> children shouldn't have been required to wear masks in school

Historically children were required to get vaccinated before attending public schools. Having large groups in close proximity for long periods is a serious disease transmission risk. With COVID the children themselves had minimal risk but the community was at risk from them.

~1,220,000 people died with the precautions we took. That doesn’t mean 1,220,000 people would have died with fewer precautions or that more couldn’t dramatically lower that number.

Public heath is complicated, but we traded roughly a million American lives for freedom. Suggesting we should have done less is a difficult stance for me to support even as doing dramatically more would have been extremely painful.