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* By all rights, we should than it already has. By saving lives, lockdowns can make it possible to start the economic recovery sooner. <~?~Insert art 022_Gate_9780593534489_art_r1> <~?~NO CAPTION FOR THIS ILLUSTRATION (Illustration suggesting the cost to economies of locking down at the beginning of a pandemic is far lower than the cost they will encounter if they don't lock down.)> Long-term school closures might not be necessary in the future. In the COVID era, if there's one issue that is debated almost as much as vaccines, it's whether to close schools. This is a bit perverse: There are good arguments on both sides of the school question, and good arguments on only one side of the vaccine question.* By all rights, we should spend way more time discussing what to do about schools than what to do with vaccines. Like many public debates, though, there are nuances to the school-closing question that don't get enough attention. Between March 2020 and June 2021, virtually every country in the world closed schools because of COVID. The peak came in April 2020, when almost 95 percent of the world's schools had shut their doors. By June of the next year, all but 10 percent had reopened at least partially.4 The arguments in favor of closing schools are compelling. Teachers and staff aren't paid to risk their lives, which is exactly what the older ones are doing if they're required to teach in person without a vaccine during a pandemic. And schools, with their constant interactions among * Just to be clear, I mean the pro-vaccine side.