We have here in Austria female journalists & politicians (moms) who have more or less stuck with the line keep schools open at all costs, covid spreads in homes but not in schools. Those of use whose kids caught covid in school know this is simply false. Biden's WH is under 1/n

immense pressure to do something to get K-8 kids across the country back in their classrooms. Therefore many experts are jumping in to help...including recent CDC guidance which basically ignored ventilation. Prof. Emily Oster is an econ professor and has been a leading 2/n

voice writing op-eds, gathering data, and generally arguing 100% for open schools. Today I started to listen to Dr Slavitt's podcast who has since taken a job with the Biden WH. Prof. Oster was the guest, making "the case for reopening schools". 3/n https://omny.fm/shows/in-the-bubble-with-andy-slavitt/the-case-for-reopening-schools-with-emily-oster#description

I had to stop halfway through when I realized she, like some politicians and journalists here too, is on a singular mission to make a case. And because she has written books on parenting, has fancy degrees, and teaches at an Ivy League university, she is given a platform. 4/n

I will let her words speak. I transcribed the following passage. Prof. Emily Oster:

"For some of these early fears that schools would be super spreader events, that there would be huge outbreaks, that has not come to pass, and it has not come to pass in a pretty robust way. 5/n

So we see very few, very very few examples, even of places where there are large outbreaks in schools. And that doesn't mean that there aren't cases of people associated with schools who have covid, there are a lot of those, because people get covid elsewhere... 6/n

...and they come to school, but sort of, with the question of schools like as sources of the outbreaks, we're not seeing that in our data and I think you aren't seeing that in other data either. I think the other big headline is the sort of central way to organize... 7/n

...what we are observing is that schools track their community. So when the community rates are higher you will see more people who are affiliated with schools have covid. And that is of course what you would expect... 8/n

...because even if there were no covid spread at school you would still see rates of school affiliates kind of track the community. And so that means like in the data in the first two weeks after Christmas the covid rates are very high in schools. 9/n

...I mean, you know, by the standard of the other parts of the data, and that really seems to reflect the post-Christmas post-holidays bump up that we saw in everything."

How can an "expert" in all seriousness dare suggest there might be no covid spread in schools? 10/n

I understand how important it is to get kids back inside schools. But that begins with an honest conversation between parents, teachers and students, and the government. Statements like this one year into a deadly pandemic are insulting, misleading and irresponsible. 11/11

No sane person believes covid is only spread over Christmas dinner and never ever in school cafeterias. Covid of course spreads in schools, therefore the conversation should be about how to mitigate the risks. Let's listen to public health experts, not economists! (sorry 12/12)

Great thread here on U.S. far more eloquent than I could explain it: https://twitter.com/abbycscience/status/1361678321449390086