Post by the Scribe on Dec 7, 2023 13:53:19 GMT
Opening schools early for Desantis was done so he would have a "conservative talking point" when he ran for president. I imagine all of the people who died because of it and their families may have other thoughts about that mistake. How many people did Desantis kill?
DESANTIS REWRITING HISTORY
Gov. Ron DeSantis, for the simple reason that he was the only person on stage who actually articulated a policy statement. Unfortunately for the cause of intelligent discourse, his statement was erected upon a pediment of lies.
Not just ordinary lies, mind you. Lies that undergirded his administration’s gruesome failure in the fight against COVID-19.
Lockdown states locked their kids out of school for a year, year-and-a-half. That was wrong....I stood for our kids.
— Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, at last week’s GOP debate
DeSantis was as quick as other governors, Democrats and Republicans, to shut down his state’s schools at the start of the pandemic; he ordered them closed on April 18, 2020, for the rest of the school year.
DeSantis ordered the schools reopened earlier than many other states, at the start of the 2020-21 school year, however. He also forbade schools to require masks, and even threatened to withhold pay and state funding from officials and districts that bucked his orders.
How did that go? COVID cases among Florida children spiked, tripling compared with the pre-reopening period. Overall, Florida ranks 19th among the states in cumulative COVID cases per 100,000 children. (Its record is probably significantly worse, since its figures cover only children up to 14 and most other states’ count kids up to age 19.)
s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23929591/fl-reopen.pdf
s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23929706/covid-19-and-age.pdf
The idea that it was virtuous to reopen schools in the heat of the pandemic is based on a concatenation of myths beloved by conservative politicians that, unfortunately, have seeped into the public debate about pandemic countermeasures across the partisan spectrum.
There’s the myth that school closings and the shift to remote teaching was almost entirely responsible for the decline in test scores. The evidence for that is murky at best. It’s contradicted, for example, by comparing the Florida experience with that of California, where most districts weren’t cleared to reopen until April 2021.
when 2022 national test scores were released, Florida’s kids lost more ground in reading and math than California’s.
About 360,000 American children lost a primary or secondary caregiver to COVID. Nearly 300,000 were orphaned by the loss of one or both parents.
imperialcollegelondon.github.io/orphanhood_USA/
Florida has ranked third among states in the absolute number of children who lost a primary or secondary caregiver, after California and Texas. But in per capita losses it leads the roll, at 596 per 100,000 children, compared with 554 in Texas and 501 in California.
Who brought COVID into these households? In a shocking number of cases, it was children. According to a peer-reviewed study published in June of about 39,000 COVID cases in 166,000 U.S. households, more than 70% began with a child bringing the virus into the home and infecting siblings or adults.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2805468
Importantly, the transmission rate fell during school breaks — underscoring the role of K-12 classrooms in spreading the virus.
In other words, the researchers wrote, “children were important viral vectors in households during the pandemic, particularly when school was in session.”
One other myth perpetuated by DeSantis and his fellow GOP political leaders is that children were largely immune to COVID and that even if they contracted the disease, their symptoms were mild or nonexistent.
Yet according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 2,300 children have died from COVID.
As New York neurologist and psychiatrist Jonathan Howard has put it: “What would have happened had schools remained open without any mitigation measures?” The obvious answer, he has written, “is that nearly all children would have gotten COVID, as would everyone they live with, and most school employees.”
sciencebasedmedicine.org/was-closing-schools-a-mistake/
As we’ve reported in the past, DeSantis’ record on COVID is nothing short of tragic. As of May, Florida’s COVID death rate of 411 per 100,000 population was 10th worst in the nation — about 88,000 residents ; California, with a rate of 259.4, ranks 42nd. If Florida had California’s death rate, about 32,000 Floridians would have been spared.
DeSantis’ sycophants argue that Florida’s COVID death rate is an artifact of its demographics, since it has a high percentage of seniors, who are notably vulnerable to the disease. That won’t wash.
