Some Democrats still can’t quit their obsession with pandemic lockdowns, including the ones that damaged children the most.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) asserted that “if we would have kept schools open during COVID … people would have died.” His argument was that, sure, children were not at risk, but their teachers "may have some kind of immunocompromised situation going on" and that children would have infected their family members, communities, and everyone else because they "travel."
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“COVID killed over 1.13 million Americans,” Bowman said. “Why should we have let it kill more?” He left no doubt about what he was arguing: “I think it’s fair to say if we would have kept schools open, more people would have died due to COVID.”
If we would have kept schools open during COVID, like my colleagues across the aisle on @edworkforcecmte are suggesting, people would have died. COVID killed over 1.13 million Americans. Why should we have let it kill more? pic.twitter.com/GwnNXiZFvf
— Congressman Jamaal Bowman (@RepBowman) July 27, 2023
Bowman bases this on absolutely nothing other than his view that children are little disease vectors. He offers no data to back up his claim that more people would have died from COVID if schools had remained open. In fact, then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said in February 2021 that teachers could return to school safely before being vaccinated against COVID.
Walensky’s comments came one month after a study in the BMJ, a journal published by the British Medical Association, found that “the risk of hospital admission with COVID-19 was around 50% lower in teachers and their household members than in the general population” in the spring and summer of 2020 as well as the winter 2020-2021 period.
Furthermore, there was no correlation between states opening schools and surges in COVID cases. The percentage of children with COVID antibodies by March and April 2022 were similar whether their states shut schools down (California, New York, and Michigan) or kept schools open (Florida and Georgia). Children and teachers got infected with COVID whether their states embraced lockdowns or not.
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Combine all of this with the permanent setbacks for children in their educations and emotional development, which harmed poor black and Hispanic children the most, and the conclusion is obvious. School closures weren’t just incredibly damaging to children, they were ineffective at preventing the spread of COVID. They weren’t just cruel and destructive, they were unnecessary.
The only people who are still defending school closures are those who are beholden to teachers unions, as Bowman is. While many other people worked through the lockdowns because they were essential, teachers unions demanded teachers stay home for no benefit. Children are still recovering from pandemic learning loss, and yet Bowman is still defending those lockdowns.