This “expert” who provides PH guidance to Brookline schools decries the evid against in-person ed as “complicated” and yet comfortably rests his decisive opinion on a handful of studies w/ shoddy methodologies.

If unions are hesitant to trust PH “experts,” maybe this is why https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1361664148707422210

To be clear, having an MPH doesn’t make you an all-around PH expert. I know plenty of epidemiologists with PhDs who know jack shit about ventilation - a niche subset of epi. But guess who felt comfortable dismissing the need for HVAC upgrades? This guy.

Also, my MPH took 1-1.5 years full time. Some folks specialize in those 1.5 yr(as much as that’s possible in such a short period of time), but *a lot* of folks take a range of classes - broad, not deep.

In that sense, my MPH was more like undergrad than most other grad programs.

Finally, practicing MDs aren’t necessarily good at PH. They see the downstream *effects* of our (poor) PH, but that doesn’t mean they’re experts on everything upstream. Some are! Many aren’t, but bc of that MD, many choose not to stay in their lane ... or recognize they have one.

The school stuff is complicated, esp given that the data is not great (lots of different study designs, across geographic areas with different & changing policies / rollout).

So most of the blanks are being filled in by people’s personal politics & risk tolerance.

Other countries that - rightfully - decided to try & keep schools open made difficult sacrifices to do so. Bars were shut down. The govt PAID people to stay home for brief shutdowns to control the spread.

We didn’t.

Every fight since - including the fight for in-person schooling - is the result of this original and *ongoing* failure in Democratic & PH leadership.

Nothing is stopping us from doing a paid shutdown in March to save lives & reboot. Except political will - including in PH.