Known for many memorable aphorisms, Winston Churchill once expressed a determination to “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Over the ensuing decades, some leaders have used such logic to justify taking advantage of people’s fears during perilous times — trampling their liberties in ways the people would never tolerate during more normal circumstances.
The better application of Churchill’s principle, however, is to actually learn the right lessons from crises we encounter — and to apply those lessons in ways that truly protect both lives and liberty.
So it is with the COVID-19 pandemic that remains relatively fresh in our collective memory.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the architect of much of the federal government’s initial COVID-19 response, admitted late last year that many directives — such as 6-foot social distancing — “sort of just appeared” without any serious science backing them up.
So seems to be the case with many mandates and orders imposed in the individual states.
Here in Indiana, we Hoosiers recently passed the four-year anniversary of stay-at-home orders imposed by our governor with the support of appointed bureaucrats and others.
On March 6, 2020, Governor Eric Holcomb declared a public health emergency. Over the course of more than two years, various government officials issued and enforced COVID-19 mandates, including stay-at-home orders, capacity limits, vaccine mandates, mask requirements, and business, school, and church closures.
Unfortunately, few of the leaders responsible for these harsh measures have undertaken any serious effort in the aftermath of their actions to assess whether they responded appropriately to the threats we faced. But we need such an evaluation in order to learn from mistakes — and to develop a plan and vision for how we will react to similar scenarios in the future.
Toward accomplishing these ends — and because no one else stepped forward to adequately address these issues — I tasked my office with conducting an analysis of how our state government responded to the dangerous coronavirus spawned in China.
In March, we <a href="https://events.in.gov/event/attorney-general-todd-rokita-reveals-faulty-covid-19-data-in-shocking-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released a full report</a> on what we found. One key example — death counts across Indiana were vastly inflated:
<blockquote>COVID-19 was listed as a “cause of death” for numerous deaths caused by gunshot wounds, fires, car accidents, blunt force trauma, drowning and drug overdoses.</blockquote>
The obvious truth is that our state government produced and relied on severely flawed data, including inflated death counts and unsound positivity rates, to shape the state’s failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This faulty data led to months of mask mandates and, even worse, to lockdowns that devastated our economy and our children’s education.
The measures implemented to combat COVID-19 turned out to be even more destructive than the havoc wreaked by the public health crisis itself.
In Indiana, literacy rates plummeted as chronic absenteeism skyrocketed. Thousands of Hoosier 3rd graders have been allowed to move forward despite being unable to read. Students’ mental health also took a toll during the pandemic, with three out of every 10 Indiana students saying they considered suicide.
Shutting down society triggered an unprecedented level of federal spending. Total public debt as a percent of GDP skyrocketed to over 132% and remains historically high. Hoosiers and other Americans have suffered from the highest inflation rate in decades, and the consumer price index (CPI) remains elevated over pre-pandemic levels. Even after the pandemic, total federal government expenditures far exceed pre-pandemic levels.
Moving ahead, we must resolve never again to accept the false notion that we have to choose between our lives and our livelihoods. We must resolve, as well, to keep Indiana’s economy and educational institutions fully open for business during future public health challenges.
Some continue to insist that they have no regrets about the lockdowns and mandates that severely damaged our economy and our kids’ educations. In fact, after our report was released, the governor lambasted it as having “zero” credibility.
Why not <a href="https://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/files/Covid-Report_efile.pdf">read the report</a> for yourself? Then, you can decide whether you believe it to be credible.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “Let the people know the truth, and the country is safe.” Just as in his day, the need for transparency in government remains absolutely essential to maintaining a free society.
Let us all learn and remember the lessons from COVID-19 so that we can avoid past mistakes and better serve our fellow Hoosiers in the future. In particular, let us commit to always fighting the dangerous forces that are all too eager to lock down our liberties — for they pose as much danger to our republic as any virus ever could.
* * *
Todd Rokita is Indiana’s attorney general.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Dr. Fauci Testifies To Senate Health Committee On Country’s COVID-19 Response

New Report Reveals Faulty Data, Fallout From COVID Lockdowns In The Hoosier State

COVID

Death

Indiana

Opinion

Readers Pass

School Lockdowns

Vaccine Mandate

An analysis piece from The New York Times this week admitted that Republicans by and large were correct — and Democrats were wrong — about policies that kept children out of school during the coronavirus pandemic.
The report <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/upshot/pandemic-school-closures-data.html">said</a> that today there is &#8220;broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.&#8221;
The report also stated that remote learning was highly damaging to children&#8217;s ability to learn during the pandemic and that the finding held true regardless of income level.
Both at the state and local levels there was a strong correlation between remote learning and a drop in test scores, the report said, according to analysis by the Times, Harvard, and Stanford. A separate study of 10,000 schools reached the same conclusion.
&#8220;Such losses can be hard to overcome, without significant interventions,&#8221; the analysis said. &#8220;The most recent test scores, from spring 2023, show that students, overall, are not caught up from their pandemic losses, with larger gaps remaining among students that lost the most ground to begin with. Students in districts that were remote or hybrid the longest — at least 90 percent of the 2020-21 school year — still had almost double the ground to make up compared with students in districts that allowed students back for most of the year.&#8221;
The report noted that Democrats have tried to claim that their approach to education during the pandemic was centered around &#8220;their commitment to safety&#8221; among other things.
However, experts told the Times that there was strong evidence that closing schools did little to stop the spread of the pandemic.
The report sought to let Democrats off the hook for how their policies hurt children, claiming &#8220;there were no easy decisions at the time.&#8221;
Among Republicans, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis led the country in pushing back against tyrannical measures that were disrupting people&#8217;s lives during the pandemic. In late Spring 2020, DeSantis <a href="https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2020/06/11/governor-hopes-florida-schools-will-reopen-for-summer-fall-semesters/">introduced</a> his plan to reopen schools in the state and get kids back in the classroom.

