Abundance of Caution, An
American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions
Format:Hardback
Publisher:MIT Press Ltd
Published:22nd Apr '25
Should be back in stock very soon
A searing indictment of the American public health, media, and political establishments decision-making process behind pandemic school closures. An Abundance of Caution is a devastating account of the decision-making process behind one of the worst American policy failures in a century the extended closures of public schools during the pandemic. In fascinating and meticulously reported detail, David Zweig shows how some of the most trusted members of society from Pulitzer Prize winning journalists to eminent health officials repeatedly made fundamental errors in their assessment and presentation of evidence. As a result, for the first time in modern American history, healthy children were barred from school. Millions of them did not set foot in a classroom for more than a year. All along, kids throughout Europe had been learning in person since the spring of 2020. Even many peers at home in private schools, and public schools in mostly red states and districts were in class full time from fall 2020 onward. Whatever inequities that existed among American children before the pandemic, the selective school closures exacerbated them, disproportionately affecting the underprivileged. Deep mental, physical, and academic harms among them, depression, anxiety, abuse, obesity, plummeting test scores, and rising drop-out rates were endured for no discernible benefit. As the Europeans had shown very early, after they had sent kids back to class, there was never any evidence that long-term school closures, nor a host of interventions imposed on students when they were in classrooms, would reduce overall cases or deaths in any meaningful way. The story of American schools during the pandemic serves as a prism through which to approach fundamental questions about why and how individuals, bureaucracies, governments, and societies act as they do in times of crisis and uncertainty. Ultimately, this book is not about Covid; it s about a country ill-equipped to act sensibly under duress.
Featured in The Atlantic, CBS Morning Plus, The Lead with Jake Tapper, The Free Press, The Hill, and more.
"An Abundance of Caution, by the journalist David Zweig, documents the poor evidentiary basis for the prolonged school closures and attendant follies such as masking requirements and social distancing. Mr. Zweig distinguished himself throughout the pandemic by his willingness to question the assumptions of self-identified 'Covid hawks'...By recounting his own experiences as a father of school-aged children trying in vain to convince his local school district to consider other options, Mr. Zweig movingly conveys the dumbfounded disillusionment many Americans experienced during the pandemic."
—The Wall Street Journal
“It is a scrupulously researched, painfully detailed examination of why extended school closures were so misguided and why it was so tough for public officials to course correct...While the education world is today full of handwringing about distrust in institutions, experts, and the media, Zweig’s damning account suggests this distrust is both understandable and hard-earned. As he makes all too clear, we’re dealing with the aftermath of long years during which public officials and experts failed abjectly, while the media championed destructive policies and ignored or belittled those who were asking about the emperor’s lack of clothes. The experience shattered the public’s already fragile trust in schools, experts, and media. Rebuilding that trust will be tough, absent an acknowledgment of what went so wrong. That makes Zweig’s magisterial contribution not just an overdue exercise in truth-telling but also, potentially, a crucial first step in that restorative journey.”
—Education Next
"Author David Zweig doesn’t want the catastrophic policy failure that caused this lasting damage to get memory-holed. In his new book An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions, he set out to hold leaders and the media accountable."
—New York Post
"Five years after the first school closures, Zweig’s third book, An Abundance of Caution looks back on what he considers the questionable deliberations surrounding COVID at almost every level. While it takes the pandemic as its subject, Zweig notes that the book is about something much broader: 'a country ill-equipped to act sensibly under duress.'"
—The 74, America's Education News Source
"Harrowing and revelatory.”
—the Washington Examiner
“An Abundance of Caution posits that Trump’s flagrant mishandling of the COVID crisis gave cover to the rampant (but less obvious) dissembling, posturing, and about-facing of élite institutions and public-health experts, which Zweig diligently itemizes."
—the New Yorker
ISBN: 9780262549158
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
480 pages