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To: Les H who wrote (47673)	9/14/2025 8:06:21 AM
From: Les H	Respond to of 49054

School closures during COVID created massive long-term costs with limited health benefits University of OxfordSep 13 2025 School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic imposed enormous long-term costs while other measures delivered better health outcomes for far less money, according to new research led by Oxford University's Department of Statistics and the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science analysing non-pharmaceutical interventions in the United States. The study, published in BMC Global and Public Health, examined policies implemented across US states during 2020, before vaccines became available. Researchers from Oxford and the University of Washington analysed eleven different non-pharmaceutical interventions, combining disease modelling with economic analysis to calculate both health benefits and costs to society. During this pre-vaccine period, policymakers relied entirely on non-pharmaceutical measures such as mask mandates, social distancing, testing, contact tracing, and facility closures to control the virus. School closures prevented roughly 77,200 COVID-19 deaths and reduced transmission rates by 8.2% but created £1.6 trillion ($2 trillion) in future economic losses through damaged education. Students lost upwards of 0.35 schoolyears of learning, with some states keeping schools closed for nearly the entire 2020-2021 academic year. In comparison, mask mandates cut transmission by 19%, making them more effective at preventing disease spread, while imposing minimal costs. Testing and contact tracing programmes also proved efficient compared to implementation costs. Medical News The shortage of personal protective equipment PPE lasted nearly a year. The vaccine also wasn't available for school children until May 2021. Jared Kushner's shadow covid task force was responsible for invoking the emergency order to re-direct manufacturing plants to meet the new demand for masks, gloves, etc. He put in orders from existing suppliers in China who were already backed up.

To: Les H who wrote (47673)	9/14/2025 8:48:47 AM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49054

The 'deep state' is proving to Trump it’s a worthy foe The president has federal workers on their heels, but he hasn’t yet brought them to heel. By Erin Schumaker Politico 09/14/2025 07:00 AM EDT President Donald Trump and his team are crowing about the downsizing of the federal bureaucracy, which is set to shrink by tens of thousands more on Sept. 30 when workers who took a DOGE buyout hang it up. But if Trump’s goal was to dismantle the workforce he calls the “deep state” — and blames for the failings of his first term — he’s got a long way to go. Although he’s disrupted swaths of the government, the vast majority of career federal employees who avoided the firings of the past seven months are sticking it out, according to Labor Department statistics and the White House’s own admission. Many of those who’ve chosen to remain are keeping their heads down. Some aren’t — and their open defiance of Trump administration policies may make it harder for the administration to achieve Trump’s goals — much like Trump complained they did in his first term. At the end of the day, career staffers still believe that politicians come and go and it’s them who will persevere, the survivors told POLITICO. “They are staying in their jobs — the vast majority of people, even though they could get a job somewhere else or look for a job somewhere else,” said Rushab Sanghvi, general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, whose bargaining agreements at at least six agencies Trump has sought to scuttle. “There will be a new administration, with new priorities.” For many, that’s true, but for others, such as those in highly specialized fields like foreign aid, the job market for former government workers is limited. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Sept. 9 it likely over-estimated past job growth by hundreds of thousands, painting a grimmer picture of the employment market than previously thought. That too could be a factor in federal workers’ apparent resolve to stay. While 200,000 federal workers have left the government this year, the most in a single year since World War II, Trump still employs about 2.2 million civil servants. By year’s end, the administration expects to cut loose 100,000 more federal workers, according to the White House Office of Personnel Management. That’s a lot, but it amounts to a cut of about 12 percent. ... But for all of Trump’s broadsides — he’s called civil servants “ crooked” and “dishonest” people who are “destroying this country” — the percentage of federal workers quitting each month hasn’t budged, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The quit rate is holding steady at 0.5 percent as of July, the same percentage as last year before Trump took office and down from 0.7 percent at the height of the pandemic. more at Politico Projection defense mechanism.