GOP Presidential Candidate Ron DeSantis Campaigns In California

New York Times: Republicans Were Right About Pandemic School Policy, Democrats Were Wrong

Pandemic

Politics

school

Dr. Phil McGraw slammed the leftist co-hosts of ABC&#8217;s &#8220;The View&#8221; this week during an intense discussion about the impacts of COVID lockdowns on school children.
McGraw said that the mental health of children largely began declining in 2008 with the advent of smartphones and social media.
&#8220;In like &#8217;08, &#8217;09, smartphones came in and kids stopped living their lives and started watching people live their lives,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So we saw the biggest spike and the highest levels of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidality since records have ever been kept. And it&#8217;s just continued on and on and on.&#8221;
&#8220;And then COVID hits 10 years later and the same agencies that knew that are the agencies that shut down the schools for 2 years,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Who does that? Who takes away the support system for these children? Who takes it away and shuts it down? By the way, when they shut it up they stopped the mandated reporters from being able to see children that were being abused and sexually molested and, in fact, sent them home and abandoned them to their abusers with no way to watch.  And referrals dropped 50-60%.&#8221;
Co-host Sunny Hostin snapped back, “There was also a pandemic going on and they were trying to save their lives.”
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg agreed, claiming that the government was &#8220;trying to save kids&#8217; lives&#8221;. “We know a lot of folks who died during this,&#8221; she said. &#8220;People weren’t laying around eating bonbons —”
McGraw fired back, noting that school aged children were not dying from the pandemic.
&#8220;Well, you know what? We’re lucky,&#8221; Goldberg claimed. &#8220;Maybe we’re lucky they didn’t, because they kept them out of the places that they could be safe because no one wanted to believe we had an issue.&#8221;
Co-host Ana Navarro asked McGraw: “Are you saying no school children died of COVID?”
“I’m saying it was the safest group,” McGraw responded. “They were the less vulnerable group, and they suffered and will suffer more from the mismanagement of COVID than they will from the exposure to COVID, and that’s not an opinion, that’s a fact.”
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨This is INSANE:
Dr. Phil correctly pointed out how school closures severely hurt children’s mental health, and the ladies of The View are *still* defending the decision to close schools four years later, despite all of the public evidence showing how harmful and unnecessary… <a href="https://t.co/6YihTl5eH7">pic.twitter.com/6YihTl5eH7</a>
&mdash; Nicki Neily (@nickineily) <a href="https://twitter.com/nickineily/status/1762199120293335548?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Today – Season 66

Dr. Phil Torches ‘The View’ Co-Hosts Over Impact Of COVID Lockdowns On Kids: ‘That’s A Fact’

Dr. Phil McGraw

Lockdowns

The View

Now that school lockdowns are over, schools are wondering — where are the students?
School absences have spiked since the pandemic. Now, over three years after lockdowns began, many students are simply not showing up for class.
Nearly 10% of K-12 students were missing from school on an average day during the 2022-2023 school year, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/briefing/covid-school-absence.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to preliminary state data reported by The New York Times.
About a quarter of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of school days — about three and a half weeks. Before COVID, only <a href="https://www.lex18.com/news/millions-of-kids-are-missing-weeks-of-school-as-attendance-tanks-across-the-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">about 15%</a> of students were chronically absent. About 6.5 million more students became chronically absent across 40 states and Washington, D.C., according to <a href="https://osf.io/bfg3p/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">absenteeism data</a> from Thomas Dee, a Stanford economist.
Black, Latino, and low-income students were more likely to be absent. Notably in some cases, absenteeism has spiked more in some blue areas where schools were on lockdown for longer during the pandemic, according to Dee&#8217;s data as well as remote schooling enrollment <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/briefing/covid-school-absence.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from Thomas Kane, a Harvard economist.
In New Mexico, Alaska, and Arizona, where school lockdowns were longer, absenteeism rates rose by more than 20 percentage points between 2019 and 2022. California and Oregon, both of which had prolonged school lockdowns, both saw their absenteeism rates rise more than 15 percentage points between those years. Washington, D.C, which also had prolonged lockdowns, had elevated levels of absenteeism as well.
Meanwhile, states like Arkansas, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, which went back to in-person learning more quickly, all saw absenteeism rise by below 10 percentage points.
Some analysts <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/briefing/covid-school-absence.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">say</a> one factor could be that thanks to school lockdowns, attendance now feels more optional.
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“For almost two years, we told families that school can look different and that schoolwork could be accomplished in times outside of the traditional 8-to-3 day,” <a href="https://www.lex18.com/news/millions-of-kids-are-missing-weeks-of-school-as-attendance-tanks-across-the-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Elmer Roldan, who runs a school dropout prevention group in Los Angeles.
“Families got used to that,” he said.
Another issue is parents keeping their anxious children home from school, a decision psychologists say is understandably tempting for parents but can cause more anxiety down the road.
&#8220;The most fundamental thing for adults to understand is that avoidance feeds anxiety,&#8221; Lisa Damour, a psychologist and the author of “The Emotional Lives of Teenagers,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/briefing/covid-school-absence.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The New York Times.
“When any of us are fearful, our instinct is to avoid. But the problem with giving in to that anxiety is that avoidance is highly reinforcing,” she said.
Meanwhile, students are still battling significant learning loss caused by months of remote schooling. The average math and reading test scores for 13-year-olds <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-reading-and-math-scores-for-13-year-olds-declined-to-lowest-level-in-decades-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plummeted</a> to the lowest levels in decades, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) officials <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in June.
In some cases, students may actually be doing worse than before COVID.
Last month, a study <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kids-progressing-even-slower-in-reading-math-now-than-before-pandemic-new-study-shows" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showed</a> that fourth through eighth-grade students made even slower progress in reading and math last year than before the pandemic, dashing hopes that kids would learn faster to make up for learning loss during COVID. At the same time, college students who were in high school during remote learning are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/many-college-students-stuck-at-9th-grade-math-level-professors-blame-pandemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arriving</a> on campus unprepared. Many are struggling with basic math and have had to go back and learn the basics.
Some families also opted to pull their children out of public school for good, opting instead for charter, private, and parish schools or homeschooling. Public school enrollment numbers dropped precipitously after the pandemic began. Public schools lost 1.4 million students between fall 2019 and fall 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cga/public-school-enrollment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Meanwhile, homeschooling rose by 30% between the school year that began in 2019 and the one that began in 2021, a study from the Urban Institute <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/homeschool-enrollment-rose-30-in-2021-2022-study.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showed</a>.

