Randi Weingarten misrepresented COVID study to Congress, author claims
An epidemiologist blasted teachers union chief Randi Weingarten — saying she fudged a scientific study to wrongly argue to Congress that schools should have been kept closed during the height of COVID-19.
Dr. Tracy Høeg, who co-authored a January 2021 study posted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that detailed low levels of coronavirus transmission in school, claimed the American Federation of Teachers president misrepresented the evidence in her testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
“We saw remarkably low in school transmission & no known transmission to teachers,” Høeg said in a lengthy Twitter thread late Wednesday.
“The fact the [CDC] was taking the advice of the [AFT] & not the scientists publishing on this topic in their own journal and without considering the data from Europe seems to have played a role in the massive error that left millions [of] US kids out of school unnecessarily.”
During the hearing hours earlier, Weingarten admitted to lawmakers that President Biden’s staff coordinated with her union on school-reopening guidance before the 80-year-old commander-in-chief even took office.
An epidemiologist is calling out Randi Weingarten for inaccurately citing her work. REUTERS
Tracy Høeg published a CDC study that found low levels of COVID transmission in school. @GovRonDeSantis
As part of her testimony, Weingarten mentioned Høeg’s study “multiple times as evidence schools needed ‘layered mitigation’ to reopen,” and said in her prepared remarks that Høeg was “quite complimentary at the time about the work we were doing.”
“The way Ms. Weingarten mentioned me in her testimony, one might have thought I was being consulted all along but this was not the case,” wrote Høeg, adding that she voiced disagreement with the teachers union head when they first met for a virtual AFT panel on “COVID Safety in Schools” in September 2021.
“Despite the wording in [Randi Weingarten’s] written testimony, I consistently *disagreed* w/ what she & AFT were requesting in terms of mitigation to reopen schools & I’ve said that consistently (on social media, in op-eds, on news interviews) since our study was published.”
Høeg wrote multiple op-eds warning about the dangers of not reopening schools. Getty Images
According to Høeg, the CDC went so far as to ignore the results of the study, which surveyed data from 17 rural Wisconsin schools between August and November 2020 — and found less than 4% of coronavirus cases among the student population were transmitted at school.
It reported that “mask-wearing was high, and the COVID-19 incidence among students and staff members was lower than in the county overall.”
“I was senior author of this … study & as we said in our paper, because we had no control group: ‘It was not possible to determine the specific roles that mask wearing and other disease mitigation strategies played in the low rate of disease spread,’” Høeg said on Twitter.
“Our kids paid an unnecessary price,” Høeg said. Getty Images
“In other words because we had no unmasked control group, our study did not show masks prevented transmission,” she added. “It amazes me this is so difficult for people to understand. The rate of transmission may have been the same or even lower without masks. Who knows.”
Høeg went on to highlight European studies that also showed minimal COVID transmission among students even with fewer restrictive measures in place.
“In fact Sweden’s experience (no primary school closures and no masks <12 years) spring/summer of 2020 was a very good indication masks weren’t necessary,” she noted. “Same with Norway which reopened after 6 weeks & also didn’t mask kids <12.”
In July 2020, Weingarten had pressed for millions of dollars more in federal funding to reopen schools, citing a need for “ventilation systems, but also for buying the damned masks for the cleaning equipment, for the nurses that we’re going to need.”
Høeg said the AFT used her study “to make it seem we needed more mitigation before full reopening.” AP
According to Høeg, neither the AFT nor the CDC sought the opinion of her or her co-authors about the advisability of new ventilation systems. Nor, she said, did they ask about other COVID-related questions — such as whether it was safe to eat lunch outside or the effectiveness of social distancing.
Three months after the study was published, Høeg and the other authors released a detailed report of their findings that confirmed low COVID transmission despite most students eating lunch indoors and not socially distancing.
The Wisconsin study also showed low case counts despite more than half of the schools not installing new ventilation systems.
Høeg concluded that she disagreed with how the CDC and AFT used her study “to make it seem we needed more mitigation before fully reopening,” when in fact further stalling “was perilous.”
“Ultimately [the CDC] faltered because they looked to AFT instead of European & US data,” she concluded. “Our kids paid an unnecessary price.”
Source: New York Post
