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I'm not sure I like this article. They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. For example the article says > Some researchers are skeptical t

I'm not sure I like this article. They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. For example the article says > Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances. But when you go to the study they link, it says > Although school closures reduce the number of contacts children have, and may decrease transmission, a study of 12 million adults in the UK found no difference in the risk of death from covid-19 in households with or without children. There's a big difference between, "You're just as likely to die from COVID if you have children" and "Children going to school doesn't increase the spread of COVID". The study even points out that closing schools "may decrease transmission", but the article completely ignores that.

animal_spirits 5y ago
I think the article does a good job at looking at this as a trade-off. No where in the article do they state outright that there is no change to transmission. The main point is to ask the question "Is avoiding the damage to those that are older worth the damage to those that are younger?"
- XorNot 5y ago
  The question only ever asked by people in no danger (or who believe they're in no danger) of the consequences of what they propose.
  - chmod600 5y ago
    No. Everyone with children asks that question, because they see the damage happening. Some reach different conclusions about the trade-off, but no parents take your absolutist position that doesn't even question the damage.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      I'm sure they do: and they do from the position of being able to talk about the consequences but not actually grok the consequences. You're doing it right here: think of the children! Well sure, but okay what about the teachers, the janitorial staff, the administrative staff? Schools aren't a machine children go into and then with no other inputs, education comes out.
      - dcolkitt 5y ago
        Nobody is forcing teachers, janitors or administrative staff to keep working. If they find the risk personally unsuitable they’re free to find another job. Plenty of other jobs are hiring.
  - nradov 5y ago
    There will always be some level of danger. Insisting on eliminating danger is irrational.
    - hhmc 5y ago
      It's good that no-one is insisting we eliminate danger then.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    Are you saying people who don't ask these questions are selfish and myopically focused on the benefits of mandates and lockdowns to themselves? That's pretty harsh. I can see where you're coming from it sometimes seems this way especially if you're discussing it on the internet. But I have found there are a few of these people who have thought about this and do have concern for the consequences and are willing to have reasonable discussions about it. So I don't think it is very constructive to generalize so negatively about people.
wayoutthere 5y ago
This is an attempt at manufacturing consensus by making it seem like these arguments are coming “from the adults in the room” because it’s in the NYTimes. They’re so good at gaslighting their readers (and I say this coming from the left of the NYT, not the right). You’ll start to see liberal politicians using these same talking points in the coming weeks, guaranteed.
- stathibus 5y ago
  Yes its an argument, yes its in a well known newspaper. That's not what "manufacturing consensus" means.
- boppo1 5y ago
  >You’ll start to see liberal politicians using these same talking points in the coming weeks, guaranteed. Well, there's no federal solution, so we gotta do something different, right?
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Exactly. The NYTimes is the worst, it’s like the paternalistic dad-figure of the media. In this case I think they’re right; omicron is a super spreading variant that is less lethal and impossible to control. Their audience is sick of lockdowns and employers are tightening the screws.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > (and I say this coming from the left of the NYT, not the right) If politics is one-dimensional, that suggests that there is only one (main) political issue. History suggests that there's more to politics than one main issue, so what were you trying to convey by saying this?
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  "You’ll start to see liberal politicians using these same talking points in the coming weeks, guaranteed." This article's position seems to be more in line with the Republican's general stance on the pandemic. So isn't it a good thing of the left can revise its position?
_jal 5y ago
There appears to be a weird blind-spot when discussing COVID outcomes - anything short of death appears to be discounted or ignored. So hospital issues, long COVID, etc. just don't exist, so catching it either didn't matter or you're dead. On a planet where that was true, that sort of reasoning would make sense. (As it does if you're trying to encourage other people to ignore risks.) What I don't understand is why so many people seem to view it that way.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  It's the human tendency to optimise the quantifiable and ignore the unquantified. (The unquantified is often partially quantifiable, but that would take effort, and the statistics aren't currently on the dashboard…) See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law > When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > It's the human tendency to optimise the quantifiable and ignore the unquantified. Are you sure that isn’t just a modern trend now that we are able to quantify so much stuff?
    - Talanes 5y ago
      Modern society is just the result of countless generations of the human tendency to quantify. We just have so many things quantified now that our problems tend to be more "using the wrong quantifications" rather than "not having the right quantifications."
      - zepto 5y ago
        > Modern society is just the result of countless generations of the human tendency to quantify. Is it? I see no evidence to justify this statement at all. Care to show some? The vast majority of how society is organized seems to eschew quantification in favor of descriptive qualification. Most laws, and governance, for example are formed that way. The use of metrics in governance has been dramatically increasing as our methods of quantification have developed, but that is definitely a modern development.