Hollywood High School Students And Teachers Prepare For Coming School Year

Schools See Spike In Student Absences Even Though Lockdowns Are Over

Schools See Spike In Student Absences, Even Though Lockdowns Are Over

Children

Education

Public Schools

U.S.

Enrollment for most forms of postsecondary <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/education" target="_blank" rel="noopener">education</a> in the United States continued to decline three years after nationwide <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/school-lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lockdowns</a> forced many students to temporarily continue their degrees online, according to a new <a href="https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/CTEE_Report_Spring_2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from the National Student Clearinghouse.
Public four-year institutions saw a 0.8% enrollment decline as of spring 2023, a somewhat less severe decrease than the 1.2% decline recorded in 2022 but more pronounced than the 0.3% decline in 2021 and the 0.2% decline in 2020. Private four-year nonprofit institutions meanwhile witnessed a 1.0% decrease in 2023, compared to the 1.2% decrease in 2022, the 0.4% decrease in 2021, and the 0.6% decrease in 2020.
There are currently 7.1 million students enrolled in public four-year colleges and 3.9 million students enrolled in private four-year nonprofit colleges, marking drops from 7.3 million and 4.0 million enrolled students, respectively, from spring 2019, the last year which was not affected by the lockdowns.
“Undergraduates at public and private nonprofit four-year institutions are still declining but at slower rates,” the analysis from the National Student Clearinghouse summarized. “Total postsecondary enrollment remains well below pre-pandemic levels.”
Community college enrollment nevertheless increased 0.5% as of spring 2023, a phenomenon driven by “dual enrolled high school students and freshmen,” while the number of students pursuing graduate or professional degrees plummeted 2.2% from last year.
The postsecondary education marketplace has been critically disrupted by the lockdowns and the advent of virtual instruction, realities which increasingly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/students-suing-after-colleges-charged-them-for-services-that-were-shut-down-during-pandemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prompted</a> students to question the time and funds they devote toward their college degrees.
“The phenomenon of students sitting out of college seems to be more widespread. It’s not just the community colleges anymore,” Doug Shapiro, executive research director of the National Student Clearinghouse, said in an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/college-enrollment-continues-to-decline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> last year. “That could be the beginning of a whole generation of students rethinking the value of college itself. I think if that were the case, this is much more serious than just a temporary pandemic-related disruption.”
Elevated levels of student debt, which officials in the Biden administration are seeking to address through an executive order to cancel $10,000 in loans for every borrower earning less than $125,000, have also prompted many students to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/student-debt-cancellation-may-cause-some-disenrolled-college-students-to-return-poll" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pause</a> or discontinue their education. The debt forgiveness policy was recently examined by the Supreme Court, which is expected to release an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-prepares-to-hear-arguments-about-bidens-student-debt-cancellation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opinion</a> on the controversial move within the next month.
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Lockdowns also severely diminished learning outcomes at the primary and secondary levels. The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nations-report-card-indicates-worst-decline-in-math-and-reading-scores-in-decades" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showed</a> that average reading scores for nine-year-olds plummeted five points and average mathematics scores dropped seven points, marking the first score decline for reading in three decades and the first score decline for mathematics in the history of the initiative. Stanford University economist and Hoover Institution senior fellow Eric Hanushek revealed in a recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/huge-economic-impact-heres-how-much-lockdowns-could-cost-students-in-lifetime-earnings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> that learning losses could cause affected students to lose between 2% and 9% of their lifetime earnings as they miss the opportunity to learn critical skills, reducing prospects for future nationwide economic growth.
Parents concerned about the impact of lockdowns on education have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/is-the-right-to-homeschooling-under-attack" target="_blank" rel="noopener">removed</a> their children from government schools at an unprecedented rate. The number of homeschooled students increased from 2.7 million in 2020 to 3.1 million in 2023, according to a <a href="https://www.nheri.org/how-many-homeschool-students-are-there-in-the-united-states-during-the-2021-2022-school-year/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> from the National Home Education Research Institute.

