Will the Biden Administration Close Schools in the Fall?
A bit of tiff arose yesterday between yours truly and the White House Covid advisor Ashsish Jha. In case you missed it, Jha was giving an update and taking questions from the White House Press corps when a reporter shot out a last minute question: “Do you believe all schools will and must be open this coming Fall?”
Jha hesitated and before he could answer he was whisked off the state by the Press Secretary:
Later in the day many pro-Jha proponents claimed that I was wrong on his stance on schools. Of course, I never mentioned his stance on schools in the tweet - I referred to him as a partisan lockdown advocate (which he is - see below). Matt Yglesias took issue with me and then Jha himself retweeted my post and commented:
I’m glad to hear that he wants to keep schools open, but his track record is less than stellar in how he uses the word safe there.
Just two days ago Jha touted a chart by Team Apocalypse high priest Jeremy Faust claiming that Covid is far deadlier to children than influenza - an absolutely refutable stat that Faust knows is false. Jha went right along with it.
Fortunately, our good friend and colleague Erich Hartmann had already produced an evidence-based takedown of Jha when we took the helm at the White House:
Via @erichhartmann here.
A lot of “experts” pushed to close schools despite early & consistent evidence that schools & kids were safe. And now, as if on queue, many of these bluechecks trying desperately to “PIVOT” and pretend they didn't. So, let's talk about this dude @ashishkjha
In July 2020 Jha loudly and repeatedly demanded districts tie school openings to the amorphous notion of "community spread".
Tying #OpenSchools to "community spread" was not only counter to all available data and evidence, it literally *ensured* schools would remain closed. And millions of kids were forced into damaging remote/hybrid schemes. Jha would not be at Harvard long after he wrote this.
Then, in November 2020, after the damage being done to our kids was crystal clear, Jha tried his first "adjustment" : tying school openings to unachievable thresholds of physical "safety" in classrooms. The unattainable pipe dream that we are still dealing with today.
Throughout 2021 Jha dug in, and became one of the biggest proponents of masking our children, despite the glaring absence of proof, or evidence of efficacy. His blind belief was all he needed to insist that the only way for schools to be "safe"… was to muzzle little kids.
Then, in early October 2021, Ashish Jha's amazing ability to ignore evidence hit new heights when he definitively declared *in front of the US Congress* that: "No expert (that he knows of) doesn't believe masking is helpful for kids!"
Fast forward to now. Jha is scrambling to join the other bluecheck rats fleeing this sinking ship. Desperately trying to appear oh so concerned about teh childrens … all while completely ignoring his pivotal role in this whole mess.
And not only did Jha help *cause* this massive & unnecessary damage to an entire generation of our kids, he was also really, really shitty about it. He attacked, silenced and demeaned anyone who had a different opinion, even his long-time friends & colleagues. What a gem.
Look. It's hard to admit you're wrong. Especially when you've knowingly done something this awful, and used scorched Earth tactics to do it. But it takes boss mode levels of hutzpah to try and rewrite history. That's not going to happen. Because @ashishkjha … we see you :)
Absolutely not. I'd like to think that everyone, red, blue and purple, is in agreement that school closures did absolutely nothing to stop transmission and it hurt a generation of children.
ha, you know you made a good point when government officials feel compelled to retweet your statement with an argument about how it doesn't apply to them!