boppo1 5y ago
Seconding @wayouthere. I saw this sentence: > They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. And thought, "Right, yeah, it's the NYT." They're not fake news like Breitbart, but I seem to catch them 'pushing the envelope' on the truth a lot. And I like/agree with a fair amount of what they publish.
lelandfe 5y ago
Hm, I found David Leonhardt's summary of that article to be fairly sound – it even opens with "School closures have been implemented internationally with insufficient evidence for their role in minimising covid-19 transmission." "[A]ccumulating evidence shows that teachers and school staff are not at higher risk of hospital admission or death from covid-19 compared with other workers" quote seems most pertinent. Other quotes that certainly back the paraphrase include "teacher absence decreased in tier 3 regions during the November lockdown despite schools remaining open" and "Teacher absence because of confirmed covid-19 in England was similar in primary and secondary schools in the autumn term." Finally, the "Transmission" section explicitly casts doubt on studies that did show a reduction in transmission. Overall, "skeptical," as the linked NYT article states, seems dead on. Were there other sources from the article that you took issue with?
- superfrank 5y ago
  I actually agree with the summary you provided, but I think the article it self way over steps that and I don't think their sources back up a lot of the claims they make inside the article. The one I quoted above is the most obvious, but the other two things I take issue with are: 1. They seem to attribute the rising gun violence to covid, but when you look at the data they provided on school shootings, it's been rising since 2015. The number we're at now just looks like a continuation of that trend. 2. The fact about a third of their sources are just other NYT articles written by their colleagues. Chasing down the true source behind some of their claims is near impossible since it's often multiple levels of people interpreting the data.
ajmurmann 5y ago
"For the past two years, large parts of American society have decided harming children was an unavoidable side effect of Covid-19." This sentence also implied that there had been consensus about what the trade-off is which I don't think everyone would agree with. I definitely know some parents who are afraid if their children returning to badly ventilated classrooms
- tdeck 5y ago
  Also parents are the caretakers of children. If they're sick or incapacitated or die, that's going to have a negative impact on children. As will having a greater number of essential workers becoming sick or dying.
  - nradov 5y ago
    How is that relevant? The parents will all inevitably be exposed eventually. It doesn't matter whether the exposure happens through one of their children or someone else.
    - kelseyfrog 5y ago
      It doesn't matter how. It matters when.
      - toolz 5y ago
        No, it doesn't matter when, a parent dying when a kid is 10 is no different than when the kid is 11. Let's not pretend people are avoiding covid for multiple years here, because statistically they aren't.
        hhmc 5y ago
        It does matter when. Outcomes are dramatically better if your local healthcare system isn't overloaded.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
Welcome to link "citations". Journalists use links as a way to back up their statements because almost no one will click on a the link and even less will actually read it. Link "citations" are used a lot.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Not just journalists. There's a handful of people around here who are highly prolific at that behavior.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  Yep, between that and twitter "citations" which make me want to scream. I don't care what NateDog2244 said on twitter, that could be the "reporter" for all I know. You can find someone defending/attacking ANY position online so you can cherry-pick like crazy. I'll admit I'm much less likely to follow links when my confirmation bias is kicking up into high gear but I've been trying to force myself to do it more after I received an article from a parent that I knew was full of BS and after following the links (the ones that weren't dead) I found the studies linked actually refuted the position the original article took. For way too much of my life I took "Blue text with underline" (or whatever color the style it to) meant "fact"/"cited"/"backed up", that couldn't be further from the truth. I encourage everyone to follow links even if you are "sure" the article is 100% true, it can be very eye opening. At the very least you will get a better understanding.
- animal_spirits 5y ago
  It worked though. OP clicked on the link and proceeded to talk about it here on this forum. Would you have seen that study otherwise? I would not. Regardless if it doesn't work on everyone, that shouldn't be the goal. The links should be there for those of us who click on them.
geenew 5y ago
Isn’t “may decrease transmission” the operative part of the citation?
- superfrank 5y ago
  No. They're saying it "may decrease transmission" because there isn't evidence one way or another. They study they linked to didn't test that. Later in the first study, they even say "The role of children in community transmission is not clear". The study that they're citing (https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n628.short https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n628.short) tests whether living with children increases chances of death from COVID (it doesn't).
datavirtue 5y ago
There is a dangerous level of cognitive dissonance around school closures that effects nearly everyone. I have to filter arguments by finding out if the people making them have or do not have kids in school. People with kids in school just want schools open. Teachers and administrators want schools open. ...and therefore politicians want schools open. There are a lot of vested interests that bias toward opening schools. Honestly I do not think we are capable of weighing particulars to make a scientific determination. We need policies around school closure that are rigidly followed in the course of a pandemic.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  I have kids in school. I don’t want them open during this kind of Covid surge. I also think the attribution of poor learning in the previous surges to remote learning, ignores a whole set of coincident factors and has more to do with wanting everyone to get back to work with kids in care.
