{"product_id":"an-abundance-of-caution-isbn-9780262053990","title":"An Abundance of Caution","description":"\u003cb\u003eA searing indictment of the American public health, media, and political establishments’ decision-making process behind pandemic school closures.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAn Abundance of Caution\u003c\/i\u003e 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, millions of healthy children did not set foot in a classroom for more than a year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 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.\u003cb\u003eFeatured in \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic, the New Yorker,\u003c\/i\u003e CBS Morning Plus, CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper,\u003ci\u003e The Free Press, The Hill, Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey, \u003c\/i\u003eand more.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eAn Abundance of Caution\u003c\/i\u003e takes the reader on a journey that starts long before Covid, tracing the origins of existing epidemiological playbooks on pandemic mitigation and showing how they were distorted into the public health policies implemented during the pandemic. It weaves through the political realities of the moment and offers a scathing indictment of media stenography and conformity...There is some solace to be taken in the growing consensus that school closures and in-school mitigation measures left a trail of ruin through children’s social skills, mental health, and education—if only because it means there might be sustained efforts at healing those wounds. But \u003ci\u003eAn Abundance of Caution\u003c\/i\u003e lays bare how the experts had the knowledge and the data to make the right decisions early on; that the media had enough information to assess new guidelines with a critical eye; and that politicians who actually cared had the authority and the tools to ensure that children would be largely safe and healthy. The data on the well-being of the young Americans who lived through the pandemic and its disruptions of the standard journey from childhood to adulthood will reveal over time the degree of the disaster. But that it was a preventable disaster can no longer be questioned, as David Zweig’s essential book demonstrates.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCommentary\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eAn Abundance of Caution, \u003c\/i\u003eby 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.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“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 \u003ci\u003ewere\u003c\/i\u003e 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.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Education Next\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Author David Zweig doesn’t want the catastrophic policy failure that caused this lasting damage to get memory-holed. In his new book\u003ci\u003e An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decision\u003c\/i\u003es, he set out to hold leaders and the media accountable.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Five years after the first school closures, Zweig’s third book, \u003ci\u003eAn Abundance of Caution \u003c\/i\u003elooks 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.'\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eThe 74, America's Education News Source\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Harrowing and revelatory.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ethe Washington Examiner\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAn Abundance of Caution\u003c\/i\u003e posits that Trump’s flagrant mishandling of the \u003ci\u003eCOVID\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003ethe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Zweig intelligently catalogues a number of underlying factors that positioned the American expert class to make all the wrong decisions while trying to make the most of the crisis, putting it to the service of their political and social agendas and, not incidentally, their careers.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Dispatch\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“The tragedy of this country’s pandemic school closures should not be forgotten. Thanks to Zweig’s remarkable book, it won’t be.” \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—City Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"A blazing indictment of public health officials, politicians, and journalists alike...an impassioned account contending that in recent years, politics has tainted health policy and science.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—Undark\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eDavid Zweig is the author of the novel \u003ci\u003eSwimming Inside the Sun\u003c\/i\u003e and the nonfiction book \u003ci\u003eInvisibles\u003c\/i\u003e. He has testified twice before Congress as an expert witness on American schools during the pandemic, and his investigative reporting on the pandemic has been cited in numerous Congressional letters and a brief to the Supreme Court. Zweig’s journalism has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew York\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWired\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Free Press, The Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e, and, most often, his newsletter, \u003ci\u003eSilent Lunch\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives with his family in New York State.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48232924152037,"sku":"NP9780262053990","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262053990.jpg?v=1767721475","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/an-abundance-of-caution-isbn-9780262053990","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}