time tutor) shouldn't be absolutely furious at Kristi Noem (governor in S. Dakota) allowing schools to stay closed for zero benefit on COVID transmission rate?

@wildgrass said
Look at Figure 2, mate, and tell me why a parent (forced to work from home or quit or hire a full time tutor) shouldn't be absolutely furious at Kristi Noem (governor in S. Dakota) allowing schools to stay closed for zero benefit on COVID transmission rate?

Sorry, but I don't treat such a study with such radically different results in geographic areas that are inconsistent with the vast majority of other studies and with common sense as the final, conclusive word (which even the study admits it isn't)..

@no1marauder said
Sorry, but I don't treat such a study with such radically different results in geographic areas that are inconsistent with the vast majority of other studies and with common sense as the final, conclusive word (which even the study admits it isn't)..

You keep writing vast majority of other studies but that's demonstrably wrong. Your slate article could barely find an article with a weak correlation.

Common sense? Sure. That's fun. We had a period of time in our country when the city NFL stadium seating 80,000 fans was open and sold out, but the local school was closed. Does common sense tell you that school closures made one iota of difference on transmission?

I've played this game on this board with other COVID minimizers, deniers and anti-vaxxers where they find one outlier study out of the thousands made regarding such issues and they treat it as gospel because it agrees with their preconceived, ideological position. They aren't following the "science" as they claim but merely trying to bolster absurd positions by extreme cherry picking, often ignoring most of the data in their own links.

Anyone who stubbornly insists that in person learning during a pandemic of a deadly, contagious disease does not have any effect whatsoever on transmission rates is non-serious.

@wildgrass said
You keep writing vast majority of other studies but that's demonstrably wrong. Your slate article could barely find an article with a weak correlation.

Common sense? Sure. That's fun. We had a period of time in our country when the city NFL stadium seating 80,000 fans was open and sold out, but the local school was closed. Does common sense tell you that school closures made one iota of difference on transmission?

You keep misquoting the Slate article and the link it provided; it did not reference one study but 132 to create a megadata approach to the problem. Perhaps you don't understand what that means but the fact that those who complied such a large sample of various studies couldn't state with a large statistical certainty an ultimate conclusion is hardly surprising. Nonetheless, the evidence cited points to the utterly logical result that leaving large numbers of persons in close proximity during an outbreak of a deadly, highly contagious disease would result in higher rates of transmission of that disease.

I'm unimpressed by your foot stamping insistence to the contrary.

@no1marauder said
I've played this game on this board with other COVID minimizers, deniers and anti-vaxxers where they find one outlier study out of the thousands made regarding such issues and they treat it as gospel because it agrees with their preconceived, ideological position. They aren't following the "science" as they claim but merely trying to bolster absurd positions by extreme ch ...[text shortened]... deadly, contagious disease does not have any effect whatsoever on transmission rates is non-serious.

Fuggoutahere. You know I'm not an anti vaxxer or any of that other BS. Quit the name calling.

Respond to the data from major medical journals. Those articles say the schools who stayed closed did not help the COVID response in a meaningful way.

Clutch your pearls. I know it's hard to admit you're wrong. If all US schools opened full time in person in fall 2020, the data suggests it'd have very little impact. Mostly this is because of all the other stuff we did wrong. Let dad go to the football game but junior can't go to school ? Fn backwards.

@wildgrass said
Fuggoutahere. You know I'm not an anti vaxxer or any of that other BS. Quit the name calling.

Respond to the data from major medical journals. Those articles say the schools who stayed closed did not help the COVID response in a meaningful way.

Clutch your pearls. I know it's hard to admit you're wrong. If all US schools opened full time in person in fall 2020, the da ...[text shortened]... er stuff we did wrong. Let dad go to the football game but junior can't go to school ? Fn backwards.

I've already sufficiently responded to a single journal article that claims parts of the country had double the number of COVID cases when schools were re-opened for in-school instruction as far as your claim that such a result didn't exist. The study itself makes no claims like the ones you do, has incredibly improbable and contradictory results and offers no logical explanation for such wide variances (it admits it's only "observational"😉.

If that's what your hanging your hat on for the unbelievable claim that putting large groups in close proximity for extended periods of time during a pandemic has no effect whatsoever on transmission (in opposition to virtually to the vast majority of other studies even though they admit there are confounding factors making the extent of, not the existence of that reality, hard to measure) - well good luck. You're following in MB's and Wajoma's footsteps.

@no1marauder said
I've already sufficiently responded to a single journal article that claims parts of the country had double the number of COVID cases when schools were re-opened for in-school instruction as far as your claim that such a result didn't exist. The study itself makes no claims like the ones you do, has incredibly improbable and contradictory results and offers no logical ex ...[text shortened]... of that reality, hard to measure) - well good luck. You're following in MB's and Wajoma's footsteps.

you just don’t get it do you?

@wajoma said
No ijit, the Great Barrington Declaration

https://gbdeclaration.org/

Stupid.

You really are gullible, aren't you?

In what other ways does fear rule your life?

Or do you just hate the idea of keeping your brats home with you all day SOOO much that you now have to lash out at the people who were saving lives for making you do something you didn't wanna do? Do you hate society that much? Lives were saved. No amount of your "but I don't WANNA stay home!!!!" is going to convince me, sorry.

@mott-the-hoople said
you just don’t get it do you?

And yet you authoritarians are fine with telling women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies, but stay home so I don't spread a fatal disease? No way!!!


Just what is wrong with you?

@suzianne said
Stupid.

You really are gullible, aren't you?

In what other ways does fear rule your life?

Or do you just hate the idea of keeping your brats home with you all day SOOO much that you now have to lash out at the people who were saving lives for making you do something you didn't wanna do? Do you hate society that much? Lives were saved. No amount of your "but I don't WANNA stay home!!!!" is going to convince me, sorry.

"Fear", I'm the one here that didn't let the bogeyman flu and goobermint propaganda rule my life through fear.

BTW it's safe to say you didn't check out The Great Barrington Declaration, correct? Or you'd have some intelligent response to it? One of the founders is a pro-juicer.