Funny how politics and reality changes ones perspective.
For 2 yrs the NY Times has been peddling fear. Many articles about risks to kids without acknowledging that have no risk.
Better late than never...but they should still be held accountable for the fear they spread.
For the past two years, large parts of American society have decided harming children was an unavoidable side effect of Covid-19. And that was probably true in the spring of 2020, when nearly all of society shut down to slow the spread of a deadly and mysterious virus.
But the approach has been less defensible for the past year and a half, as we have learned more about both Covid and the extent of children's suffering from pandemic restrictions.
Data now suggest that many changes to school routines are of questionable value in controlling the virus's spread. Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances. Other interventions, like forcing students to sit apart from their friends at lunch, may also have little benefit.
One reason: Severe versions of Covid, including long Covid, are extremely rare in children. For them, the virus resembles a typical flu. Children face more risk from car rides than Covid.
The widespread availability of vaccines since last spring also raises an ethical question: Should children suffer to protect unvaccinated adults -- who are voluntarily accepting Covid risk for themselves and increasing everybody else's risk, too? Right now, the United States is effectively saying yes.
To be clear, there are some hard decisions and unavoidable trade-offs. Covid can lead to hospitalization or worse for a small percentage of vaccinated adults, especially those who are elderly or immunocompromised, and allowing children to resume normal life could create additional risk. The Omicron surge may well heighten that risk, leaving schools with no attractive options.
For the past two years, however, many communities in the U.S. have not really grappled with the trade-off. They have tried to minimize the spread of Covid -- a worthy goal absent other factors -- rather than minimizing the damage that Covid does to society. They have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults, often without acknowledging the dilemma or assessing which decisions lead to less overall harm.
Given the choices that the country has made, it should not be surprising that children are suffering so much.
For the past two years, Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults.
www.nytimes.com