  - op00to 5y ago
    “But our schools are safe!” say the administrators! “The virus doesn’t spread in schools! We’ll keep them masked!” I’m planning my work schedule to get sick this week.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  >Teachers and administrators want schools open. ...and therefore politicians want schools open. This is just false. The largest teacher unions in the country have been pushing school closures. This means many teachers, administrators and politicians also want school closures. Until like the last week politicians have been reluctant to even suggest schools reopen https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-teachers-unions-odds-over-204827167.html https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-teachers-unions-odds-over-20482...
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    You could be right about that, but re: your link, Fauci is not a politician, he's a bureaucrat. No doubt they are subject to politicization / political bias and pressure too, but he doesn't seem completely partisan and one sided, he "has acted as an advisor to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan"[wikipedia], so it's hard to gauge the political response to the mood of constituents based on what he's saying, in my opinion.
delecti 5y ago
School closures making it so people in those households are no more likely to die of COVID sounds like school closures are wildly effective. The most relevant comparison is not households with vs without children, but among households with children, outcomes with and without school closures.
99_00 5y ago
You're cherry picking from the study. >They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. With a title like this, I think they are understating what the source claims. Closing schools is not evidence based and harms children https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n521 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n521
droopyEyelids 5y ago
The part about the under-20-year-old children who fell to gun violence in Chicago raised my eye. Thats a problem but I don't know it's a covid problem, and I'm not certain that people over 18 count as children.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  Given how many gun deaths are suicide I wouldn't be surprised if it's a result of social isolation in response to Covid. I strongly agree with your second point... I'm all for a longer exploratory phase of life before people settle on a career, but that seems like it should involve a more gradual adoption of adult responsibilities, not delaying them ever more.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Suicides went down during Covid.
    - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
      Wow, you're right! I find that quite counterintuitive, I wonder what the mechanism was.
- another_story 5y ago
  I'd wager a fair number of 19 year olds are still in high school, though. At least for part of their 19th year.
robga 5y ago
My view is there is a strong “anchoring effect” at play. Because so many vulnerable actually died at the outset, and indeed since, it’s become a yardstick for damage. Even the qualifiers of long covid and life altering conditions seems a heavy bar to set. A new rapidly spreading severe flu with low death risk is damaging enough to families and economies to take broad action. With schools, there has been a strange preoccupation on only the health of the child. For many (like me), the risk is to the child’s parents and family where it is a major vector. I’d say 95%+ of my risk comes from the school risk. Maybe there are not enough of us to show in stats? But the logic is sound. The lack of any improvement in school ventilation in my country has been so terribly disappointing.
coldtea 5y ago
>There's a big difference between, "You're just as likely to die from COVID if you have children" and "Children going to school doesn't increase the spread of COVID". Is there? Because I fail to see it. If "You're just as likely to die from COVID if you have children" (most of which, that is ages 5-to-17, go to school), then "children going to school doesn't increase the spread of COVID". What would the alternative be? That children going to school does increase the spread of covid, but for some mysterious reason their own families are spared disproportionally from being infected by them? If (a) parents and non-parents would have mostly equal chances of dying if they contact covid. (b) children going to school increased the spread of covid one would expect their own families they co-live with, to be mostly affected by this. Else what explains (b)? It's their teachers that increase the spread - and children going to school are not the carriers of these increased spread?
disambiguation 5y ago
What's the "big difference" that you take issue with? IMO it's just as good an argument that children and their activities don't affect adults and covid mortality, so by extension opening schools shouldn't be a problem. Sure, closing schools may "slow the spread", but what does that matter among a population that is ultimately very safe from the effects of covid?
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
I think you're focusing on the wrong sentence in the cited article. It goes on to say: > International modelling studies which estimate that school closures have a meaningful effect on reducing transmission rates are all confounded by the near simultaneous introduction of multiple interventions (including lockdowns, curfews, closures of bars and restaurants). Moreover, they do not account for indirect effects of school closures which prevent parents from working outside the home. A systematic review of observational studies showed that in those studies with lowest risk of bias, school closures had no discernible effect on SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The title of the cited article is "Closing schools is not evidence based and harms children", which I think gives a pretty clear picture of the researcher's conclusion. And that in turn matches what the New York Times wrote: "Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances."

