[JoeCianflone]

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 her up” than the fallout of her being asymptomatic and potentially killing me, my wife, one of her brothers or her teacher. I feel like that would be greater harm. We made/make decisions in real time with limited information—I regret none of my decisions with my kids schooling.

[isolli]

Closing schools in March 2020 was acceptable. Closing them after summer 2020 was ridiculous, as the data made clear. Many countries chose to keep schools open (e.g. Switzerland) and demonstrated that it was safe, not to mention the right thing to do. Your comment looks like it was written in March 2020.

[AndrewBissell]

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 risk.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v...

[kurthr]

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?

[AndrewBissell]

> This would be accurate, if only those school age children didn't have older teachers or parents.

Then this should have been handled on a case-by-case basis. What share of families actually have an elderly or otherwise at-risk relative living at home with them? What share of teachers were actually in a high risk category? These questions were easily answerable by the middle of 2020 but all such nuance was thrown out in favor of "COVID is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS to EVERYONE and we have to shut EVERYTHING (except Wal-Mart, naturally) down to stop it!"

> 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.

How is this not an argument that one could make in favor of closing schools and shutting down society to prevent the spread of influenza? The difference is just one of degree, not kind.

[kurthr]

Yearly flu vaccines are available for elderly and high risk populations. Typically all personnel (medical, orderly, food service) in hospitals are required to take flu vaccines (as well a TB and others) every year. Not available with COVID until Jan-March.

With a death rate (using ICU intervention and the latest treatments) death rates in developed countries are still 5-15x higher than typical flus, and hospitalization rates are more than 10x higher. It also appears to be much more (r0 2x higher) transmissible (especially the delta variant). Those are differences in degree that create difference in kind. They cause the overload of ICUs, preventing treatment of other diseases and increasing all death rates!

Influenza does not normally kill 600k people in the US (with masks, social distancing, remote schooling, etc the flu effectively didn't exist this year). Hospitals don't normally run out of respirators and morgue space. These are all well reported and documented.

Three months after the publication you site, the nuance you're looking for was available (in Jan-Feb) when many schools partially opened (with lower density and masks). So all I see is a straw man.

[AndrewBissell]

> Hospitals don't normally run out of respirators and morgue space. These are all well reported and documented.

I'm surprised people still believe the whole "overloaded hospitals" thing, it's a canard driven by selective reporting from a few very under-resourced jurisdictions like Lombardy and low-income NYC. Overall hospital occupancy was lower through 2020 than it was in prior years because people were scared away from hospitals and staff were furloughed.

The delta variant is a totally unsurprising development in the evolution of a virus: more transmissible and less lethal.

[iforgotpassword]

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?

[jhayward]

Please give an example of a nation which was highly successful in isolating old/at-risk people during COVID, while letting the epidemic run wild.

[isolli]

Florida

[AndrewBissell]

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.

[iforgotpassword]

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.

[Volundr]

Can they self isolate? Do old people not need to go to the grocery store, doctor's offices, the hardware store to get parts for their broken toilet, etc?