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Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

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Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#61

Post by saiya-jin »

robomartin wrote: post #25

This whole narrative is insane. I can't help but think there's an underlying objective to drive for additional funding to fix a problem that does not exist. Kids did not go from learning 100% to 0%. Let's make an argument that, perhaps (and I don't believe this either) they learned 50% of what they would have learned in person. Half. OK. How much harm does that cause? For reference, I have two kids who went remote th…

You are making it sound like the main thing we learn at school are hard facts and memorizing. As you yourself point out, that's hardly the case and most of us can attest how little we recall from those classes we didn't care about (and later in life discovered how amazing and highly logical topics they actually were).

The key is social interaction. The most important thing you can teach your small kid (2-4 of age) according to psychologists is to be well socially integrated. Its a major booster for rest of the life, and also in cumulative form. And it transfers also to later age. This was completely taken from all kids affected by school closures. We all know by heart how fucked up, toxic and disconnected from real world the online socializing is. Well, this is the only thing kids had for more than a year.

Ideal schools teach much much more, but I don't think many of us went to those, I for sure didn't. So the social part remains the most important thing schools gave us, and our kids don't have even that.

I don't claim I know whats best, that's anyway highly subjective based on one's interest. But I am damn sure for the kids this was the net loss that will reverb for rest of their lives in negative manner. What would be actually really great if psychologists for a change came up with something useful for general population - some sort of easy-to-implement-globally course/program how to compensate this harm once kids come back to school.

Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#62

Post by jfengel »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #12
jfengel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me that this was a poor decision. You can't send children to school if there are no teachers. And the teachers were not going to put their lives on the line for those jobs. Teachers are well aware that whatever is going around among the students will get to them. They get every cold and ever flu. If school boards said, "We're staying open for the sake of the children", teachers would have said, "Fin…

> And the teachers were not going to put their lives on the line for those jobs. Many of them were at greater risk of death from driving to school than they were from Covid.

No, they weren't.

There are half a million COVID deaths last year. There are around 30,000 deaths a year from automobile accidents. COVID is more deadly than automobile accidents, by an order of magnitude.

Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#63

Post by AndrewBissell »

void_mint wrote: post #56
AndrewBissell wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the teachers were not going to put their lives on the line for those jobs. Many of them were at greater risk of death from driving to school than they were from Covid.

When everyone runs the risk of dying in traffic accidents in quick succession, every individual traffic accident becomes more problematic

"Keeping schools closed was necessary to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed" is a different argument from "teachers don't want to face the mortal peril of in-person instruction," and not the one that was made in favor of keeping schools closed.

Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#64

Post by jfengel »

tmn wrote: post #40
Jill_the_Pill wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argues we must drastically improve traffic safety, not just accept driving and covid risks.

Not necessarily. There is an opposing argument that we need to accept the risk of death as a part of life. When does a population decide the risk has been reduced enough? I could argue we are well past that point. As a culture we have completely lost touch with the natural cycles of life. The boomers in positions of power have clearly prioritized their own safety at the expense of the upcoming generations. That's pro…

This is a population that would have decided their own risk. A great many of them simply would not have shown up, and quit or be fired.

Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#65

Post by AndrewBissell »

briffle wrote: post #59
seasoup wrote: post #30

This article doesn't take into account that maybe the kids didn't all get sick because closing the schools helped stop the spread of COVID in kids. It's like saying I exercised and lost weight so clearly that exercise was a waste of time, I would have lost weight anyway.

We had a person running for government office in Oregon loudly proclaim over and over, "Why do we have have to have these mask mandates and rules. Oregon has one of the lowest infection rates".. Some people just seem to get cause and effect mixed up. Or the threads all over twitter this winter alleging 'funny numbers' because the flu cases were so low last year.. Imagine that, when everyone is social distancing, we h…

> Imagine that, when everyone is social distancing, we have our lowest amount of influenza ever..

And yet the explanation for Covid spreading so much during the winter is popularly held to be that people weren't social distancing and were selfishly refusing to follow the guidelines. I mean, how is it that these measures were simultaneously almost 100% effective against influenza and clearly much less so against Covid?

I think viral interference is the real explanation here: https://www.insighttherapeutics.com/publications/insights/20...

Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#66

Post by kurthr »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #58
JoeCianflone wrote: post #36

Oy. This article is silly. In March of 2020 when schools started to close we did not know the full impact of COVID. decisions were made with the best knowledge AT THE TIME. Also we still don’t know the full impact of COVID. This article has a sample size of 1 year. As a parent of 3 with a child who started Kindergarten in September and did the entire year virtually—I’d rather deal with the fallout of having to “catch…

This paper which was published in May 2020 established that the IFR of Covid was in the 0.05% range for people under 70, lower for those without comorbidities. It was peer reviewed and published by the WHO in October 2020. There is no excuse for how long it has taken people to come to a more accurate assessment of the risks of Covid -- and public opinion polling shows the public is still grossly overestimating that r…

This would be accurate, if only those school age children didn't have older teachers or parents. Although children are rarely (though in some cases fatal) symptomatic there is evidence that they spread COVID, just as they spread many other colds and flus every school year. This is not a virus that should make us question the germ theory of disease. I understand the want for children's education and emotional well being, but that shouldn't require other adults to be hospitalized or die.

We already had hospitals in many states fill-up and turn away other ICU patents, because they were full.

When would such a scientific decision have been made? Certainly, some time after October 2020, so maybe January or February of 2021? Many schools were re-opening at lower density and with testing by early 2021.