Empty Auditorium

College Enrollment Keeps Sliding Even Three Years After Lockdowns

College Enrollment Continues To Slide Three Years After Lockdowns

College

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/teachers-unions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Federation of Teachers</a> President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/randi-weingarten" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Randi Weingarten</a> contended that her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/unions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">union</a> neither extended the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/school-lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lockdowns</a> which shuttered government schools for several months nor improperly helped the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/cdc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CDC</a> draft their pandemic response policies.
Weingarten, who is scheduled to testify on Wednesday before members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic about her organization’s conduct amid the pandemic, said in prepared <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Prepared-Statement-of-AFT-President-Randi-Weingarten.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">remarks</a> that the entire hearing is based on a “faulty” and “patently false” assertion that the union wielded its influence with Democrats to keep schools closed even after data indicated that young children were at <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/only-2-of-childrens-deaths-were-from-covid-and-school-closures-didnt-reduce-the-number" target="_blank" rel="noopener">minimal</a> risk from COVID.
“Even before COVID-19, we knew that kids learn best in person, and that remote, hybrid and simultaneous instruction are not adequate substitutes,” she told lawmakers. “Being in school is essential to children’s academic, social and emotional well-being. We know this not as a matter for study or the grist for a congressional investigation. We know this because we live it every day.”
Weingarten claimed that the AFT “acted quickly” to implement “science-based measures needed to resume in-person schooling safely.” The union, however, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/five-cities-where-teachers-unions-are-keeping-schools-shutdown" target="_blank" rel="noopener">threatened</a> a strike days ahead of a planned reopening of District of Columbia Public Schools in February 2021, even as Weingarten insisted that her organization was “not trying to stand in the way of reopening.” As late as July 2021, Weingarten <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-claims-schools-reopened-in-spite-of-republicans-here-are-several-videos-of-democrats-defending-closed-schools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">remained</a> cagey on school lockdowns and insisted that increasing vaccination rates was necessary to “keep kids safe” and “keep our members safe.”
She instead blamed former President Donald Trump, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, suggesting that those officials were responsible for school closures in her Wednesday remarks because they did not implement the health measures the AFT deemed necessary.
“We knew that the safety protocols we advocated for were not an obstacle to reopening schools, as some officials claimed at the time,” she continued. “Health and safety protocols were the pathway for students and staff to get back to school and stay in school and to create trust throughout the school community.”
Weingarten additionally claimed that polls now show parents believe “schools acted appropriately in pivoting to remote and hybrid learning and back to in-person learning.” The school lockdowns, however, drove unprecedented learning loss among children who attended government schools: average reading scores <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nations-report-card-indicates-worst-decline-in-math-and-reading-scores-in-decades" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plummeted</a> five points and average mathematics scores dropped seven points among 9-year-olds who took the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Parents have since responded to disruptions in the nation’s education system, which also included the spread of radical gender theory and other Left-wing ideologies, over the past three years by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/is-the-right-to-homeschooling-under-attack" target="_blank" rel="noopener">homeschooling</a> their children at record levels, a phenomenon which Weingarten <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/extremist-scheme-teachers-union-boss-blasts-education-reforms-homeschooling" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> an “extremist scheme” to “erode trust in public schools by stoking fear and division.”
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The AFT also provoked controversy after House Republicans <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-administration-gave-teachers-union-unprecedented-access-to-shape-national-covid-19-guidelines-report-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> that the CDC offered Weingarten and other union officials “unprecedented access” to view and shape pandemic response guidelines, a privilege that the officials reportedly used to implement a “trigger” provision that would cause schools to automatically close should COVID test positivity rates reach certain thresholds. Weingarten claimed on Wednesday that the involvement of the AFT in crafting public health policies was “completely fitting and proper” since the CDC should be expected to “consult with education groups.”
“Not surprisingly, the CDC would want to consult with the leadership of the country’s largest teachers union to consider our insights, expertise and suggestions on a strategy that would directly affect our membership in matters of life and death,” she asserted. “AFT leadership was keenly aware of the hopes and fears of our members, whose trust and acceptance were necessary for the success of any operational strategy.”

Randi Weingarten

Teacher Union Boss Randi Weingarten Denies Group Delayed School Openings Or Wrongly Meddled With CDC Guidelines

Teacher Union Boss Denies Group Delayed School Openings Or Meddled With CDC Guidelines

