Pandemic School Closures Are an Indictment of America’s Covid Strategy
The fact that we still don’t have the testing capacity we need to ensure kids are safe in schools is the real problem.
Hey Friend — Today, I’m sharing with you my most recent piece in The New Republic. Here’s a preview of the piece, you can read the rest at newrepublic.com
I’m one of the millions of parents struggling with ad hoc childcare challenges as a result of pandemic-related school closure.
I’m also an epidemiologist and former city health director. I’ve spent my career dissecting and making difficult public health decisions, like those currently being made at school districts across the country. And yet I am flabbergasted that, entering year three of this pandemic, we’re still failing to provide basic, pandemic-fighting tools like tests, masks, and so on to teachers and school staff.
The narrative we keep hearing about school closures—a battle between teachers and parents over the safety of schools in the midst of an omicron surge—is missing the most important issue at the heart of this: the shortage of the very things that kept kids safe in schools prior to this surge….
Head on over to The New Republic to find the rest of the piece.
Reading and math skills have declined during the pandemic. You cite a study that compares the last two years against the non covid average. You seem to conclude that it was school closures that are the cause. Ut nothing you cite shows this. It merely shows covid years are worse than non covid ones. Might covid be the problem? How did schools that did not shut down do wrt the prior average? Did the pandemic not affect open schools at all? This is of some importance to your point, so any info you have would be appreciated.