One thing that the backlash to COVID has taught me is that nobody understands how risk works. The bars opened before the schools because going to a bar is an opt-in activity and going to school is required, not to mention schools being a place where germs are passed around all the time.
Don't let you know who see this lmao (also extremely correct)
I don’t think we should justify that set of choices. It *was* wrong to open high-risk places for adults (gyms!!!) while sacrificing kids’ education. That doesn’t mean schools should’ve been open at the height of the pandemic.
There was a lot of discussion at the time of there being a limited infection “budget” our health care system could absorb before it got overwhelmed (which is true) and prioritizing essential activities until we got numbers down; also, comparisons with other countries that prioritized schools
TBH as a parent living through it the bigger school problem seemed to be that we weren’t throwing enough money at them fast enough - every kid could have been going full time in fall of 2020 if we’d been willing to pay teachers hazard pay and rent a bunch of extra spaces to hold classes in
(Our schools were remote all year on Wednesdays because the teachers demanded that as the price of coming back to work, but I’m sure they would have also accepted a temporary 20% pay bump)
Not the point, but I think this is also why people don’t understand ranked choice voting. Most people recall the acronym PEMDAS, but getting them to understand Order of Operations outside of manual assembly with a set of very clear instructions is a monumental task. It’s why help-desk hates users.
Aside from that teachers were getting paid regardless of whether schools were open or not while bartenders and line cooks were not unless they were working
We were working, trust me. Holy fuck were we working. In a completely new way that required us to learn immediately. Taught my four sections a day, used an iPad as my whiteboard... Still had plenty of papers to grade. It was not a vacation.
Ok relax no one was saying teachers didn’t work
You certainly made it sound like we weren't earning our money. My misread, but you weren't wholly clear.
the other thing about school closures is that they were supported by the populations who got hit first. maybe you have to do the unpopular thing sometimes but the whole “laptop class” stuff is bullshit
the school closure discourse is broken because I think the "close them" faction was right at the beginning but after the vax came out, the states that reopened were right while very blue places kept them closed too long. imo Indiana stumbled onto the right mix (no credit where due).
anyway, I think positioning "closers" vs "openers" flattens the debate and doesn't allow for proper reflection
People were working with incomplete information In unprecedented times and like you said it’s frustrating that rather than being able to reflect on lessons learned for next time every decision has been politicized to an extent that blue states are understandably defensive
School disclosure is broken because it treats it as binary open/closed and never addresses “how do you keep the school open”. Open, but with random absence of instructors is not open.
This isn't true. You're confusing risk with risk/reward. In my country bars were closed for 18 months, schools were closed for 3 months. The reason, school is essential, going to a bar isn't.
Yes, but in the United States, money is essential, adults being able to do whatever they want is essential, education is not.
Folks like Sean and Brian just hated having to be around their families… Gen X losers.
Where do you suppose the children of the people who worked in bars went while their parents worked?
I don’t really agree tbh, the bars were kept open for economic and political reasons. Many other countries opened schools with mitigations and closed bars/restaurants or required testing and then vaccination later
There was also in many cases no central decision making authority. You had different parts of the government with different priorities making different decisions.
Yeah it was pretty clear things that brought in tax revenue were kept open, or ensured they'd remain open. Things that didn't could remain closed
I’m talking about here in New York after vaccination, which is what I’m assuming Brian’s complaining about
He's talking about schools being closed. Hawaii reopened its schools after vaccination. I agree with you that much of the "covid backlash" started during the post vaccination Delta/Omicron era but the grievances he's talking about were 2020 events.
Also, it being Hawaii where the weather is perfect, there’s a big chance he’s just mad about outdoor dining
and one reason the schools didn't open was *because you couldn't keep them staffed*
Because you can’t force teachers to work sick like you can bartenders and servers (happy Labor Day)
I've never seen a detailed plan to force schools open at the one time in American history that every single college grad could walk into a fully-remote office job at 150% of a teacher's salary. Okay "we fire all the teachers who refuse" now what?
even if everyone was willing, covid kept taking out teachers, bus drivers, janitorial staff, etc... with no subs available
At least where I grew up substitute teacher is like the canonical job for retirees and people who couldn't find a full-time position and, well...
(The other is that nobody understands the difficulties of messaging complex issues for 300 million people. A lot of complaints about COVID boil down to “why are you talking to me like I’m a special boy or girl?”)
A third is that just 5 years later no republican seems to remember who was president in 2020
You’d think that people who are involved in politics and policy would be able to appreciate these things, but nobody’s interested in learning anymore, everyone’s in pundit mode full-time.
I have fought with a few relatives over the idea that the chance of another pandemic is 100%. It WILL happen, just a matter of when. Accurate disease risk assessment is beyond them. If you want to have nightmares about public health, pick the brain of pandemic specialists.
I spent my career in the nuclear industry; the risks and actual injury from fossil fuels are far greater in every area; mining, drilling, spills, transportation, pipelines, fires, general pollution, co2 emissions,wars, but it was always more fashionable to focus on perceived nuclear risks.
Also again for like the 77th billion time: most schools WERE open in the fall for the 2020-21 school year. I know several huge districts were not, but that was not the norm across the country! It’s all ahistorical nonsense all the way down.
Speaking personally the bars also opened because the bars just... opened, local orders closing them weren't being enforced and people were going and there just comes a point where keeping the orders in place doesn't make any sense given they functionally didn't exist.
honestly, Trump and COVID and the aftermath of both taught me that most Americans understand next to zero about literally anything more complicated than how to order a sandwich.
Bars opened before schools because teacher unions protect their workers
Nobody does understand risk. It’s why statistics were invented in the first place. To measure counterintuitive things and stuff we can’t measure with our eyes or with anecdotes.
The Covid epidemic was unprecedented in our lifetimes. More correct, beneficial strategies were implemented than incorrect, detrimental strategies. A perfect strategy was impossible in a novel virus. Relitigating the response in a right wing frame is a fool’s game. (Directed at Sen. Brian Schatz)