I can't speak for the American statistics. However, schools were called out as important spreaders in many Dutch news publications and by the so-called "red team" which advised the cabinet on how to deal with the pandemic. I think this was one of the first: https://www.bnr.nl/nieuws/gezondheid/10424031/redteam-sluit-...
You must use studies about pandemic spreading before corona because in the pandemic with a new virus you can only make decisions because of knowledge you already have.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Imagine studies later would have revealed that children are super spreaders and they were responsible for the death of their parents or grandparents.
"The science" has nothing to do with closing schools. A myopic fixation on exactly one cause of harm (covid) caused school closures. We absolutely fucked our kids. For a disease, they weren't affected by at all. It takes an insane amount of privilege to think that all that mattered was covid. Even in March of 2020 there was far more important things to worry about than some respiratory virus whose median age of death was higher than the average life expectancy of a human.
I find it incredible people still buy into the narrative that any of the lockdowns, school closures, or masks was worth it.
Where I live (Wales, UK), the official government statistics on post-Covid school absences makes for troubling reading. It goes from "slight increase in absence" for middle-class kids, to "the upcoming generation will be uneducated" for certain socioeconomic groups.
These articles are from May 2020, Nov 2020, and Jun 2021. That's pre-vax, pre-delta, pre-omicron, etc. I wouldn't expect the science to be anywhere near definitive by those times. Personally I discount just about anything covid-related that was published in the first 12-18mos because the situation has changed so drastically and the science was rolling in really fast and loose early on.
Alternatively, rational discussions assessing events and consequences from COVID-19 policy are finally starting to happen, and people who were against the authoritative advice (at the time) are saying comments like "it's hopeless to talk about COVID because you get downvoted for stating my pet theories which were clearly right."
Unfortunately, that thought process was the same one as the Texas government officials opening up way too early, sacrificing both economy and health instead of just economy. In my opinion, what you're calling "challenges the covid status quo" is just reheated retreads, and downvotes come because folks are just tired of contrarians muddling any feasible approach to assessment and evaluation.
If you want raw research, let me know your billing information and we'll make the research happen for your specific question. Otherwise, here are news stories and articles for your review.
Texas opened too early, leading to more community spread and excess deaths:
The first article is literally just saying that Texas is reopening.
Are you trying to source your claim that Texas in fact opened much earlier than the other states? Yes, yes they did. Good investigative work there.
The funny part is for how dangerous you think Texas was, everyone went to Texas for vacation to escape their own states draconian lockdowns.
I think Texas did just fine. Record number of population influx from other states. Low crime, prices of common goods and housing are affordable. Let me know if San Francisco New York and Chicago could say the same.
Goods and housing prices in Chicago are just fine. One of the great things about Chicago is that it's that it's the one truly great American city that isn't locked in an affordability crisis. Obviously, there are other reasons people move south from Chicago (taxes and the weather being the two high order bits).
I'm not making a case that you're wrong about Texas doing well over the last few years, only that your basis for comparing is a bit off.
