{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Why Did They Really Close Schools?","description":"Exactly five years ago, China identified a \u201cnovel coronavirus\u201d and the world was introduced to the term \u201cwet market\u201d. In the time since then arguments continue to rage about the source of the virus, the measures that were taken, and the vaccines that were created. In the midst of all these arguments, everyone seems to agree on one thing: extended school closures were a bad idea. It\u2019s very easy to continue on from that to assume the harms of such closures were obvious from the very beginning\u2014that they happened only because we were blinded by fear. Some people don\u2019t go quite so far, but nevertheless argue that such closures were implemented hastily and without much consideration. But consider this quote from the Michael Lewis book Premonition on the role of disease modeling: The graph illustrated the effects on a disease of various crude strategies: isolating the ill; quarantining entire households when they had a sick person in them; socially distancing adults; giving people antiviral drugs; and so on. Each of the crude strategies had some slight effect, but none by itself made much of a dent, and certainly none had the ability to halt the pandemic by driving the disease\u2019s reproductive rate below 1. One intervention was not like the others, however: when you closed schools and put social distance between kids, the flu-like disease fell off a cliff. (The model defined \u201csocial distance\u201d not as zero contact but as a 60 percent reduction in kids\u2019 social interaction.) \u201cI said, \u2018Holy shit!\u2019 \u201d said Carter. \u201cNothing big happens until you close the schools. It\u2019s not like anything else. It\u2019s like a phase change. It\u2019s nonlinear. It\u2019s like when water temperature goes from thirty-three to thirty-two. When it goes from thirty-four to thirty-three, it\u2019s no big deal; one degree colder and it turns to ice. ","author_name":"We Are Not Saved","author_url":"http:\/\/wearenotsaved.com","html":"