A citation for what? And even if it wasn't most of the world, can you show me anything that indicates a lower mortality rate in the US for kids/teachers due to schools being open? It should be easy to prove since it is a pretty specific subpopulation.
In any case, Western Europe and Canada did not close schools for more than a year and also didn't monitor everyone's movements like china did. And I assume it wasn't because of careless disregard for students and teachers. So that kind of invalidates your original point; closing schools for years is not a normal, necessary consequence of a pandemic. It was a policy decision that has not yielded any results, even if political rhetoric makes it hard to admit (in the US)
> A citation for what? And even if it wasn't most of the world...
Your response immediately after the question indicates that you understood what the citation request was for. I was asking for a citation that schools in most of the world were open during Covid.
> Western Europe and Canada did not close schools...
So now we are down to a minority of the world population, incidentally in a political environment very different from the US, where basic pandemic precautions like masks and later vaccines were highly politicized.
> closing schools for years is not a normal, necessary consequence of a pandemic.
Just like frustrated commenters in the rest of the threads, you are continually moving goalposts to prove your preconceived point.
The reality is that there is no normal consequence of a pandemic, and yes, the US is completely different from the rest of the world in terms of how stuff works here. And no, schools were not "closed", teachers worked in the midst of a pandemic to try to deliver remote education with minimal training about how to do it. It is unsurprising that some problems would result.
As a parent living in Canada, the reopening of schools felt completely like a "we gave up on kids" (the vaccine took a long time to get to under 5).
Combined with the poor testing practices, we felt really unsupported. Not to mention, from pure observation of my family, I suspect we are some of the major carriers for viruses: children get it at school, bring it at home, then we spread to other adults.
In any case, Western Europe and Canada did not close schools for more than a year and also didn't monitor everyone's movements like china did. And I assume it wasn't because of careless disregard for students and teachers. So that kind of invalidates your original point; closing schools for years is not a normal, necessary consequence of a pandemic. It was a policy decision that has not yielded any results, even if political rhetoric makes it hard to admit (in the US)