in the U.S., multiple public health people wrote op-ed after op-ed in major newspapers making this argument. They also made the same argument on social media, tv interviews etc. We 'needed' to close the schools because local and state governments wouldn't close other facilities.

It made sense to close schools. Covid spread through schools. We had no vaccines. People talk like over a million people didn’t die and millions more weren’t disabled. Or like we had all this knowledge in advance. Or it wouldn’t have had a big effect on society if we’d ignored it. My kids are OK?

And a lot of schools could not even stay open because too many of the teachers and support staff were sick.

Yes, exactly. What good would it serve ‘the public’ to make all workers desperately ill? Everything closes. Even if they recover, we’ve then got HUGE waves of illness to deal with, insufficient hospital beds, a shortage of care. Medical workers getting PTSD from watching so many people die.