Glenn is right that the loss from doing schools remotely has had a much bigger impact than any lives that it may have saved. It's not just economists who are saying this, however. John Ioannidis, Monic Gandhi, Marty Makary, and many other prominent Medical Doctors are saying the same thing. Of course, Ioannidis and Gandhi are also biostatisticians. The decisions to do schooling remotely were mostly political decisions after getting pressure from teachers' unions. Some doctors supported the shutdowns, but others did not.
A new article by Vinay Prasad (a medical doctor who is also a biostatistian illustrates my point. Prasad illustrates several flawed studies by the CDC in support of masking and other political issues. I believe that most economists and statisticians would regard the CDC studies as fraudulent. Many MDs would not regard these studies as fraudulent. Many MDs understand statistics well enough to know how to game the studies without realizing that what they are doing is fraudulent. Here's a link to Prasad's article.
Glenn is right that the loss from doing schools remotely has had a much bigger impact than any lives that it may have saved. It's not just economists who are saying this, however. John Ioannidis, Monic Gandhi, Marty Makary, and many other prominent Medical Doctors are saying the same thing. Of course, Ioannidis and Gandhi are also biostatisticians. The decisions to do schooling remotely were mostly political decisions after getting pressure from teachers' unions. Some doctors supported the shutdowns, but others did not.
A new article by Vinay Prasad (a medical doctor who is also a biostatistian illustrates my point. Prasad illustrates several flawed studies by the CDC in support of masking and other political issues. I believe that most economists and statisticians would regard the CDC studies as fraudulent. Many MDs would not regard these studies as fraudulent. Many MDs understand statistics well enough to know how to game the studies without realizing that what they are doing is fraudulent. Here's a link to Prasad's article.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/how-the-cdc-abandoned-science