{"id":672126,"date":"2021-08-22T11:36:10","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T15:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=672126"},"modified":"2021-08-22T11:39:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T15:39:28","slug":"boston-university-epidemiologist-blasted-after-downplaying-school-closures-normal-life-for-most-of-human-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/boston-university-epidemiologist-blasted-after-downplaying-school-closures-normal-life-for-most-of-human-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston University Epidemiologist Blasted After Downplaying School Closures: \u2018Normal Life For Most Of Human History\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fboston-university-epidemiologist-blasted-after-downplaying-school-closures-normal-life-for-most-of-human-history%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=672126&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>An epidemiologist at Boston University is facing backlash after insinuating that contemporary in-person education is less important than mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in schools.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Ellie Murray, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health, made the argument that schooling is a relatively new concept, making education less important than the spread of COVID-19 among kids. She dubbed the idea of sending children back to school without \u201cpandemic mitigation\u201d \u201cmystifying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGenuine [question] for [people] more concerned about school being closed than covid: are you aware mandatory schooling is barely a century old in this country? Maybe ur all [sic] grandparents had high school, but what about [your] great-grandparents? Yes, education is important. But it\u2019s a pandemic,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_279670\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-279670\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweet-Pt1-300x201.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweet-Pt1-300x201.png 300w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweet-Pt1-860x576.png 860w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweet-Pt1-768x515.png 768w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweet-Pt1.png 1218w\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"402\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-279670\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-279670\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Twitter\/@epiellie<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cMy point here isn\u2019t that schools closing is good, or that everything is going to be just fine. It\u2019s just we shouldn\u2019t be acting like no schools is a completely unprecedented unknowable scenario. It was normal life for most of human history,\u201d the assistant professor continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSchool is super important! I am fully supportive of schools [and] education!! But the idea that schools need to stay open even if when we [sic] can\u2019t do appropriate pandemic mitigation because \u2018who knows what unending damage closures will do to kids\u2019 mystifying [sic] to me,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_279669\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-279669\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweets-Pt2-300x170.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweets-Pt2-300x170.png 300w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweets-Pt2-1017x576.png 1017w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweets-Pt2-768x435.png 768w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2021\/08\/Murray-Tweets-Pt2.png 1208w\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"340\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-279669\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-279669\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Twitter\/@epiellie<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Murray received intense backlash from a slew of public figures, including journalist Glenn Greenwald. He reiterated Murray\u2019s logic and pointed out that policymakers are viewing the pandemic from the single lens of COVID sickness while ignoring and refusing to weigh the costs of what lockdowns will do to children and society at large.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKids didn\u2019t have to go to school in the 19th Century so stop being so hysterical if your kids can\u2019t go to school now, announces this public health expert,\u201d Greenwald said. \u201cBecause COVID sickness and deaths are more dramatic and obvious costs, it\u2019s been tempting for policy makers to ignore the more insidious but very grave costs of sustained restrictions imposed in the name of stopping COVID. But it\u2019s irrational and immoral to ignore those costs.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kids didn&#8217;t have to go to school in the 19th Century so stop being so hysterical if your kids can&#8217;t go to school now, announces this public health expert. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cGjb9A70vQ\">https:\/\/t.co\/cGjb9A70vQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ggreenwald\/status\/1429437952581644292?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 22, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Other commentators pointed out that the epidemiologist was making the case for homeschooling and showed a lack of empathy for poor and minority children.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Thank you for supporting the homeschooling movement. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qkSpxZiTc9\">https:\/\/t.co\/qkSpxZiTc9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Josh Steimle (@joshsteimle) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joshsteimle\/status\/1429315527600529409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 22, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Spoken like a privileged woman. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BQrLGLWB2C\">https:\/\/t.co\/BQrLGLWB2C<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bethanyshondark\/status\/1429258935937159171?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 22, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Children who don\u2019t receive a quality education are often doomed to poverty. What the hell are you talking about. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/LKf5eYYbEm\">https:\/\/t.co\/LKf5eYYbEm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JerryDunleavy\/status\/1429198798975377421?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 21, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to her <a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.harvard.edu\/eleanormurray\">biography<\/a>, Murray\u2019s chief focus is \u201cimproving evidence-based decision-making by \u2026 policy makers.\u201d However, her analysis for returning children to the classroom fails to weigh the costs of school closures, particularly on minority children.<\/p>\n<p>Study after study has shown that minority students are trailing behind in academic assessments in what appears to be a result of virtual learning. An analysis by NWEA, an academic assessment nonprofit, discovered that \u201cLatino third graders scored 17 percentile points lower in math in the spring of 2021, compared to the typical achievement of Latino third graders in the spring of 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Per the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/08\/21\/opinion\/covid-education-schools.html\">New York Times<\/a>\u2019 reporting on the same analysis, \u201cthe decline was 15 percentile points for Black students and 14 percentile points for Native American students, compared with similar students in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/industries\/public-and-social-sector\/our-insights\/covid-19-and-education-the-lingering-effects-of-unfinished-learning\">report<\/a> from the consulting firm McKinsey uncovered that the pandemic widened existing achievement gaps and \u201cmade high schoolers more likely to drop out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i>member<\/i><\/a><i>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An epidemiologist at Boston University is facing backlash after insinuating that contemporary in-person education is less important than mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in schools.\u00a0Dr. Ellie Murray, an assistant professor &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-672126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}