Bottom line: Some surface conditions moved in the direction Sacks described (notably partial school reopenings and deaths down from their midsummer peak), but by the late‑September and October 2020 debate period COVID was still severe and politically damaging to Trump. Polls show the environment clearly did not favor a narrative that he had handled COVID successfully.

1. COVID deaths and overall situation

• The U.S. passed 200,000 cumulative COVID deaths on September 22, 2020, just a week before the first presidential debate, with CDC projections in mid‑October expecting deaths to reach 230,000–250,000 by mid‑November. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Reuters reporting at the time noted that as of September 24, 2020, the U.S. had topped 7 million cases and was still seeing over 700 deaths per day, with a growing outbreak in the Midwest. (hurriyetdailynews.com)
• By late October, the country was described as entering a “fall surge” with nearly half a million new cases added in a single week (Oct 20–27). (wishtv.com) This is inconsistent with a broadly perceived “mission accomplished” COVID environment heading into and through the debates.

2. Schools reopening

• On this narrow point, the forecast was directionally right: a large share of districts did reopen in some form. A later synthesis of Burbio, AEI’s Return to Learn tracker, and other datasets found that about 40.3% of U.S. school districts were offering fully in‑person learning in September 2020, with many others hybrid. (arxiv.org) However, major blue‑state urban systems remained largely remote or hybrid, so the national picture was mixed rather than a clear, across‑the‑board reopening.

3. Did conditions favor Trump’s “I handled COVID successfully” narrative? Polls around the debates show the opposite:

• National job approval on COVID:
  • KFF’s late‑August/early‑September 2020 tracking poll found a majority (about 55%) disapproved of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, despite a modest uptick from July. (kff.org)
  • A Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted Sept 21–24 (just before the Sept 29 debate) found only 40% approved vs 58% disapproved of his handling of the health crisis. (washingtonpost.com)
  • An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll Oct 8–13, 2020 found 38% approval vs 59% disapproval on his pandemic handling. (maristpoll.marist.edu)
• Who was trusted more on COVID:
  • The Sept 21–26 Washington Post/ABC News national poll found registered voters trusted Biden over Trump on handling the coronavirus, 53% to 41%. (washingtonpost.com)
  • In late‑October Washington Post/ABC battleground polling, voters in Michigan and Wisconsin trusted Biden more than Trump on the coronavirus outbreak by 14–20‑point margins. (washingtonpost.com)
• Debate context and Trump’s own infection:
  • The first presidential debate was on September 29, 2020. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • On October 2, 2020, between the first and (planned) second debates, Trump announced that he and the First Lady had tested positive for COVID‑19 and was hospitalized at Walter Reed, putting a spotlight on the ongoing uncontrolled spread rather than on a successful containment narrative. (history.com)
  • The October 15 debate was canceled due to COVID concerns, and the final debate on October 22 also occurred against the backdrop of a documented national “fall surge.” (en.wikipedia.org)

Taken together, while some of the factual predicates (partial school reopening, deaths off their July–August peak) were partially accurate, the core prediction—that these conditions, heading into the late‑September and October debates, would create an environment favorable to Trump’s claim that he had handled COVID well—was decisively falsified by contemporaneous polling, Trump’s own infection, and the worsening fall surge. Hence the prediction is best classified as wrong.