Teachers Unions

Unions

Authors <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/explosive-book-on-stolen-youth-examines-the-lefts-indoctrination-and-arms-parents" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Karol Markowicz and Bethany Mandel</a> warned parents that the Left is out to indoctrinate America&#8217;s children and won&#8217;t stop pushing its agenda of fear and confusion unless conservatives stand up, in an interview Monday with The Daily Wire&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/author/ben-shapiro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ben Shapiro</a>.
The pair, whose new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Youth-Progressives-Replacing-Radicalism/dp/1956007083/ref=sr_1_1?crid=UH9OEB9AISKG&amp;keywords=Stolen+Youth&amp;qid=1678226763&amp;sprefix=stolen+youth%2Caps%2C150&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation</a>,&#8221; published by <a href="https://store.dailywire.com/collections/dw-books-1?_gl=1*13iqqxk*_ga*ODM3NDU0Ny4xNjc2NTg1OTky*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTY3ODIyODAwMC40OS4wLjE2NzgyMjgwMDIuNTguMC4w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DW Books,</a> said the left&#8217;s woke ideology push went into overdrive during the pandemic. The chat came during the extra section of &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/the-ben-shapiro-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Ben Shapiro Show</a>&#8221; on Monday.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Why are kids the target of woke indoctrination?<a href="https://twitter.com/karol?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@karol</a>: &quot;During the pandemic&#8230;they were using the kids as child soldiers to push the spectacle&#8230;I was born in the Soviet Union. It was so reminiscent of the stories that my parents, my grandparents had told me that kids were the… <a href="https://t.co/iTcYo0rjmY">https://t.co/iTcYo0rjmY</a> <a href="https://t.co/4X2mqVPwmz">pic.twitter.com/4X2mqVPwmz</a>
&mdash; Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1633507113262620679?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2023</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;So one of the things that we talk about in the book is that birth rates are so low for the left and that they are trying to indoctrinate our children,&#8221; Markowicz, a veteran journalist, said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not their own children. And it really is telling that they&#8217;re not having kids, but they&#8217;re pushing all the agendas that affect kids.&#8221;
She added that the book&#8217;s message is &#8220;parents should be afraid of this&#8221; and that it offers advice on how to fight back and protect children.
When it comes to the woke push against kids in school, during the pandemic and a little before,  concepts that had always existed in schools, such as the &#8220;No Place for Hate&#8221; signs, began moving further to the left.
&#8220;It became like, it&#8217;s not enough that we focus on climate change all the time,&#8221; Markowicz added. &#8220;We need to put on a protest with the children to show that we&#8217;re really against climate change. And it showed that it wasn&#8217;t just pushing the ideology. They were using the kids as child soldiers to push the spectacle &#8230;&#8221;
During the pandemic, it became forbidden for parents to say schools should open.
&#8220;It became, &#8216;You want teachers to die. You are a [Donald] Trump supporter. You are a terrible person and you might be shunned by your community,'&#8221; Markowicz said. &#8220;So parents saw this and they realized if it&#8217;s happening to us, it&#8217;s happening to our children and we need to do something,&#8221; Markowicz added.
Mandel said it&#8217;s evident leftists &#8220;don&#8217;t care about math and arithmetic because children can&#8217;t do math and arithmetic. It&#8217;s evidenced right in the test scores. Twenty-three schools in Baltimore, and not a single student can do math on level. They are achieving their goals.&#8221;
Markowicz said what we are seeing is the woke agenda is being pushed from corporations to colleges and down to grade and nursery schools.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP</a>
The journalist added that kids are &#8220;only allowed to have this one perspective. And it&#8217;s not good for anybody. It&#8217;s not good for society, it&#8217;s not good for the kid. And nobody seems to really care on the left. This is causing so much damage.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/authors-assert-building-resilience-is-essential-for-todays-young-adults-in-new-book-stolen-youth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Authors Assert Building Resilience Is Essential For Today&#8217;s Young Adults In New Book &#8216;Stolen Youth&#8217;</a>

16x9Stolen Youth-2

‘Stolen Youth’: Co-Authors Tell Ben Shapiro Of Left’s Relentless Woke Push On Kids

'Stolen Youth': Co-Authors Tell Ben Shapiro Of Left's Relentless Woke Push On Kids

Ben Shapiro

COVID-19

The Ben Shapiro Show

The following is an excerpt from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Be-Free-Floridas-Blueprint/dp/0063276003/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Courage To Be Free</a>, by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (HarperCollins/Broadside Books).
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<h2>Make America Florida</h2>
When I became governor, I threw caution to the wind by rejecting polls and by dedicating myself to being an energetic executive who would take on issues aggressively. I governed with a sense of urgency and a willingness to take risks to accomplish what I set out to do.
We were able to achieve major successes, in part, because I led based on conviction and did not try to conform to what Alexander Hamilton once called “every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse” among the public. We had our true north, and we were not going to be diverted by media narrative and background noise.
We were also strategic in our approach. I pursued our agenda, mindful of the reality that I was the elected executive within a constitutional system that included checks and balances from other branches and other levels of government. I understood the authority I possessed under the laws and constitution of Florida, understood the various pressure points in the system, and understood how to leverage my authority to advance our agenda through that system.
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We live in a bizarre time in which narrative has supplanted facts, and I had no illusions about how my flurry of activity would be met by corporate media outlets, who like those Republicans who refuse to do anything substantive and dutifully accept leftist narratives. Indeed, during the coronavirus pandemic I was the governor most targeted for smears by corporate media and, since January 20, 2021, no Republican officeholder faced more consistent — and erroneous — attacks.
This is the cost of exercising leadership in modern America. A governor who leads by aggressively pursuing policies that defy the leftist ideology of the nation’s elites will face fire — not only by the legacy media but also from activist groups, Big Tech, and corporate America.
To be successful, a leader must be willing to take these hits. It is not always easy, especially when so many of the attacks are blatant lies, but this is simply the price one must pay for exercising leadership. It is a price worth paying. When I took strong stands against the prevailing narrative on draconian coronavirus policies, I may have been vilified by the usual suspects, but I was able to save the livelihoods of millions of people throughout Florida. The Fauci-worshipping coastal elites had no regard for these people, and it fell to me to protect the people of Florida from the destructive biomedical security state.
Taking strong stands will engender blowback from the left-media complex and may temporarily impact a leader’s political standing. Far too often, elected officials permit immediate political considerations to trump doing what is right. For example, when Florida led the nation on requiring schools to be open during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, we faced massive opposition — from Democrats, teacher unions, legacy media, and even some Republicans — such that public opinion was strongly against our policy. Rather than bow to the current public impulse, we stood by parents and students. We beat the unions in court. And we defied the media hysteria which was completely divorced from the data. As evidence has piled up vindicating our approach, our decision has garnered overwhelming support such that those who opposed us typically no longer admit they did.
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It might be the case that, when making a tough decision, the politics do not work out. One could even lose an election due to standing on principle. This is a risk that a leader simply must take. If doing the right thing results in losing an election, then so be it.
It is not worth contorting oneself into a pretzel simply to try to cling to an elected office.
Ron DeSantis is the 46th governor of the state of Florida.
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Excerpted from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Be-Free-Floridas-Blueprint/dp/0063276003/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Courage to Be Free</a> by Ron DeSantis. Copyright 2023 by Ron DeSantis. Published with permission from Broadside Books and HarperCollins Publishers.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP</a>

