Christina Pagel was annoyed about the News Agents claiming that school closures during covid weren't necessary, mostly because they didn't reference the modelling that showed how much worse it could have been had schools not closed (especially during the first wave, when everyone was ignorant, there was no vaccine, and hospitals were overwhelmed).
https://skywriter.blue/@chrischirp.bsky.social/3mrwx74y5x223
Prof Christina Pagel
July 31, 2026 at 2:25 PM GMT+2
🧵On
@thenewsagents.co.uk yesterday, school closures and the lab leak theory were offered as two examples of legitimate questions that were hard to ask. Both have in fact been asked constantly since 2020. But here's a thread on why I think they were wrong and dangerous on school closures 1/12
@lewisgoodall.com /
@jonsopel1.bsky.social said "I am not sure that even in the first lockdown, school closures for any length of time were a price worth paying." But no discussion of the alternative. The alternative was never "schools open and everything else the same".
2/12 March 2020: no testing, no treatment, no vaccine, admissions doubling every 3 to 4 days. Countries ahead of us closed schools alongside everything else, so nobody had evidence separating the two. We didn't know much about Covid in children and nothing about long term impact 3/12 Several studies have since shown definitely that children and schools contribute signficantly to transmission. In Sweden (with no formal lockdown), parents and teachers of pupils at school had higher infection rates. Children live with and are taught by adults. Many are vulnerable adults.
4/12 After 1st wave, we didn't run summer catch up programmes or improve ventilation in schools - we didn't even try until 2021, months after the last school closures. We didn't recommend masks (let alone good masks) in classrooms until after the last school closures. 5/12 We did in fact try lockdown with schools fully open in November 2020. It worked initially, but cases in London & SE started rising again *before* lockdown even ended, because of new variant Alpha. Lockdown with schools open was not enough! 6/12 In fact, modelling on contact and case data estimated that if schools had remained open during the final Jan-March 2021 lockdown, it would barely have brought R below 1. I've already written about that devastating wave in which 87,000 people died. 7/12
christinapagel.substack.com
The UK Covid Inquiry has laid bare the avoidable horror of the second Covid wave
christinapagel.substack.com
And covid was not harmless to children. Being at lower risk than adults does not mean harmless. There was acute illness needing hospital, late onset rare but serious inflammatory disease, Long Covid and 13,000 UK children who lost a parent. (more details in substack post at end) 8/12 Keeping schools open is a goal not a policy. A blanket "never close schools" is a bad lesson.
I suggest these: 1. Do not prejudge next pandemic which will be a different virus and could have very different age profile of who it attacks 9/12 2. Clean indoor air: helpful in a pandemic and good for health and learning at all times (and not just in schools but other buildings too) 3. Effective public health measures: testing, contact tracing, support for isolation, communication, etc 10/12 4. Support for children in disadvantaged communities, inc devices, connectivity, food, safe spaces to learn, catch-up teaching 5. Dedicated and planned mental health and social support if school closures become necessary 6. Build capacity to generate evidence more rapidly for the next time 11/12 More detail with links to evidence and a nice chart in my substack post 12/12
christinapagel.substack.com
We are learning the wrong lesson from Covid school closures
christinapagel.substack.com