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, which have higher percentages of residents 65 and older, have much lower COVID death rates. In any case, DeSantis always claimed that his pandemic approach was focused on protecting those most vulnerable seniors. If so, he failed miserably at that task.
DESANTIS REWRITING HISTORY
Gov. Ron DeSantis, for the simple reason that he was the only person on stage who actually articulated a policy statement. Unfortunately for the cause of intelligent discourse, his statement was erected upon a pediment of lies.
Not just ordinary lies, mind you. Lies that undergirded his administration’s gruesome failure in the fight against COVID-19.
Lockdown states locked their kids out of school for a year, year-and-a-half. That was wrong....I stood for our kids.
— Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, at last week’s GOP debate
DeSantis was as quick as other governors, Democrats and Republicans, to shut down his state’s schools at the start of the pandemic; he ordered them closed on April 18, 2020, for the rest of the school year.
DeSantis ordered the schools reopened earlier than many other states, at the start of the 2020-21 school year, however. He also forbade schools to require masks, and even threatened to withhold pay and state funding from officials and districts that bucked his orders.
How did that go? COVID cases among Florida children spiked, tripling compared with the pre-reopening period. Overall, Florida ranks 19th among the states in cumulative COVID cases per 100,000 children. (Its record is probably significantly worse, since its figures cover only children up to 14 and most other states’ count kids up to age 19.)
s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23929591/fl-reopen.pdf
s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23929706/covid-19-and-age.pdf
The idea that it was virtuous to reopen schools in the heat of the pandemic is based on a concatenation of myths beloved by conservative politicians that, unfortunately, have seeped into the public debate about pandemic countermeasures across the partisan spectrum.
There’s the myth that school closings and the shift to remote teaching was almost entirely responsible for the decline in test scores. The evidence for that is murky at best. It’s contradicted, for example, by comparing the Florida experience with that of California, where most districts weren’t cleared to reopen until April 2021.
when 2022 national test scores were released, Florida’s kids lost more ground in reading and math than California’s.
About 360,000 American children lost a primary or secondary caregiver to COVID. Nearly 300,000 were orphaned by the loss of one or both parents.
imperialcollegelondon.github.io/orphanhood_USA/
Florida has ranked third among states in the absolute number of children who lost a primary or secondary caregiver, after California and Texas. But in per capita losses it leads the roll, at 596 per 100,000 children, compared with 554 in Texas and 501 in California.
Who brought COVID into these households? In a shocking number of cases, it was children. According to a peer-reviewed study published in June of about 39,000 COVID cases in 166,000 U.S. households, more than 70% began with a child bringing the virus into the home and infecting siblings or adults.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2805468
Importantly, the transmission rate fell during school breaks — underscoring the role of K-12 classrooms in spreading the virus.
In other words, the researchers wrote, “children were important viral vectors in households during the pandemic, particularly when school was in session.”
One other myth perpetuated by DeSantis and his fellow GOP political leaders is that children were largely immune to COVID and that even if they contracted the disease, their symptoms were mild or nonexistent.
Yet according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 2,300 children have died from COVID.
As New York neurologist and psychiatrist Jonathan Howard has put it: “What would have happened had schools remained open without any mitigation measures?” The obvious answer, he has written, “is that nearly all children would have gotten COVID, as would everyone they live with, and most school employees.”
sciencebasedmedicine.org/was-closing-schools-a-mistake/
As we’ve reported in the past, DeSantis’ record on COVID is nothing short of tragic. As of May, Florida’s COVID death rate of 411 per 100,000 population was 10th worst in the nation — about 88,000 residents ; California, with a rate of 259.4, ranks 42nd. If Florida had California’s death rate, about 32,000 Floridians would have been spared.
DeSantis’ sycophants argue that Florida’s COVID death rate is an artifact of its demographics, since it has a high percentage of seniors, who are notably vulnerable to the disease. That won’t wash.
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, which have higher percentages of residents 65 and older, have much lower COVID death rates. In any case, DeSantis always claimed that his pandemic approach was focused on protecting those most vulnerable seniors. If so, he failed miserably at that task.