From a NY standpoint...
by IrishApache (2023-12-31 00:35:35)
Edited on 2023-12-31 11:20:08

In reply to: You know I respect you but  posted by vermin05

Cannot Reply Return to Political

BI is 100% correct.

The pandemic took hold in NY in March 2020.

Schools went full remote in later that month.

Despite the rising death toll amongst the elderly and those with weakened immune systems, we knew by late May that Covid had represented only a minor threat to the young, especially juveniles. We also knew by that outdoor transmissions were exceptionally rare.

But New York locked down. And hard.

At the time, I was living in Port Chester, NY. It is a town known as "The Brooklyn of Westchester" for its dining scene. The NY lockdown of 2020-2021 decimated our village. Half of the restaurants - mostly owned by immigrant Hispanics - disappeared in the next twelve months. Some of these, like the Copa Cabana, were institutions that had been in business for 30 years. Had New York had Florida-like rules, many lost jobs and dreams would still be in place today. And the death toll would not be exacerbated.

DeBlasio pushed cops in NYC to write summonses to people on the streets without masks all summer - mostly to non-compliant people of color, I will add. Summonses to people hanging out on street corners in 85 degree heat, mind you. And DeBlasio overruled protests on this policy from NYPD leaders. Because he wanted to be "Covid Lockdown Tough!"

But the most heinous crime in New York was not perpetrated against diners or those enjoying the outdoors, but our school children.

Come September of 2020, the local public schools were still in full-remote mode. Those lucky not to be in an "orange zone" were able to operate on a two-day-in-person and one-day-remote model.

But NOT the Catholic Schools. They were open for business.

There is no question, as public schools (and particularly their unions) drew the ire of angry parents for either remaining fully remote or hybrid for all or most of the school year, Catholic schools earned tremendous goodwill and praise from people of all faiths for maintaining in-person learning. In the 2020-2021 school year, more than 90 percent of Catholic schools were open for in-person learning, worked within sanctioned health guidelines, navigated that year without any alarming outbreaks of COVID-19 amongst faculty, staff, and students (NCEA, 2021). As it happens, the oft criticized rule-making and enforcement that characterizes Catholic schools is also the quality that has allowed them to successfully navigate pandemic conditions—they achieved compliance with distancing, mask wearing, and sanitary guidelines in spectacular fashion. In celebrating the success of the parochial schools amidst the pandemic, Thomas Carroll, the superintendent of Boston’s Catholic schools, observed: “The Catholic Church is the one following science, and the public schools, who worship at the altar of science—they are basically the flat earth people.”

Catholic Schools did not bend to the wishes of government, and because of this it was evident by October 2020 that schools were not the "super spreaders" that people feared. But public schools continued in full-remote or hybrid learning.

And the learning-loss has been well documented. The lockdowns (unnecessarily) wreaked havoc on New York's public school students, while those in Catholic schools, who followed the science, continued to excel.

So, no. Lockdowns in 2020, especially come September, were NOT the right thing to do. They were a politically driven one-sized-fits-all solution that was applied to the whole populous. And it flew in the face of science.

Government fucked up royally in 2020. So your pontificating that the mistakes were done in 2021 (as opposed to 2020) and "more damage" has been done by the right is really... questionable.



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