I was right about COVID and school closures
It was a huge mistake and the Atlantic agrees with me
From Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/photos/library-books-bookshelves-bookcases-1147815/
During the COVID pandemic, many, if not most, schools closed for extended periods, forcing students to do online remote learning. I argued at many times that this was a huge mistake. The argument for open schools rests on three very strong empirical facts:
Mortality and morbidity for COVID is strongly associated with age. Few kids die or suffer serious consequences from COVID infections. Up to Nov 2022, the CDC reports about that about 1,400 people age 18 or younger died from COVID, which is about the same as auto accident deaths for young people (about 800 per year or 1,600 for a two year period). COVID death among kids is a little higher than deaths from influenza (about 480 per year or 960 for the same time period). In other words, COVID is a health risk for kids similar to cars and flu, which we all live with every day.
Open schools are associated with very small increases in infection rates in the surrounding community.
Closed schools directly impose large costs on children and parents.
In terms of timing, we knew as early at Spring 2020 that kids are simply at very low risk for serious harm from COVID. In terms of open schools and local community infection, we knew this sometime in the Summer or early Fall of 2020. And we all know that kids and parents greatly benefit from open schools - the learning, social life, and simply allowing parents to work.
Now the Atlantic, and others such as Emily Oster, have come out to say that school closures were a serious mistake. The Atlantic article summarizes extremely large losses of learning due to remote learning:
A 2022 Ohio State University study of declines in student achievement from March 2020 to spring 2021 came to a similar conclusion. Districts with fully remote instruction saw declines in test scores “up to three times greater than districts that had in-person instruction for the majority of the school year,” the researchers wrote. Once again, the declines were particularly stark for lower-achieving and minority students. Finally, a forthcoming paper from several economists, including the Atlantic contributor Emily Oster, finds that in-person learning softened the blow of the pandemic on achievement scores. Comparing students within commuting zones, those who attended school fully in person saw smaller declines in pass rates on standardized tests than those who went remote. Once again, the penalty for moving away from in-person learning was greatest “for districts with larger populations of Black students.”
Furthermore, the Atlantic notes that other nations opened schools as early as Fall 2020. In other words, the closure of the school system was a self-inflicted wound.
I remain exasperated at the public health profession for its behavior during COVID. Instead of relying on very good information about risk differences to design interventions targeted on high-risk groups, we got mass quarantines. They should have been the public face of a series of policies designed to allow most of society to continue, especially for young people. Instead, we got panic.
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My books: Grad Skool Rulz - cheap advice manual for grad students / The history of Black Studies / Obama and the antiwar movement / A Social Theory book you will enjoy reading / Intro Sociology for $1 per chapter