Abdul el Sayed supported strict COVID-19 lockdowns and school closures
Parents assert authority over curriculum as education policy becomes a defining cultural battleground.
Six years out, you'd think a candidate might say the school closures went too long, that the learning loss was real, that maybe locking kids out of classrooms for over a year wasn't the unambiguous win public health officials promised. El Sayed hasn't said that. He backed the intense statewide shutdowns then and nothing in this campaign suggests he's rethought it now.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Abdul el Sayed took a very strict approach to public health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic six years ago, supporting intense statewide lockdowns and keeping schools shut down.
El Sayed, the left-wing candidate who won his state’s Democratic primary on Aug. 4, was not a state or local official during […]
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Six years out, you'd think a candidate might say the school closures went too long, that the learning loss was real, that maybe locking kids out of classrooms for over a year wasn't the unambiguous win public health officials promised. El Sayed hasn't said that. He backed the intense statewide shutdowns then and nothing in this campaign suggests he's rethought it now.
That matters because Michigan families are still living with the fallout. Test scores dropped and haven't fully recovered. Kids who were in third grade when schools shut are now teenagers who lost a year and a half of normal development, socialization, structure. Parents watched it happen in real time, and plenty of them have not forgotten who cheered the restrictions loudest while their own kids stayed in private school or had backyards to run around in.
The frustrating part isn't that el Sayed had an opinion during a scary, confusing moment. Lots of people did. It's that being a doctor apparently meant defaulting to maximum caution regardless of the tradeoffs, and there's no sign he's grappled with what that caution actually cost ordinary families who couldn't work from home or hire tutors. Voters are allowed to ask a Senate candidate whether he's learned anything since 2020, and Michigan voters especially have earned the right to that answer.
If the response is silence or a shrug, that tells you something too. Being wrong isn't the disqualifier here, refusing to say so is..
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.