animal_spirits 5y ago

I think the article does a good job at looking at this as a trade-off. No where in the article do they state outright that there is no change to transmission. The main point is to ask the question "Is avoiding the damage to those that are older worth the damage to those that are younger?"

XorNot 5y ago
The question only ever asked by people in no danger (or who believe they're in no danger) of the consequences of what they propose.
- chmod600 5y ago
  No. Everyone with children asks that question, because they see the damage happening. Some reach different conclusions about the trade-off, but no parents take your absolutist position that doesn't even question the damage.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    I'm sure they do: and they do from the position of being able to talk about the consequences but not actually grok the consequences. You're doing it right here: think of the children! Well sure, but okay what about the teachers, the janitorial staff, the administrative staff? Schools aren't a machine children go into and then with no other inputs, education comes out.
    - dcolkitt 5y ago
      Nobody is forcing teachers, janitors or administrative staff to keep working. If they find the risk personally unsuitable they’re free to find another job. Plenty of other jobs are hiring.
- nradov 5y ago
  There will always be some level of danger. Insisting on eliminating danger is irrational.
  - hhmc 5y ago
    It's good that no-one is insisting we eliminate danger then.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Are you saying people who don't ask these questions are selfish and myopically focused on the benefits of mandates and lockdowns to themselves? That's pretty harsh. I can see where you're coming from it sometimes seems this way especially if you're discussing it on the internet. But I have found there are a few of these people who have thought about this and do have concern for the consequences and are willing to have reasonable discussions about it. So I don't think it is very constructive to generalize so negatively about people.

wayoutthere 5y ago

This is an attempt at manufacturing consensus by making it seem like these arguments are coming “from the adults in the room” because it’s in the NYTimes. They’re so good at gaslighting their readers (and I say this coming from the left of the NYT, not the right). You’ll start to see liberal politicians using these same talking points in the coming weeks, guaranteed.

