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> the costs and risks weren't weighed carefully It's just getting harder and harder, as more and more is revealed, to believe that the costs and risks weren't

> the costs and risks weren't weighed carefully It's just getting harder and harder, as more and more is revealed, to believe that the costs and risks weren't weighed based on what harm or benefit would come to specific individuals instead of how specific policies would help or hurt specific politicians and political interests. Schools were closed even though children were at the least risk, but nursing homes were forced to accept COVID-positive transfers even though the elderly were at the greatest risk.

CarelessExpert 5y ago
> Schools were closed even though children were at the least risk Schools aren't closed to (primarily) protect the kids. Where did you get that idea? Schools are closed to protect the teachers, the families, and anyone those people contact that would be infected by those kids spreading infection at schools and then bringing the infection into households.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  If the schools weren’t closed to protect the kids, then that seems to bolster the claim in the headline, “closing the world’s schools caused children great harm.” Children, who have the least agency and the least blame for the situation they find themselves in, were being asked to take a pretty big hit for the benefit of many of those who actually did have more agency and blame. We closed the schools just fine but still had a real hard time getting universal mask wearing (for instance) to happen. Yet again, children suffer to pay for the selfish decisions of the adults.
  - CarelessExpert 5y ago
    > If the schools weren’t closed to protect the kids, then that seems to bolster the claim in the headline, “closing the world’s schools caused children great harm.” Absolutely, it did! But is that more harm than if their parents, siblings, grandparents, or friends got sick or died from covid? In short: Does that harm outweigh, balance, or is it overwhelmed by the harm caused but not closing schools? That's not an easy question. That being said, while I disagree with how the article's initial positioning on this topic (that governments didn't weigh the harms), I 100% agree with the rest of the article and I hope governments use this as an opportunity to improve education by learning from these experiences. > We closed the schools just fine but still had a real hard time getting universal mask wearing (for instance) to happen. Yet again, children suffer to pay for the selfish decisions of the adults. This is sounding suspiciously like a nirvana fallacy. All solutions for managing COVID are imperfect, and the defenses are layered. I struggle to believe there is any scenario where school closures are not a useful tool in the COVID prevention toolkit. Would it be nice if other measures were more effective and school closures could be used more sparingly? Sure. But we don't live in that world.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
> but nursing homes were forced to accept COVID-positive transfers even though the elderly were at the greatest risk. Yeah. Remind me who ordered that, and whether they're out of office over it? That's so blatantly wrong that it should rise to the level of criminal endangerment, even if nobody died from it. And I'm pretty sure that people did die from it, at which point it's at least manslaughter. Yes, I want that politician charged, because that was the clearly predictable result of that insanely wrong-headed decision.

CarelessExpert 5y ago

> Schools were closed even though children were at the least risk Schools aren't closed to (primarily) protect the kids. Where did you get that idea? Schools are closed to protect the teachers, the families, and anyone those people contact that would be infected by those kids spreading infection at schools and then bringing the infection into households.

Robotbeat 5y ago
If the schools weren’t closed to protect the kids, then that seems to bolster the claim in the headline, “closing the world’s schools caused children great harm.” Children, who have the least agency and the least blame for the situation they find themselves in, were being asked to take a pretty big hit for the benefit of many of those who actually did have more agency and blame. We closed the schools just fine but still had a real hard time getting universal mask wearing (for instance) to happen. Yet again, children suffer to pay for the selfish decisions of the adults.
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
  > If the schools weren’t closed to protect the kids, then that seems to bolster the claim in the headline, “closing the world’s schools caused children great harm.” Absolutely, it did! But is that more harm than if their parents, siblings, grandparents, or friends got sick or died from covid? In short: Does that harm outweigh, balance, or is it overwhelmed by the harm caused but not closing schools? That's not an easy question. That being said, while I disagree with how the article's initial positioning on this topic (that governments didn't weigh the harms), I 100% agree with the rest of the article and I hope governments use this as an opportunity to improve education by learning from these experiences. > We closed the schools just fine but still had a real hard time getting universal mask wearing (for instance) to happen. Yet again, children suffer to pay for the selfish decisions of the adults. This is sounding suspiciously like a nirvana fallacy. All solutions for managing COVID are imperfect, and the defenses are layered. I struggle to believe there is any scenario where school closures are not a useful tool in the COVID prevention toolkit. Would it be nice if other measures were more effective and school closures could be used more sparingly? Sure. But we don't live in that world.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

> but nursing homes were forced to accept COVID-positive transfers even though the elderly were at the greatest risk. Yeah. Remind me who ordered that, and whether they're out of office over it? That's so blatantly wrong that it should rise to the level of criminal endangerment, even if nobody died from it. And I'm pretty sure that people did die from it, at which point it's at least manslaughter. Yes, I want that politician charged, because that was the clearly predictable result of that insanely wrong-headed decision.