Commentary: Study finds removing school mask mandates contributed to 22,000 U.S. COVID deaths in a year

Someday we Americans may stop quarreling over our response to the COVID-19 pandemic — lockdown orders, social distancing and so forth — but one category of debate may never become immune to second-guessing.

That’s the impact of anti-pandemic measures on schools and schoolchildren. According to popular opinion, these were almost entirely mistaken or ineffective.

A newly published study from data scientists at Michigan State University knocks one pillar out from under this claim. It finds that the abrupt removal in 2022 of mandates that children wear masks in school contributed to an estimated 21,800 COVID deaths that year — a shocking 9% of the total COVID deaths in the U.S. that year.

“We were surprised by that too,” says Scott A. Imberman, a professor of economics and education policy