stathibus 5y ago
Yes its an argument, yes its in a well known newspaper. That's not what "manufacturing consensus" means.
boppo1 5y ago
>You’ll start to see liberal politicians using these same talking points in the coming weeks, guaranteed. Well, there's no federal solution, so we gotta do something different, right?
Spooky23 5y ago
Exactly. The NYTimes is the worst, it’s like the paternalistic dad-figure of the media. In this case I think they’re right; omicron is a super spreading variant that is less lethal and impossible to control. Their audience is sick of lockdowns and employers are tightening the screws.
wizzwizz4 5y ago
> (and I say this coming from the left of the NYT, not the right) If politics is one-dimensional, that suggests that there is only one (main) political issue. History suggests that there's more to politics than one main issue, so what were you trying to convey by saying this?
ajmurmann 5y ago
"You’ll start to see liberal politicians using these same talking points in the coming weeks, guaranteed." This article's position seems to be more in line with the Republican's general stance on the pandemic. So isn't it a good thing of the left can revise its position?

_jal 5y ago

There appears to be a weird blind-spot when discussing COVID outcomes - anything short of death appears to be discounted or ignored. So hospital issues, long COVID, etc. just don't exist, so catching it either didn't matter or you're dead. On a planet where that was true, that sort of reasoning would make sense. (As it does if you're trying to encourage other people to ignore risks.) What I don't understand is why so many people seem to view it that way.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
It's the human tendency to optimise the quantifiable and ignore the unquantified. (The unquantified is often partially quantifiable, but that would take effort, and the statistics aren't currently on the dashboard…) See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law > When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
- zepto 5y ago
  > It's the human tendency to optimise the quantifiable and ignore the unquantified. Are you sure that isn’t just a modern trend now that we are able to quantify so much stuff?
  - Talanes 5y ago
    Modern society is just the result of countless generations of the human tendency to quantify. We just have so many things quantified now that our problems tend to be more "using the wrong quantifications" rather than "not having the right quantifications."
    - zepto 5y ago
      > Modern society is just the result of countless generations of the human tendency to quantify. Is it? I see no evidence to justify this statement at all. Care to show some? The vast majority of how society is organized seems to eschew quantification in favor of descriptive qualification. Most laws, and governance, for example are formed that way. The use of metrics in governance has been dramatically increasing as our methods of quantification have developed, but that is definitely a modern development.

boppo1 5y ago

Seconding @wayouthere. I saw this sentence: > They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. And thought, "Right, yeah, it's the NYT." They're not fake news like Breitbart, but I seem to catch them 'pushing the envelope' on the truth a lot. And I like/agree with a fair amount of what they publish.

lelandfe 5y ago

Hm, I found David Leonhardt's summary of that article to be fairly sound – it even opens with "School closures have been implemented internationally with insufficient evidence for their role in minimising covid-19 transmission." "[A]ccumulating evidence shows that teachers and school staff are not at higher risk of hospital admission or death from covid-19 compared with other workers" quote seems most pertinent. Other quotes that certainly back the paraphrase include "teacher absence decreased in tier 3 regions during the November lockdown despite schools remaining open" and "Teacher absence because of confirmed covid-19 in England was similar in primary and secondary schools in the autumn term." Finally, the "Transmission" section explicitly casts doubt on studies that did show a reduction in transmission. Overall, "skeptical," as the linked NYT article states, seems dead on. Were there other sources from the article that you took issue with?

superfrank 5y ago
I actually agree with the summary you provided, but I think the article it self way over steps that and I don't think their sources back up a lot of the claims they make inside the article. The one I quoted above is the most obvious, but the other two things I take issue with are: 1. They seem to attribute the rising gun violence to covid, but when you look at the data they provided on school shootings, it's been rising since 2015. The number we're at now just looks like a continuation of that trend. 2. The fact about a third of their sources are just other NYT articles written by their colleagues. Chasing down the true source behind some of their claims is near impossible since it's often multiple levels of people interpreting the data.