TOPSHOT-US-VOTE-ELECTION-FLORIDA-DESANTIS

DESANTIS: Governing With A Sense Of Urgency

Books

Florida

Ron DeSantis

Learning losses from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/school-lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">school lockdowns</a> could cause affected students to lose between 2% and 9% of their lifetime earnings as they miss the opportunity to gain critical skills, according to a new study.
The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nations-report-card-indicates-worst-decline-in-math-and-reading-scores-in-decades" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showed</a> that average reading scores for nine-year-olds plummeted five points and average mathematics scores dropped seven points, constituting the first score decline for reading in three decades and the first score decline for mathematics in the history of the initiative. Stanford University economist and Hoover Institution senior fellow Eric Hanushek used the results in a recent <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/economic-cost-pandemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> to approximate state-by-state impacts arising from the worsened educational outcomes.
“The pandemic has had devastating effects in many areas, but none are as potentially severe as those on education,” the analysis remarked. “There is overwhelming evidence that students in school during the closure period and during the subsequent adjustments to the pandemic are achieving at significantly lower levels than would have been expected without the pandemic.”
Output growth depends upon the quality of a state’s labor force, especially in the United States, where the economy “rewards skills more than almost all other developed countries.” The same reality implies that the economy “punishes those without skills more than other countries.”
According to the study, the typical American student impacted by school lockdowns can expect to lose 5.6% of lifetime earnings. Losses are most severe in Oklahoma, where lifetime income is expected to fall 9% among affected students, and least severe in Utah, where lifetime income is slated to decline 2% among affected students. The phenomenon is most salient among “disadvantaged students” who “tended to fare worse” during the school closures, according to the study.
Similar calculations indicate that state economies could lose between 0.6% and 2.9% of economic output over the next century relative to the baseline, with nationwide output losses averaging 1.9% of gross domestic product. The state of California, which is the largest in the U.S., could lose $1.3 trillion, although learning losses among students in the state were among the least severe in the nation.
“Because the affected students are in school and have yet to enter the labor force, the immediate impact on the states’ economies is zero,” the study said. “And, because the impact is not felt until these students finish school, enter the labor force, and become a substantial part of the labor force, people are prone to ignore the real impact. That is a mistake, because the economic impact is truly significant.”
The study from the Hoover Institution follows similar analyses from other leading economists. Disruptions caused by lockdowns may cost the economy between $128 billion and $188 billion per year, according to an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-2020-school-shutdowns-to-cost-economy-up-to-188-billion-per-year" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimate</a> from consulting firm McKinsey &amp; Company, while a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/covid-school-closures-will-hurt-us-economy-for-decades-economists-project" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School concluded that learning losses would reduce gross domestic product by 3.6% over the next three decades.
Parents concerned about the impact of lockdowns on education have removed their children from government schools at an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/is-the-right-to-homeschooling-under-attack" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unprecedented</a> rate. The portion of American households opting to homeschool their children surged from 5.4% in the spring of 2020 to 11.1% by the end of the year, according to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/homeschooling-rates-doubled-during-2020" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Census Bureau.

Empty school cafeteria

‘Huge Economic Impact’: Here’s How Much Lockdowns Could Cost Students In Lifetime Earnings