Now that we have a vaccine and adults can choose to be immunized (and/or immunize older children) that's less of a question and more of a family decision, but in May of 2020 there was much we didn't know. Almost certainly, opening schools would have sped up the spread/development of variants.

Flip it around and ask, what if the virus was only deadly/debilitating to 10% young children, and parents/businesses wanted to mandate sending children to school so their parents (with <0.01% death rate) could work? Would that have been responsible?

Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#67

Post by robomartin »

saiya-jin wrote: post #61
robomartin wrote: post #25

This whole narrative is insane. I can't help but think there's an underlying objective to drive for additional funding to fix a problem that does not exist. Kids did not go from learning 100% to 0%. Let's make an argument that, perhaps (and I don't believe this either) they learned 50% of what they would have learned in person. Half. OK. How much harm does that cause? For reference, I have two kids who went remote th…

You are making it sound like the main thing we learn at school are hard facts and memorizing. As you yourself point out, that's hardly the case and most of us can attest how little we recall from those classes we didn't care about (and later in life discovered how amazing and highly logical topics they actually were). The key is social interaction. The most important thing you can teach your small kid (2-4 of age) ac…

> most of us can attest how little we recall from those classes we didn't care about (and later in life discovered how amazing and highly logical topics they actually were).

Exactly. There's a term for this: Opportunity cost. I would suggest we need to devote all of high school to creating a solid path into both college and non-college professional/trade jobs. As an example, five years of high school history is simply ridiculous. It is utterly worthless for anyone other than those who might go on to college to get a history degree. And, BTW, I love history. I am simply looking at the opportunity cost.

Sir Ken Robinson's old TED presentation is relevant here [0]. A better system would be one where the path optimizes based on a range of criteria rather than treating every single kid as the same block of clay. This is much harder than the cookie-cutter approach we take over 12+ years.

"All kids have tremendous talents and we squander them".

"If you were to visit education as an alien and asked what it's for? You would have to conclude The whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors"

> The key is social interaction.

Absolutely agreed. My comment does not address this at all. There is a legitimate claim that 2020 had social effects we don't yet understand. I can't speak to this other than to say that I watched my kids manage this quite successfully. I have not seen any ill effects.

> But I am damn sure for the kids this was the net loss that will reverb for rest of their lives in negative manner.

I think you are wrong. The proof is simple: Look at what kids went through during the world wars. I assure you this was worse than 2020. In my own family history, kids survived genocide. They went on to become perfectly capable, balanced and successful adults. It did not wreck their lives. I think this narrative is false and defeatist.

[0] https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_c...

Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#68

Post by iforgotpassword »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #60
iforgotpassword wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This yes. Though, I'm still mad that they vaccinated old people first instead of children so that they could return to school sooner. Old people are retired and can stay at home. Yes it sucks, they're lonely yada yada but ffs they already lived their lives, why should the next generation botch their edication just so the old people can travel again sooner?

This was entirely the correct decision given that old people are often at substantial risk from Covid, and children almost none. "Old people are retired and can stay at home" betrays huge ignorance of differing socioeconomic conditions as well as social needs of the elderly.

But old people can self isolate. How are they at risk if they stay at home? Children might not be affected that much, but still spread it, and apparently much harder to keep inside 24/7. Playgrounds were as crowded as always. My neighbor told me that her daughter was one of five children from the entire class staying at home, for the remaining 20 kids, their parents got a written confirmation from their employers stating they're essential, and thus their children were eligible for "emergency care". Ridiculous.

I'm not entirely sure things would have dragged along so much had we just eliminated children as spreaders first.

Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#69

Post by tzs »

beaner wrote: post #32
seasoup wrote: post #30

This article doesn't take into account that maybe the kids didn't all get sick because closing the schools helped stop the spread of COVID in kids. It's like saying I exercised and lost weight so clearly that exercise was a waste of time, I would have lost weight anyway.

Isn't the Covid rate in kids exceptionally low? Closing offices only barely slowed the rate of progress in adults but closing schools helped children, who are less at risk, a lot?

> Isn't the Covid rate in kids exceptionally low?

No. The rate for ages 5-17 was actually slightly higher than that of adults 18-49, which was higher than the rate for 50-64, which was higher than the rate for 65+.

What was much lower for kids was the severity of their illness. For every 100k kids that got it, about 600 were hospitalized. For 18-49 it was about 2400. For 50-64, 7200. For 65+, 21000.

See the CDC data on the page mulvya linked in a parallel comment.

Re: Closing the world's schools caused children great harm

#70

Post by intrepidhero »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #12
jfengel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me that this was a poor decision. You can't send children to school if there are no teachers. And the teachers were not going to put their lives on the line for those jobs. Teachers are well aware that whatever is going around among the students will get to them. They get every cold and ever flu. If school boards said, "We're staying open for the sake of the children", teachers would have said, "Fin…

> And the teachers were not going to put their lives on the line for those jobs. Many of them were at greater risk of death from driving to school than they were from Covid.

My research says this claim is false. The mortality rate for COVID-19 for all age groups is much higher that mortality rates for drivers.

How I compared the risks:

In New York the mortality rate for COVID-19 for all age groups over 18 was found to be at least 0.2%[1]. The CDC[2] reports 18-29 years at 0.5%, 30-39 at 1.4%, 40-49 at 3.5%, 50-64 at 16.4%.

There were 36,560[3] motor vehicle related deaths in 2018 in the US. With 273,602,100[4] cars on the road one could make a rough estimate of mortality of 0.013%. This number is conservatively high since it does not include passengers.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e1.htm#T1_down [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... [4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/183505/number-of-vehicle...

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