Not to be snarky, but Is she an epidemiologist? I tend to disagree with those who were “right all along” retrospectively in disease, and I have a very simple comparison.

There’s a very old protocol for transmissible disease, something as to the effect of “isolate, identify, treat, prevent”. Certainly it’s not always followed.

I’ve been immersed in two brand new disease epidemics in my lifetime, and with both a huge number of both armchair doctors and medical groups made pronouncements which were laughably poor in retrospect.

With HIV, the AMA announced it would be over by end 1989 or so and armchair doctors said it was an overblown conspiracy. In reality, about 40 million are dead and counting from HIV, and we still can’t vaccinate for it, only suppress the virus in active infections.

The armchair doctors who decided that HIV was a conspiracy and advised literally do nothing in response are pretty much dead as well as their advisees and a number of people as collateral damage.

Amusingly about when PrEP was announced further suppressing HIV, COVID began its world tour, and sure enough we had economists and medical charlatans (I cannot state otherwise) like Jay Bhattacharya announce that it was already burned out in April of 2020 as we watched the death tallies.

He later signed later a declaration that no efforts were really necessary to prevent spread. Well, Jay was not an epidemiologist, though he and a few others were skewered by a few people who were.

Until COVID was well understood as an epidemic, I find keeping children out of schools was a prudent response to avoid spreads among children but certainly also adults, Certainly after the botched deployment of testing under the early response of the Trump administration, it certainly got very focused attention when the ill were dying in NYC and being stored in cooled semi-trailers.

I’m not an epidemiologist but I do have substantial training in biology, and molecular biology along with neurobiology and cognitive science.

Children being in schools around others is crucial to learning. We know they react to whole humans speaking in front of them far better than a screen. I could talk about the pervasive, severe damage going on by children having access to and using cellphones.

But, as for COVID, I just disagree.