Dr. Phil went on the View today to promote a) his new book and b) his new show. As a former daytime TV host, Dr. Phil seemed to get a lot of leeway from the ladies of the View who mostly seemed to be trying to help him promote his stuff. But that changed toward the end of the segment when the discussion turned to the influence of social media on children.
Dr. Phil very briefly made the case that, starting around 2008, smartphones led kids to become observers rather than participants, something which he connected to “the highest levels of depression, anxiety, loneliness and suicidality” since records started being kept. Had he stopped there the segment might have ended on a note of concern and mutual agreement. Instead he went on to say that closing schools for two years during the pandemic had made things even worse.
At this point Sunny Hostin (of course) jumped in to argue the school closures were aimed at saving kids’ lives. She was backed up by Whoopi Goldberg who added, “Remember, we know a lot of folks who died during this.”
“Not school children,” Dr. Phil responded. To this, Whoopi suggested that the relative lack of deaths among kids was probably the result of closing schools and other measures. Ana Navarro also jumped in with a dumb gotcha question (see the clip below).
It’s pretty amazing that in 2024 the liberals on the View still don’t get that school closures were a disaster. At this point it’s absolutely clear that pandemic learning loss was a disaster for kids, most of whom have not recovered from falling months behind. Last year the NY Times editorial board called it the “most damaging disruption” in the history of US education. Dr. Phil is right that this was a major misstep.
It’s also well established at this point (and has been for a while) that the impact of COVID on children was far, far less than it was on older adults. The CDC puts the total US death toll around 1.1 million (from 2020 to 2023). The number of deaths for kids ages 0-17 over that time was less than 1,700, a small fraction of 1%. By July 2021 the CDC was urging schools to reopen even if all mitigation efforts weren’t in place.
That was more than 2 1/2 years ago. Do the liberals on the View know any of this? It doesn’t seem like it. Instead it’s still an uphill battle to say what should be common knowledge by this point: School closures hurt children in a variety of ways and didn’t keep them safer.
Here’s Dr. Phil arguing the point and, in my view, easily winning it despite it being 3 to 1 against him.
GOLDBERG: “We know a lot of folks who died [from COVID.]”
DR. PHIL: “Not schoolchildren.”
GOLDBERG: “Well, you know what? We’re lucky!”
DR. PHIL: “They were the less vulnerable group and they suffered and will suffer more from the mismanagement of COVID than they will for the… pic.twitter.com/DVSEnOcu44
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 26, 2024