Students Hit By Lockdowns Could Lose Up To 9% Of Lifetime Earnings

Economy

American Federation of Teachers president <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/randi-weingarten" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Randi Weingarten</a> faced heavy scrutiny after publicizing her support for an article published Monday, which called on its readers to declare &#8220;amnesty&#8221; for spreading misinformation during the COVID pandemic.
Brown University economist Emily Oster penned the article for The Atlantic, dubbed &#8220;Let&#8217;s Declare A Pandemic Amnesty,&#8221; on Monday, urging everyone to &#8220;forgive one another&#8221; for their words and actions over the virus.
Weingarten, who used her influence to ensure schools kept their doors closed to children during the pandemic and forced mask mandates on children that led to disastrous consequences for students, retweeted the author sharing her latest article, saying, &#8220;I agree with @ProfEmilyOster on this.&#8221;
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I agree with <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfEmilyOster?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ProfEmilyOster</a> on this <a href="https://t.co/lXLjxRcj0E">https://t.co/lXLjxRcj0E</a>
&mdash; Randi Weingarten 🇺🇦🇺🇸💪🏿👩‍🎓 (@rweingarten) <a href="https://twitter.com/rweingarten/status/1587180773186015232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2022</a></blockquote>
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However, asking for a pardon has fallen on deaf ears for those who suffered the consequences of Weingarten&#8217;s previous words and actions — among many others who enacted destructive policies during the pandemic.
Aside from governments forcing businesses to shut down, teacher unions locking up their classrooms, and friends and families becoming divided over wearing masks or how easily the virus would spread — an entire generation of students has been left with academic deficiencies.
The Nation&#8217;s Report Card published the 2022 Mathematics and Reading Report Cards for Grades 4 and 8 last week, which showed average scores in both subjects and grades for most states — and students&#8217; confidence in their mathematics and reading skills — declined.
According to the <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>, the average mathematics score for fourth graders fell five points since 2019, while the score for eighth graders dropped eight points.
In reading, average scores for both grades fell three points.
&#8220;The results show the profound toll on student learning during the pandemic, as the size and scope of the declines are the largest ever in mathematics,&#8221; Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the U.S. Department of Education&#8217;s National Center for Education Statistics, said in a statement.
Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ted-cruz-puts-aft-president-randi-weingarten-blast-pandemic-amnesty-hell-no" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a> that the Department of Education published a report in September that showed school closures and online learning contributed to a dramatic decline in test scores.
&#8220;Average scores for age 9 students in 2022 declined 5 points in reading and 7 points in mathematics compared to 2020,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;This is the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics.&#8221;
The union president tweeted on Friday that her camp is &#8220;now focused on the urgent need to help kids recover and thrive.&#8221;
&#8220;The bottom line is everyone suffered in the pandemic […] because of the pandemic,&#8221; Weingarten <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/rweingarten/status/1586731593703559168" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. &#8220;The disruption was everywhere, and it was bad regardless of whether schools were remote or in person.&#8221;
Republican Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears slammed the union boss Tuesday on &#8220;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/winsome-sears-levels-randi-weingarten-calls-pandemic-amnesty-forget" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox &amp; Friends</a>,&#8221; saying she was one of the major proponents of closing schools that most Democrat governors followed her advice.
&#8220;Now they&#8217;re saying, oh, you know, just forget about it,&#8221; Sears said. &#8220;No, the problems are existing where our children did not learn.&#8221;
Jeremy Redfern, a spokesperson for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, said, &#8220;Randi, of all people, doesn&#8217;t get anything resembling &#8216;amnesty.’”
&#8220;Just like the children she wanted to keep out of school don&#8217;t get amnesty from their learning loss,&#8221; Redfern said.
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Randi, of all people, doesn’t get anything resembling “amnesty.”
Just like the children she wanted to keep out of school don’t get amnesty from their learning loss. <a href="https://t.co/jq1HJ42e2Z">https://t.co/jq1HJ42e2Z</a>
&mdash; Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/JeremyRedfernFL/status/1587196999148912642?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Matt Whitlock, a Republican strategist, called Weingarten the &#8220;grim reaper of COVID school lockdowns,&#8221; adding she &#8220;won&#8217;t admit she did anything wrong.&#8221;
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I’m dying over this. 
The grim reaper of COVID school lockdowns won’t admit she did anything wrong. 
NEVERTHELESS she’d like a pandemic amnesty. <a href="https://t.co/x85BKBxD8a">https://t.co/x85BKBxD8a</a> <a href="https://t.co/GfMsyBIJVP">pic.twitter.com/GfMsyBIJVP</a>
&mdash; Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattdizwhitlock/status/1587211227310211075?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2022</a></blockquote>
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PowerUp & Build Back Better With Care

Second Largest Teachers Union Boss Slammed After Agreeing With ‘Pandemic Amnesty’ Plea

Second Largest Teachers Union Boss Slammed After Agreeing With 'Pandemic Amnesty' Plea

Are you ready to forgive and forget the COVID nuts who wanted to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/lockdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lock down</a> the whole country, mentally <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nations-report-card-indicates-worst-decline-in-math-and-reading-scores-in-decades" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stunted</a> an entire generation of students, practically killed<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/whitmer-says-small-businesses-have-her-support-these-small-business-owners-havent-forgotten-her-shutdowns" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> small businesses</a>, and accused you of premeditated murder because you wouldn&#8217;t do things like wear a mask while raking leaves by yourself?
Probably not, but a writer for The Atlantic is requesting that the entire nation just move on from that insanity anyway.
Emily Oster, a professor at Brown University, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-blows-up-at-professor-after-demanding-pandemic-amnesty-in-atlantic-op-ed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> a story titled &#8220;Let’s Declare A Pandemic Amnesty.&#8221;
&#8220;We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID,&#8221; Oster wrote.
Of course, as one Twitter user pointed out, the only reason Americans were kept in the &#8220;dark&#8221; was that the medical establishment, legacy media, and the Left worked hand-in-hand to demonize anybody who offered different viewpoints about COVID, its origins, or appropriate policies to handle the pandemic.
Those who lost their minds over COVID had no interest in seeing the light. Instead, their desire for power and a providential solution to the virus handed down from government bureaucrats blotted out any rational thinking.
In turn, untold misery ranging from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/record-number-of-americans-died-from-drug-overdoses-in-2021-cdc-data-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">drug overdoses,</a> to education gaps, to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elder-abuse-skyrockets-during-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener">elder abuse</a> and so much more plagued the country — despite people warning such things would happen under lockdowns.
According to Oster, however, all should be forgotten because anti-freedom folks were allegedly only enacting those draconian policies — like siccing authorities on surfers out in California — because they wanted to help.
&#8220;But most errors were made by people who were working in earnest for the good of society,&#8221; Oster said of government missteps.
Of course, that&#8217;s what the Left always says when their tyranny fails. Doing something for the &#8220;good of society&#8221; is often used as the rationale behind egregious acts — such as communist dictators killing millions or socialist governments impoverishing an entire nation.
This is not to compare America&#8217;s pandemic pandemonium with the same horrors of communism, but only to say that Oster&#8217;s excuse falls in the same line of thinking as those collectivist ideologies.
Leftists of all stripes believe that a centrally planned society run by experts is what&#8217;s best for the benefit of all mankind — despite countless examples of it ending horribly.
To that extent, Oster&#8217;s piece also asserts that the problem with COVID policies isn&#8217;t that the Left wanted government control of your life, but rather that those in charge were operating off faulty data.
If only they had better data, then the government could have made better decisions, she implies.
This, of course, is nonsense.
GOP Governors like Florida&#8217;s Ron DeSantis, South Dakota&#8217;s Kristi Noem, Georgia&#8217;s Brian Kemp, and others looked at the data from all angles. They concluded that the best course of action was to re-open society and schools far earlier than what other experts were saying.
Now, conservatives want the Left to admit their mistakes. They want government leaders who enacted the misery to face political consequences. And they want to vote for politicians who will never repeat those mistakes.
The problem is that the worst offenders during the pandemic have yet to really admit they did anything wrong.
Folks like Governors Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), Kathy Hochul (D-NY), Dr. Anthony Fauci, and so many more have never truly admitted that they were, by and large, wrong about COVID.
As recently as December 2021, Fauci still <a href="https://www.self.com/story/dr-fauci-in-our-power-to-control-covid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed,</a> &#8220;Without a doubt, it is within our power and within our capability&#8221; to control COVID.
Hochul says she would do things like <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1585060486378229760?s=20&amp;t=UC5SZPff8xg5CwLwM-oorQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">firing unvaccinated workers</a> all over again. Whitmer<a href="https://freebeacon.com/democrats/dissecting-gretchen-whitmers-false-claim-that-michigan-students-were-only-out-of-classrooms-for-three-months/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> recently falsely claimed</a> she only shut down schools for three months.
Nonetheless, Oster wants us all to grant absolution to those officials anyway.
&#8220;We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty,&#8221; Oster claims. &#8220;We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge.&#8221;
But true reconciliation requires three things from those requesting it: remorse for one&#8217;s actions, the admittance of guilt, and a firm commitment to not repeat those mistakes.
The Left, and Oster herself, haven&#8217;t done any of that.
They don&#8217;t regret their actions because they thought it was all in the best interest of the country. The Left doesn&#8217;t admit guilt because they blame evolving science for errors. There is no plan to avoid repeating their mistakes because doing so would mean admitting that their entire political philosophy is a failure.
The pandemic wasn&#8217;t the cause of the Left&#8217;s awful governing policies — it was always there. COVID just exposed those flaws.
The end result of a collectivist society is an unmitigated disaster in one form or another, while the excuse is always the same: &#8220;We did it for the greater good and based on the data at the time. We&#8217;ll get it right next time.&#8221;
Until the Left abandons the idea that government experts know best and should interfere in your life, there can be no &#8220;pandemic amnesty.&#8221;
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Not A Chance: Atlantic Writer Begs For ‘Pandemic Amnesty,’ Forgiveness For COVID Tyranny

