An Abundance of Caution

American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions

De: David Zweig

Narrado por: Jonathan Yen

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. David Zweig shows how some of the most trusted members of society repeatedly made fundamental errors in their assessment and presentation of evidence.

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—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 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 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.

©2025 David Zweig (P)2025 Tantor Media

The world needs this book

4 years ago today I should have had my graduate school graduation, but instead I was forced to spend the prior 15 months of school at home online for no reason SCIENTIFICALLY CREDIBLE REASON. This book is nothing but kryptonite to the CoroNAZI narrative pushed today by those who “lead” us during our COVID imprisonment. David Zweig BRINGS the read receipts and takes the medical and political establishments to task over their purposeful neglect of the science and stats for political games. It’s a fantastic Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn level piece of testimonial literature bringing to light the lies and revisionism. This should be a must read for anyone who claim to have lead during covid. 10/10 💯🔥

Important. True. Too long.

An informative reminder of what happened in real time. if anything it will be a marker to disallow people to remember things different and continue to wash away their obvious errors by saying "we didn't know better." I was there. I followed this. The author captured everything accurately. My only issue is that it was advertised, solely focused on school closures. I wish that the author had gotten into the plethora of other well-intentioned yet unforgiveable errors that occurred. Also, while the story is well-written, it could have been shorter by more than half and accomplish the same ends. This is an important read for those predisposed to write off what happened as being due to a lack of knowledge.

Reminding of what happened

I had to stop listening to this book a few times because it stirred up memories of this time period. For me I had a toddler turning pre-schooler when the daycares closed and I was expected (or felt expected) to accomplish work at home in a tiny urban townhouse. Those memories led to anger and I would have to stop and calm down.

This book tells why I no longer trust the public school system. What those in leadership did has been done and there are no take backese. Real science is not a belief system. And experts are suppose to show that expertise by coming up with solutions. What we got were tribalists who made up 6 ft out of thin air, kept and closed daycares and other businesses, and probably killed off hundreds (death of despair, ignored non-covid health issues, addictions, etc) to "save just one life". Teachers and their unions did not come up with solutions suitable for different age ranges. My toddler/pre-schooler had no interest in looking at a screen unless there were singing cartoon characters on it. Zweig points out the problem with schools were trying to force a technological 'solution' while the practical solution of opening the schools was fought.

The narration was fine. Not amazing and not distracting once you get into it.

Good information, too bad it wasn't listened to 5 years ago

Great research, documentation, and quotes. Not surprising for those of us who paid attention to the disparate voices. But,it's great to have all this compiled in one volune.

We knew

So much we already knew, but even still there was so much we didn't really know. Excellent info for anyone not afraid of honesty.