On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that it wasn’t the coronavirus pandemic that caused massive learning loss, “the way we handled the pandemic did that. The pandemic certainly was a thing but let’s not just say the pandemic. Because it was not written in stone that we had to handle it the way we did.” And that the overreaction to the pandemic is also to blame for 40-year high inflation.
Maher said, “I thought we overreacted to COVID. Now, we’re getting some information, after a while, we have time to find out just how bad the collateral damage has been. Here [are] just a few cases: The pandemic erased two decades of progress in math and reading. See, right away I’ve got to say, this pisses me off. I see these headlines all the time, the pandemic didn’t do that, the way we handled the pandemic did that. The pandemic certainly was a thing but let’s not just say the pandemic. Because it was not written in stone that we had to handle it the way we did. ACT scores are the lowest in 30 years, anxiety and depression way up. The body mass index increased, doubled for kids 2-19. Drug overdose deaths, murders way up, inflation at a 40-year high, domestic violence increased. Oh, and my favorite, car crashes. They couldn’t figure this out…finally…the experts said, you know what it is? People just went f*cking mental. They went just nuts. They’re like, I’m home, the f*cking kids are here all the time, my stupid husband is here all the time, I’m just going to take it out on the highway, and they did.”
He later added that “Florida did well” handling the virus by focusing on the most vulnerable populations.
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