At a panel discussion on the global Covid-19 response hosted at Cornell last week, Cornell administrator Dr. Shmoys declined an opportunity to apologize and said he would “do it all over again” if given the chance.
We had the chance to gain some much-needed clarity about the specifics of Cornell’s Covid containment model at an event hosted by the Program on Freedom and Free Societies last Monday. Cornell’s own professor, David Shmoys, who designed and led Cornell’s re-opening and behavioral compact enforcement models, participated in a panel discussion titled: “The Pandemic: What we got right, what we got wrong, what next?”
The panel included Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya, who gained fame during the pandemic for his participation in the Great Barrington Declaration, which denounced restrictive COVID-19 measures. Bhattacharya repeatedly insisted that the best way to restore faith in public health was for public health officials to apologize for their mistakes during the pandemic.
Dr. Bhattacharya cited the apologies of Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis regarding school closures based on faulty models as moments of political courage which helped restore public trust.
And yet, no such apology from Cornell’s administrators—who built their world-class Covid containment model based on those same faulty assumptions—has surfaced. In order for there to be a restoration of confidence in public health here at Cornell, Cornell must apologize for getting its Covid-19 response wrong.
When presented with the opportunity to apologize and reevaluate his approach to locking down Cornell, Dr. Shmoys said that he would “do it all over again,” even knowing what he knows now. Provost Michael Kotlikoff, in one of his many interjections from the peanut gallery, defended the role of public health bureaucrats (like himself) and blamed politicians for the disastrously erroneous lockdown and masking policies. Kotlikoff conveniently forgot that Cornell kept its indoor mask mandate in place after the CDC, Governor Hochul, and Tompkins County all lifted their mask mandates.
During the Q and A, I asked Dr. Shmoys a question that had been on my and every other student’s brain since it had been mocked into oblivion this past Spring: “Can you elaborate on how your model found zero incidents of classroom transmission?” Shmoys danced around my question, first reiterating that there was no evidence of classroom transmission and then arguing that we should be thankful for having class in Fall of 2020 at all.
When I followed up about why the last place we were required to wear masks on campus were the classrooms, Shmoys cited professor objections as to why that policy remained, completely abandoning his model-based arguments.
The arrogant self-righteousness on display Monday night is exactly why we never will get an apology from Cornell. The answers the public did get are cause for concern. Dr. Shmoys admitted the low level of risk from Covid-19 to students was accounted into his model, he just simply didn’t weigh that confounding factor heavily because it was “not what the administration was looking for.”
The so-called “successes” listed by the administration included student behavioral control, massive data farming from student iClickers, minority report-like testing which could predict whether a student had Covid before a positive test, and a return to campus in Fall 2020 albeit mostly online. The fact that control was their first priority should shock anyone who still believes education should be the university’s priority.
When pressed for accountability, Shmoys blamed the public’s technical illiteracy, and Kotlikoff blamed the politicians he and Cornell worked closely with to craft policies. Much like the politicians and public health bureaucrats whom Dr. Bhattacharya blamed for thrusting millions into starvation, poverty, and lack of education, Shmoys and Kotlikoff refused to acknowledge that any other response could be better than theirs.
But we, the Cornell community, know better. We know, as we knew then, that college-aged kids were at an incredibly low risk of spreading, contracting, and suffering serious symptoms of Covid-19. We know, as we knew then, that masks have limited protective capabilities which certainly do not ensure “zero classroom transmission.” We know, as we knew then, that we were sold a bill of goods when it came to virtual education.
As a graduating senior, there is little this administration can tell me to convince me they were in the right over the past three years. Yet, for the healing process between students and staff who were lied to and forced to comply with counter-intuitive and anti-scientific orders, the record must be set straight. For the countless academic trajectories altered, years of life lost, and mental health crises caused by Cornell’s erroneous policies, we deserve an apology for getting Covid-19 wrong.
Avery Bower is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, where he majors in History and Government. He is the President of Cornell Republicans.