ajmurmann 5y ago

"For the past two years, large parts of American society have decided harming children was an unavoidable side effect of Covid-19." This sentence also implied that there had been consensus about what the trade-off is which I don't think everyone would agree with. I definitely know some parents who are afraid if their children returning to badly ventilated classrooms

tdeck 5y ago
Also parents are the caretakers of children. If they're sick or incapacitated or die, that's going to have a negative impact on children. As will having a greater number of essential workers becoming sick or dying.
- nradov 5y ago
  How is that relevant? The parents will all inevitably be exposed eventually. It doesn't matter whether the exposure happens through one of their children or someone else.
  - kelseyfrog 5y ago
    It doesn't matter how. It matters when.
    - toolz 5y ago
      No, it doesn't matter when, a parent dying when a kid is 10 is no different than when the kid is 11. Let's not pretend people are avoiding covid for multiple years here, because statistically they aren't.
      - hhmc 5y ago
        It does matter when. Outcomes are dramatically better if your local healthcare system isn't overloaded.

AlwaysRock 5y ago

Welcome to link "citations". Journalists use links as a way to back up their statements because almost no one will click on a the link and even less will actually read it. Link "citations" are used a lot.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Not just journalists. There's a handful of people around here who are highly prolific at that behavior.
joshstrange 5y ago
Yep, between that and twitter "citations" which make me want to scream. I don't care what NateDog2244 said on twitter, that could be the "reporter" for all I know. You can find someone defending/attacking ANY position online so you can cherry-pick like crazy. I'll admit I'm much less likely to follow links when my confirmation bias is kicking up into high gear but I've been trying to force myself to do it more after I received an article from a parent that I knew was full of BS and after following the links (the ones that weren't dead) I found the studies linked actually refuted the position the original article took. For way too much of my life I took "Blue text with underline" (or whatever color the style it to) meant "fact"/"cited"/"backed up", that couldn't be further from the truth. I encourage everyone to follow links even if you are "sure" the article is 100% true, it can be very eye opening. At the very least you will get a better understanding.
animal_spirits 5y ago
It worked though. OP clicked on the link and proceeded to talk about it here on this forum. Would you have seen that study otherwise? I would not. Regardless if it doesn't work on everyone, that shouldn't be the goal. The links should be there for those of us who click on them.

geenew 5y ago

Isn’t “may decrease transmission” the operative part of the citation?

superfrank 5y ago
No. They're saying it "may decrease transmission" because there isn't evidence one way or another. They study they linked to didn't test that. Later in the first study, they even say "The role of children in community transmission is not clear". The study that they're citing (https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n628.short https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n628.short) tests whether living with children increases chances of death from COVID (it doesn't).

datavirtue 5y ago

There is a dangerous level of cognitive dissonance around school closures that effects nearly everyone. I have to filter arguments by finding out if the people making them have or do not have kids in school. People with kids in school just want schools open. Teachers and administrators want schools open. ...and therefore politicians want schools open. There are a lot of vested interests that bias toward opening schools. Honestly I do not think we are capable of weighing particulars to make a scientific determination. We need policies around school closure that are rigidly followed in the course of a pandemic.

dv_dt 5y ago
I have kids in school. I don’t want them open during this kind of Covid surge. I also think the attribution of poor learning in the previous surges to remote learning, ignores a whole set of coincident factors and has more to do with wanting everyone to get back to work with kids in care.
- op00to 5y ago
  “But our schools are safe!” say the administrators! “The virus doesn’t spread in schools! We’ll keep them masked!” I’m planning my work schedule to get sick this week.
CountDrewku 5y ago
>Teachers and administrators want schools open. ...and therefore politicians want schools open. This is just false. The largest teacher unions in the country have been pushing school closures. This means many teachers, administrators and politicians also want school closures. Until like the last week politicians have been reluctant to even suggest schools reopen https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-teachers-unions-odds-over-204827167.html https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-teachers-unions-odds-over-20482...
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  You could be right about that, but re: your link, Fauci is not a politician, he's a bureaucrat. No doubt they are subject to politicization / political bias and pressure too, but he doesn't seem completely partisan and one sided, he "has acted as an advisor to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan"[wikipedia], so it's hard to gauge the political response to the mood of constituents based on what he's saying, in my opinion.

