Kamenetz: 'Attitude That We Should Have Zero COVID' Before Reopening Schools in Blue States Had 'Terribly Detrimental Impacts'

During an interview aired on Thursday’s “PBS NewsHour,” author of “The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now” and former NPR Education Correspondent Anya Kamenetz stated that in the U.S., “Red states opened up everything with almost no restrictions. And many blue states actually opened up businesses, bars, restaurants without opening up the schools full-time.” And that there was “this attitude that we should have zero COVID before we go back to school. And that really led to, I think, terribly detrimental impacts on children as the pandemic dragged on.”

Kamenetz said that as 2020 went on, “I saw the lack of leadership on so many levels, really a full-throated endorsement from the public health authorities on the importance of in-person school was not forthcoming. We did see that in other countries. And that’s how our peer nations, particularly in Europe, really committed to reopening, despite the fact that they were dealing with surges and waves, and they reopened schools, in preference to other public accommodations. And, of course, in the U.S., we really took two paths. Red states opened up everything with almost no restrictions. And many blue states actually opened up businesses, bars, restaurants without opening up the schools full-time.”

She added, “[T]he rhetoric following President Trump was really that we needed to get back to normal and kind of ignore precautions, or that precautions were not important. And that did not build up a lot of trust. So, I personally spoke to teachers in Georgia, in Florida, in Texas who were terrified about going back to school without precautions in place. On the other side of things, in blue states, it seemed like, almost in reaction to that, there formed this attitude that we should have zero COVID before we go back to school. And that really led to, I think, terribly detrimental impacts on children as the pandemic dragged on. And so, it just seemed harder and harder to understand why schools would be subject to restrictions that were not seen in other parts of society.”

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