Costly and Ineffective School Closures

The New York Times published a story yesterday titled "What the Data Says About Pandemic School Closures, Four Years Later." The summary paragraph, toward the top, seems quite accurate to me:

A variety of data — about children’s academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 — has accumulated in the time since. Today, there is broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.

The story has significant information about the extent of the learning loss for children, which was worse for poor and minority kids.

This is not new information. My general recollection is that we've known this for a couple of years. I wonder why the NY Times is doing an article on this issue at the present time.

My principal purpose in this post is not to report the general facts, but rather to comment upon the explanation put forth by the authors of the NYT article, essentially to exonerate those who made such a bad decision.

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.

I don't think that this is true. I think that it is contradicted by the very links appearing in the article, which are reproduced above.

If you follow the link for "that had changed," you will find a NYT article dated June 12, 2020 on the issue. If you follow the link for "initial signs," you will find a scientific paper at PubMed dated August 2020, but indicating "Epub 2020 Jun 16."

I think that this is an example of how the NY Times subtly misleads us.

June 2020 is not "the fall of 2020." June 12, and June 16, are actually in the spring, technically. For school purposes, I could understand calling it "summer." But it ain't "fall."

The miniscule number of Covid deaths and hospitalizations for children was apparent well before June 2020. I did a post on April 2, 2020, here at Ricochet, showing this graphically, based on data from New York City. That was less than a month after the first shutdowns.

I guess that I feel a bit like Jeremiah.

Anyway, back to the question raised by the NY Times article published yesterday. Why now?

This month is the four-year anniversary of the shutdowns. It might be as simple as that.

Today -- March 19, 2024 -- is also the precise four-year anniversary of California Gov. Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home order, requiring all non-essential businesses to close.

Coincidence?

Perhaps. Keep your eyes open, though. It seems possible to me that this NY Times article is being issued as political cover for Newsom. You can guess why the NYT might want to provide political support for him at the present time.