These discussions are important. It's okay for us, as a society, to make mistakes. Especially if the mistakes are made in an attempt to do "the right thing", whatever that is.
We can only make the decisions we make with the information we have available in the moment, but it is important, later, to be honest with ourselves about the outcomes of the decisions we made and try to learn from them to improve decision making next time.
We shouldn't need to be defensive about this or that, we should follow the data, wherever it leads.
If it turns out the risk from spreading COVID wasn't worth the social and economic damage of lockdowns, that's an important data point to consider when making these kinds of decisions again.
486sx33 · 9h ago
It’s ok to make mistakes. It’s the lack of critical thinking which was the problem here and made the outcome so much worse. Who saw evidence that masks were effective? Who tracked COVID infections verses school shut downs? Who forced vaccines on children instead of understanding their natural immunity?
This feels like it was a bigger exercise in control.
John23832 · 8h ago
EDIT: I think the person that I responded to is a bot or malactor. In the history of their account, they say things and have 0 responses.
> This feels like it was a bigger exercise in control.
And this seems like conspiracy.
> It’s ok to make mistakes. It’s the lack of critical thinking which was the problem here and made the outcome so much worse. Who saw evidence that masks were effective? Who tracked COVID infections verses school shut downs? Who forced vaccines on children instead of understanding their natural immunity?
It's readily apparent that the vast majority of people have never attempted to solve hard, consequential problems, with real world (life or death) effect and limited time scope. In that reality you make decisions with what you know, make inferences, and act.
I've worked as an EMT. I can tell you plenty of times we made decisions in the moment that, with the benefit of hindsight, were suboptimal. I've seen emergency doctors do the same. However, there was not the opportunity to do nothing.
I totally agree we could have done better, but that is in hindsight. The armchair quarterbacking on the internet, 5 years later, comes off as unexperienced imo.
Not sure how this is relevant to an article about school closures, which were successful in preventing perhaps 0.00001% of children from eventually becoming infected with COVID.
ParetoOptimal · 10h ago
Plus, repeat covid infections don't make things worse... right?
Oh, wait... repeat covid infections are much worse and even damage T cells similar to HIV.
Plus 1 in 5 covid infections result in long covid.
cempaka · 10h ago
Your numbers and etiology are complete nonsense, and again I'm not sure how they're relevant to the question of school closures, unless you believe schools (and I would think, to be consistent, all of public life itself?) should be shut down indefinitely to prevent COVID infections?
PapaPalpatine · 9h ago
> Your numbers and etiology are complete nonsense, and again I'm not sure how they're relevant to the question of school closures
Are you really this dense or do you just enjoy arguing about COVID? The school closures were in response to COVID, you suitcase.
cempaka · 8h ago
Is it your belief that the school closures were successful in mitigating a significant portion of the (grossly exaggerated) harms being enumerated in this thread?
_aavaa_ · 10h ago
> something that is utterly absent from “An Abundance of Caution”—any palpable recognition of where all the caution was coming from.
This sums it up. No recognition of there being adults in schools, of there being adults in the homes these children come back to, of Sweden’s substantially higher excess deaths, or of the deaths happening at the same time as the school closures.
votepaunchy · 10h ago
Sweden ranked second behind only Norway for lowest excess mortality among European Nations.
Sweden's death are heavily front loaded though, 60% in the first year when Norway actually had negative excess deaths in that year.
So roughly 14,000 years of life saved in Norway, even if they ended up dying within 2 years anyway.
rogerrogerr · 5h ago
“Years of life saved” is the wrong metric - the one we need to optimize for is sum quality-of-life * years across the population.
We stole a few years of young people’s _highest_ quality of life, and in many cases saddled them with long term academic deficits, to save a few years of older people’s lowest quality of life. It’s a morally reprehensible decision when looked at from a high level.
bdangubic · 4h ago
We stole a few years
you from Australia? :) my kid’s school was closed for a quarter. and the rest of it is on parents, my kid actually progressed academically during covid and socialized with numerous other kids. was not ideal but also not some earth-shaddering thing if a kid had right parents
We can only make the decisions we make with the information we have available in the moment, but it is important, later, to be honest with ourselves about the outcomes of the decisions we made and try to learn from them to improve decision making next time.
We shouldn't need to be defensive about this or that, we should follow the data, wherever it leads.
If it turns out the risk from spreading COVID wasn't worth the social and economic damage of lockdowns, that's an important data point to consider when making these kinds of decisions again.
This feels like it was a bigger exercise in control.
> This feels like it was a bigger exercise in control.
And this seems like conspiracy.
> It’s ok to make mistakes. It’s the lack of critical thinking which was the problem here and made the outcome so much worse. Who saw evidence that masks were effective? Who tracked COVID infections verses school shut downs? Who forced vaccines on children instead of understanding their natural immunity?
It's readily apparent that the vast majority of people have never attempted to solve hard, consequential problems, with real world (life or death) effect and limited time scope. In that reality you make decisions with what you know, make inferences, and act.
I've worked as an EMT. I can tell you plenty of times we made decisions in the moment that, with the benefit of hindsight, were suboptimal. I've seen emergency doctors do the same. However, there was not the opportunity to do nothing.
I totally agree we could have done better, but that is in hindsight. The armchair quarterbacking on the internet, 5 years later, comes off as unexperienced imo.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/research-links-covid-poo...
Oh, wait... repeat covid infections are much worse and even damage T cells similar to HIV.
Plus 1 in 5 covid infections result in long covid.
Are you really this dense or do you just enjoy arguing about COVID? The school closures were in response to COVID, you suitcase.
This sums it up. No recognition of there being adults in schools, of there being adults in the homes these children come back to, of Sweden’s substantially higher excess deaths, or of the deaths happening at the same time as the school closures.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
So roughly 14,000 years of life saved in Norway, even if they ended up dying within 2 years anyway.
We stole a few years of young people’s _highest_ quality of life, and in many cases saddled them with long term academic deficits, to save a few years of older people’s lowest quality of life. It’s a morally reprehensible decision when looked at from a high level.
you from Australia? :) my kid’s school was closed for a quarter. and the rest of it is on parents, my kid actually progressed academically during covid and socialized with numerous other kids. was not ideal but also not some earth-shaddering thing if a kid had right parents