delecti 5y ago

School closures making it so people in those households are no more likely to die of COVID sounds like school closures are wildly effective. The most relevant comparison is not households with vs without children, but among households with children, outcomes with and without school closures.

99_00 5y ago

You're cherry picking from the study. >They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. With a title like this, I think they are understating what the source claims. Closing schools is not evidence based and harms children https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n521 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n521

droopyEyelids 5y ago

The part about the under-20-year-old children who fell to gun violence in Chicago raised my eye. Thats a problem but I don't know it's a covid problem, and I'm not certain that people over 18 count as children.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago
Given how many gun deaths are suicide I wouldn't be surprised if it's a result of social isolation in response to Covid. I strongly agree with your second point... I'm all for a longer exploratory phase of life before people settle on a career, but that seems like it should involve a more gradual adoption of adult responsibilities, not delaying them ever more.
- watwut 5y ago
  Suicides went down during Covid.
  - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
    Wow, you're right! I find that quite counterintuitive, I wonder what the mechanism was.
another_story 5y ago
I'd wager a fair number of 19 year olds are still in high school, though. At least for part of their 19th year.

robga 5y ago

My view is there is a strong “anchoring effect” at play. Because so many vulnerable actually died at the outset, and indeed since, it’s become a yardstick for damage. Even the qualifiers of long covid and life altering conditions seems a heavy bar to set. A new rapidly spreading severe flu with low death risk is damaging enough to families and economies to take broad action. With schools, there has been a strange preoccupation on only the health of the child. For many (like me), the risk is to the child’s parents and family where it is a major vector. I’d say 95%+ of my risk comes from the school risk. Maybe there are not enough of us to show in stats? But the logic is sound. The lack of any improvement in school ventilation in my country has been so terribly disappointing.

coldtea 5y ago

>There's a big difference between, "You're just as likely to die from COVID if you have children" and "Children going to school doesn't increase the spread of COVID". Is there? Because I fail to see it. If "You're just as likely to die from COVID if you have children" (most of which, that is ages 5-to-17, go to school), then "children going to school doesn't increase the spread of COVID". What would the alternative be? That children going to school does increase the spread of covid, but for some mysterious reason their own families are spared disproportionally from being infected by them? If (a) parents and non-parents would have mostly equal chances of dying if they contact covid. (b) children going to school increased the spread of covid one would expect their own families they co-live with, to be mostly affected by this. Else what explains (b)? It's their teachers that increase the spread - and children going to school are not the carriers of these increased spread?

disambiguation 5y ago

What's the "big difference" that you take issue with? IMO it's just as good an argument that children and their activities don't affect adults and covid mortality, so by extension opening schools shouldn't be a problem. Sure, closing schools may "slow the spread", but what does that matter among a population that is ultimately very safe from the effects of covid?

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

I think you're focusing on the wrong sentence in the cited article. It goes on to say: > International modelling studies which estimate that school closures have a meaningful effect on reducing transmission rates are all confounded by the near simultaneous introduction of multiple interventions (including lockdowns, curfews, closures of bars and restaurants). Moreover, they do not account for indirect effects of school closures which prevent parents from working outside the home. A systematic review of observational studies showed that in those studies with lowest risk of bias, school closures had no discernible effect on SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The title of the cited article is "Closing schools is not evidence based and harms children", which I think gives a pretty clear picture of the researcher's conclusion. And that in turn matches what the New York Times wrote: "Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances."