September 25, 2025 - 1:00pm
The evidence on whether school closures were necessary during the pandemic was ignored, Barack Obama has claimed. He added that open conversation was shut down as the debate became overly politicized.
Speaking to British historian David Olusoga at the O2 Arena in London last night, the former US president said that “sometimes we weren’t looking at some of the evidence that said: ‘You know what, most kids really need school.’” He added that “it got politicized and became ideological and was viewed as a Left versus Right issue.”
On 30 January 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded the first instance of Covid-19 in the US, and by the end of March all states had closed schools until further notice. In mid-September 2020, about 60% of US schools were fully virtual and only 20% were operating a traditional in-person schedule, while around 20% were hybrid. Well into 2021, many schools — primarily in Democratic states — were operating on reduced timetables with mask mandates and social distancing rules.
In May 2020, Obama called the federal government’s response to the pandemic “an absolute chaotic disaster”. Speaking to college graduates in an online commencement address, he said: “More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing. A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.” Earlier that year, in March, the former president advocated for the cancellation of large gatherings so as to “slow the spread of the virus and save lives”. He added: “We have to look out for each other.”
Five years later, there is a wide consensus among experts that closing schools during the pandemic hampered children’s education and social development while failing to stop the spread of the disease. A report in the New York Times in March 2024 said that “today, there is broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.”
Earlier this month, data from The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known informally as America’s report card, showed that reading and math scores for senior high school students were down significantly from 2019. Average scores are down dramatically since 1992 among the worst-performing students, but experts suggest that pandemic closures exacerbated an already worsening decline in attainment. For example, a McKinsey study showed that by the autumn of 2020, students in the sample had only learned 67% of the math curriculum they were due to cover by that point.
Obama went on to say that, since many parents were still working during the pandemic, there should have been a conversation around reopening schools earlier. “Parents, they’re working all day and they need their kids at school”, he said. He added that “social consequences” had to be balanced and people must “not just assume that anybody who objects to continuing these very strict regimens is somehow crazy”.
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