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Going over the flawed literature being used to justify school reopening is like fact-checking Trump speeches: Tiresome and as rich as. See this one done carefully by Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz and Ilya Kashnitsky https://osf.io/9yqxw/
Despite being âbuilt upon multiple critically flawed assumptions, obvious misuse of the standard analytical tools, and clear mistakes in study design.â It received âenormous public attention, and appeared in discussions of public health policies around schools worldwide.â
But âthe analysis contains crucial mathematical and statistical errors that revert the main results. If the estimates had been calculated according to the declared methodology, the results would completely contradict the stated conclusions and policy recommendations.â
âThe central question is resolving an evidence base for the inevitable trade-off between (a) the very real harms of missed education provoked by policies that decrease viral spread vs. (b) the resumption of education as a social good which increases viral spread.â
And the conclusion by the authors of the detailed analysis of the original paper: âThis is an incredibly important public health question, and it demands careful cost-benefit analysis. To that end, this paper adds no usable evidence whatsoever.â
