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by vosper 1219 days ago
Or their cost-benefit analysis said that the cost of removing kids from schools was worth it.

Do you have any evidence of ignored cost-benefit studies that were available at lockdown decision time (there wasn’t much time for studies when these decisions needed to be made)?

4 comments

There was plenty of evidence that COVID was not as dangerous to children as it was to elderly and yet politicians kept schools locked down. This is why many parents took their kids out of public school and into private schools which re-opened, or at least families that could afford it did. There has been a massive impact to school-age children and the development loss is massive. See this article from 2021: https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/90658

Many of the studies referenced in that article are from 2020, yet schools had not re-opened.

In addition to that the teachers union in the US influenced guidance by the CDC on school openings: https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/teachers-union-collaborated-wi...

Not having any studies to ignore is by definition not doing cost benefit analysis.
Or perhaps they considered the cost of studies and deemed it too high.
your second paragraph kinda answers itself
I don't think it does. If you have a ? in your cost-benefit spreadsheet for "cost in DALYs of locking down schools", the obvious solution (that one assumes governments actually used) is to ask your education expert for a guess and a confidence interval.

Getting that estimate wrong is not the same as failing to consider it.

My parent said cost-benefit was ignored, not that it wasn’t considered.
Or their cost-benefit analysis said that the cost of removing kids from schools was worth it.

Cost is incurred by the children who have no voice, so zero cost to decision makers. Benefit is to one of the largest donor groups to politicians, so also large benefit to decision makers. Cost/benefit to society, population at large, the country? Seems to be willfully ignored.