Atlantic Writer Begs For 'Pandemic Amnesty,' Forgiveness For Pandemic Tyranny

Legacy Media

Media

Dr. Anthony Fauci denied that he misled the American people on COVID mitigation measures and policies.
In an interview with ABC&#8217;s Jonathan Karl on &#8220;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dr-fauci-prepares-exit-reflects-legacy-covid-decisions/story?id=91553536" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This Week</a>&#8221; that aired on Sunday, Fauci said the biggest misconception about him was that he misled the public when narratives changed, especially regarding face coverings and school closures.
&#8220;So, what&#8217;s the biggest misconception about you?&#8221; Karl asked.
&#8220;I think the misconception is that I was misleading people,&#8221; Fauci replied. &#8220;You know, to say that I, who have been adviser to seven presidents, and have never ever veered one way or the other from an ideological standpoint, and for somebody to say that, you know, I&#8217;m&#8230; political, I mean that&#8217;s completely crazy.&#8221;
But Fauci acknowledged that mistakes were made, resulting in changes as health officials learned more about COVID and how it was transmitted.
&#8220;Would you take back what you said about masks?&#8221; Karl asked. &#8220;Obviously, the guidance changed&#8230; but you were very definitive. You said there&#8217;s absolutely no reason for people to be wearing masks.&#8221;
&#8220;Yes. I mean, sure, if I had to do it over again, of course. I would have analyzed it a little bit better,&#8221; said Fauci.
Karl then asked Fauci if it was a mistake to close schools for much of the pandemic.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to use the word &#8216;mistake,&#8217; Jon, because if I do it gets taken out of the context that you’re asking me the question on,&#8221; Fauci equivocated. &#8220;I would say that what we should realize and have realized, that there will be deleterious collateral consequences when you do something like that. This idea that this virus doesn&#8217;t afflict children is not so. It does. We&#8217;ve lost close to 1,500 kids so far&#8230; So, it isn&#8217;t without consequences.&#8221;
&#8220;If you go back, and I ask anybody to go back over the number of times that I’ve said we&#8217;ve got to do everything we can to keep the schools open, no one plays that clip. They always come back and say, &#8216;Fauci was responsible for closing schools.'&#8221;
&#8220;But a lot of schools were closed,&#8221; Karl pressed. &#8220;[T]here was a lot of remote learning&#8230; It went on&#8211; in some jurisdictions for the better part of two years&#8230; And we&#8217;ve seen the impact. We’ve seen what’s happened in terms of lower reading scores, lower math scores&#8230; And who knows the psychological impact&#8230; I mean it was a steep cost.&#8221;
&#8220;It was,&#8221; Fauci admitted. But &#8220;[t]he most important thing is to protect the children,&#8221; he added.
In August, Fauci announced plans to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-fauci-reveals-he-will-retire-this-year-pursue-next-chapter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">retire from his posts</a> as the president’s top medical adviser and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career,” he said. “After more than 50 years of government service, I plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field.&#8221;
“I want to use what I have learned as NIAID Director to continue to advance science and public health and to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders as they help prepare the world to face future infectious disease threats.”

Anthony Fauci

Dr. Fauci: ‘The Misconception Is That I Was Misleading People’ About Face Masks, School Lockdowns

Dr. Fauci: 'The Misconception Is That I Was Misleading People' About Face Masks, School Lockdowns

Face Masks

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