I’m not sure why Randi Weingarten has decided this week is the moment for her to retcon the history of her involvement in school closures during the pandemic. I’m assuming this has something to do with setting teacher’s unions up to help Democrats in 2024, i.e. dump the baggage now so you can claim this is old news nexe year.

The problem for Weingarten is that the history she’s trying to rewrite is a little too recent and too vivid for many parents. Her claims that she was all about reopening schools from the start of the pandemic just don’t jibe with reality and there are lots of quotes out there to show that’s the case.

David did a whole post about this yesterday so I’m not going to rehash all of that again, but today I came across a Twitter thread which directly contradicts some of the claims Weingarten was making during her testimony yesterday. The author of the thread is Dr. Tracy Hoeg, an epidemiologist who did a pivotal study of Wisconsin schools which was published by the CDC in January 2021. Randi Weingarten actually name-checked her during her testimony.

Today in her congressional testimony @rweingarten mentioned our Wisconsin study in @CDCMMWR multiple times as evidence schools needed "layered mitigation" to reopen
She also mentioned me in her written testimony
This statement👇 & her interpretation of our study are incorrect🧵 https://t.co/U6zIyl1Kuh pic.twitter.com/YIH9Hut0BU

— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) April 27, 2023

Next she talks about a graphic that the CDC created which was supposedly based on the conclusions of her Wisconsin study (she was the senior author). Notice the graphic below says that Wisconsin schools “used masks” to limit the spread. But as Dr. Hoeg points out, the study itself offered no guidance on masks because it had no control group without masks.

In other words because we had no unmasked control group, our study did not show masks prevented transmission
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 knowshttps://t.co/vh6sgpIIT2

— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) April 27, 2023

In fact, there was some evidence from Europe that masks weren’t necessary in schools.

The @CDCgov & @AFTunion also could have asked us study authors about things like eating lunch indoors, distancing and ventilation in our Wisconsin study (which we ended up outlining here because they never asked) https://t.co/7Kfhmec9UE)

— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) April 27, 2023

The CDC graphic also talked about social distancing but if you click that link above you’ll find that “89.3% of elementary students included in our study did not maintain 6 feet of physical distancing in the classroom and 94.8% were within 6 feet in lunchrooms.” In other words, social distancing was not maintained. The authors concluded:

In the setting of high community COVID-19 disease transmission, 6 feet of distance between elementary students and major ventilation system renovations in primary or secondary schools do not appear to be necessary to minimize disease spread. Requiring masks at recess and prohibiting bussing also appears unnecessary. These findings may inform guidance on the safe reopening of schools and allow for more children to return to in-person schooling.

In short, all of the things that Weingarten and her union were demanding (including expensive new ventilations systems) in order to reopen schools were not necessary.

The fact the @CDCgov was taking the advice of the @AFTunion & 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 US kids out of school unnecessarily.

— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) April 27, 2023

Also, Weingarten’s claim that Dr. Hoeg was complimentary about what she and her union were doing wasn’t accurate.

You can watch the video & determine if I was being "quite complimentary". Certainly I was polite & respectful
But 9/2021 I was arguing there was no good evidence to support masking in school
P.S. This was fun to make & I was happy @rweingarten agreed to ithttps://t.co/R1IY7v3Isi

— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) April 27, 2023

I watched Dr. Hoeg’s statement in that clip and it’s basically a long list of evidence that schools should reopen and that masking of young children is not needed. But it’s clear that Weingarten didn’t get it. In fact, after Hoe’s statement Weingarten thanked her for her study which she said helped her think through her approach, including masking in schools. But again, the study in question didn’t provide any evidence for or against masking.

I don't agree w/how our study & I am being used to make it seem we needed more mitigation before full reopening; no-in fact the *delay* that was perilous

Ultimately @CDCgov faltered because they looked to AFT instead of European & US data

Our kids paid an unnecessary price

End

— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) April 27, 2023

In other words, Dr. Hoeg and her study were never on the side of Randi Weingarten or the teacher’s unions but it seems that Weingarten never understood that and still doesn’t.

CNN had Weingarten on today and she was confronted by commentator Scott Jennings who really let her have it for trying to claim she was always about opening schools. As Jennings put it, “You’ll find that most parents believe you were the tip of the spear of school closures.”