After completing a two-year investigation into the coronavirus pandemic, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its findings this week, saying “science” does not justify prolonged school closures during the coronavirus pandemic. He said no.
The subcommittee concludes its investigation, detailing massive failures committed throughout the pandemic, from mask and vaccine mandates to suppressing and dismissing narratives like the reality of natural immunity that public health officials don't like. A 520-page report was submitted. I will not support their strict policies.
One of the major points of contention throughout the pandemic has been the so-called “science” behind prolonged school closures. As it turned out, and as many already know, there was nothing.
“Science never justifies prolonged school closures,” the report says. readexplained that children are less likely to contribute to the spread of the virus and are less likely to suffer “severe illness or mortality.”
“Instead, as a result of school closures, children experienced historic declines in learning performance, increased rates of psychological distress, and declines in physical health,” the brief continues.
the report itself memo The CDC also said it was initially not convinced that school closures would have a real impact on controlling the virus. But this country continued to do just that, closing schools for much longer than imagined under the Biden-Harris administration.
The report revealed:
Still, even the CDC has cited data from Hong Kong and Singapore showing that countries that have closed schools have been less successful than other regions in reducing infections, saying that short-term or medium-term school closures can reduce infections. It didn't seem like it would have a significant impact. Nevertheless, by the end of March 2020, almost all schools across the country were closed.
Perhaps even worse, the subcommittee found that the Biden administration's CDC “broke with precedent and provided political teachers' groups access to guidance on reopening science schools.”
“Former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky asked the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to provide specific language in the guidance and even accepted numerous edits by AFT,” according to the summary. About. The report itself states that due to AFT's and Ms. Weingarten's political interference in the CDC's issuance of the Biden administration's first school reopening guidelines, entitled “K-12 School Operations Strategy with Phased Prevention,” many schools says it remains closed. [hereinafter “Operational Strategy”] On February 12, 2021.
Ultimately, the subcommittee said these school closures were simply not rooted in science.
As more data on COVID-19 became readily available, it became clear that “science” did not justify school closures. Early data from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, showed that children were less likely to suffer severe illness or death from the coronavirus. This was later confirmed by CDC data showing that from March 1, 2020 to July 25, 2020, less than 0.01 percent of hospitalized patients and less than 0.0005 percent of COVID-19 deaths were children. was shown.
Additionally, data received since then confirmed the CDC's previous suspicions that school closures are unlikely to stop the spread of COVID-19. Science has shown that schools are not vectors for the spread of the virus. Early data from Iceland showed that young children are less likely to transmit the coronavirus than adults. Early data also shows that teachers as individuals are not at high risk of infection or developing severe COVID-19 infection.
than other experts.
The report went on to say that prolonged school closures have had a “negative impact” on students, citing not only academic problems but also physical and mental health problems.
“These outcomes were not surprising, as previous closures were understood to have negative outcomes for students, which only worsened the longer schools remained closed,” the report continues. , noting that this reality clearly did not stop public spaces, health officials continued to ignore the science and advocate for school closures.
“Rather, many of the proponents of closure appear to have relied solely on favorable data or made misguided attempts to mischaracterize, misrepresent, or exaggerate the nature of the data.” says the report.
AFT's involvement runs deeper than most people know, with the report stating: “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention accepted American Federation of Teachers' edits to its operational strategy.”
Additionally, the subcommittee determined that the effects of corruption and blatantly bad policies will negatively impact academic performance “for many years to come.”
According to the report:
Pandemic-era school closure policies have led to a significant drop in student achievement. Standardized test scores show that children have lost decades worth of academic progress. Scores in math and reading for 9-year-olds have fallen to levels recorded two decades ago, and the average composite ACT score for high school graduates has fallen below 20 for the first time since 1991. In the 2020-2021 school year, there was a loss of about 20 percent in math learning, compared to a 50 percent loss for students who did not receive in-person instruction.
Disturbingly, these declines were most pronounced among low-income children and racial minority children. Urban schools serving low-income and minority children were closed longer. Therefore, Black and Latino students and low-income students fell further behind in learning than other students.
The effects of pandemic-era school closure policies continue to impact students today. Students have not yet recovered from the effects of school closure policies. “Analyses of student test scores repeatedly show severe declines in academic performance…Accelerating student learning…is notoriously difficult.” Even more troubling than the inability to “catch up” is the fact that the problem is getting worse. The academic achievement gap is widening. ”
Read the full report of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic here.
