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Originally Posted by Ashartus
I don't think that's really true beyond the early stages in the pandemic. After that efforts were made to keep schools open even when everything else was closed and everyone else had mandatory work from home (aside from closing the extra week at Christmas). The one part that was problematic perhaps was quarantine of entire classes if there was a positive case. In 2020/2021 my son was probably at school from home about a third of the year. In 2021/2022 he was only home for the extra week at Christmas.
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I think its a fair statement to say that Canada fared better than other countries when it comes to schooling, though there are countries that fared even better, but also we truly don't know yet how much development was set back.
A few things. The COVID risk factor for kids is essentially non-existent. Despite the paranoia, I think it was quite clear to see that early on. The Swedish or Nordic model for education during the pandemic proved to work much better than the shut everything down model. You can say that 'oh we didn't know', but not sure that is fair if they had access to the same info we did, and made different decisions in regards to schooling.
This is from Dec 2020.
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“What we have learned about schooling during the time of COVID is clear: the benefits of keeping schools open, far outweigh the costs of closing them, and nationwide closures of schools should be avoided at all costs”, Robert Jenkins, UNICEF Global Chief of Education, said in a statement.
Closing schools did not help in the fight against COVID-19, but simply removed a system that provides children with support, food and safety as well as learning, UNICEF said. Instead of shutting them, governments should prioritize school reopening and make classrooms as safe as possible.
“Evidence shows that schools are not the main drivers of this pandemic. Yet, we are seeing an alarming trend whereby governments are once again closing down schools as a first recourse rather than a last resort. In some cases, this is being done nationwide, rather than community by community, and children are continuing to suffer the devastating impacts on their learning, mental and physical well-being and safety”, Mr. Jenkins said.
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https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/12/1079462
So again, not sure its fair to say, 'oh we didn't know.' It was pretty obvious already by Oct - Dec of 2020 that the decisions being made around schools being closed, or learning being restricted were a disaster, and were almost certainly not being made to 'protect the children.' We are now 1.5 years later, and it is still a mess in many, many countries.
Secondly, early studies about COVID spread on airplanes proved that proper air filtration could reduce COVID spread dramatically, and such methods should have been used in schools. Before everyone wants to run and say it takes time & money to do that, go look up the tons of examples of home made filters that were proven to be effective in reducing spread and providing effective filtration.
Were these methods used to get kids back into schools? No. Here on CP and everywhere else fear & paranoia over ruled practical and effective solutions against COVID spread. And to be clear, that is what we were fighting against. Schools spreading COVID. Not kids getting COVID, because we all knew the extremely limited risk factor. Important point that conveniently got ignored by the lock everything down crowd.