Evidence from early 2022 shows that some heavily Democratic (“blue”) states and districts did, in fact, re‑impose temporary COVID‑related school closures, while many Republican‑leaning (“red”) states kept schools largely open for in‑person learning.

• In January 2022, the Omicron wave led to thousands of pandemic‑related school disruptions nationwide, but NPR’s summary of Burbio data noted that “the vast majority of U.S. schools are staying open for in‑person learning,” even as at least 3,229 schools temporarily cancelled in‑person learning that week. Many of the named full‑district closures were in blue jurisdictions: Newark, Paterson, and Elizabeth in New Jersey; Mount Vernon in New York; Pontiac and Detroit in Michigan; and Prince George’s County in Maryland.(ijpr.org)
• Newark Public Schools (NJ) explicitly shifted the entire district to remote instruction from Jan. 3–14, 2022, with an anticipated return to in‑person learning on Jan. 18 because of COVID surges.(nps.k12.nj.us) Detroit Public Schools Community District (MI) likewise moved to online learning in early January and then extended remote learning until late January before reopening for in‑person classes.(chalkbeat.org) Prince George’s County Public Schools (MD) moved all schools to virtual learning from Dec. 20, 2021, through Jan. 14, 2022, returning to buildings only after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.(nbcwashington.com) These are all in states that vote solidly Democratic in national elections.
• By contrast, in Texas (a reliably Republican state), reporting at the start of January 2022 described many districts that “opted to power through omicron” and reopen after the holiday break with in‑person classes, with only some smaller districts briefly extending winter break rather than shifting to weeks of remote instruction.(texastribune.org) That aligns with the prediction that red states would be more inclined to keep schools operating “normally” in person.
• National data from the U.S. Department of Education’s School Pulse Panel / NCES show that for December–February 2022, less than 2% of public‑school 4th‑ and 8th‑graders were enrolled in remote learning, and most states—red and blue—had 98–99% of students attending school full‑time in person.(nces.ed.gov) This confirms that closures in 2022 were generally short‑lived and localized, not a return to the prolonged, nationwide shutdowns of 2020–21, but it does not contradict the narrower claim that some blue states would re‑impose closures while schools overall mostly stayed open.
• On learning loss, 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress data show that average scores for 9‑year‑olds fell 5 points in reading and 7 points in math versus pre‑pandemic results, confirming severe pandemic‑era learning loss persisting into 2022.(congress.gov) While most of this damage stems from earlier disruptions, additional short closures in early 2022 in the blue jurisdictions above naturally contributed at the margin.
• Finally, earlier research on the 2020–21 period had already documented a strong partisan pattern in school modality choices: districts in heavily Democratic counties were about three times as likely to open fully remote, while heavily Republican counties were much more likely to offer in‑person instruction.(phys.org) The 2022 Omicron responses in Newark, Detroit, Prince George’s County, etc., are consistent with that same partisan asymmetry Sacks was extrapolating from.

Putting this together: in 2022 there were fresh, COVID‑driven school closures concentrated in Democratic‑leaning states/districts, while Republican states like Texas largely kept schools open in person, and substantial learning loss was evident by 2022. The prediction somewhat overstated the scale and duration of renewed closures (they were mostly weeks, not months), but its directional claims about where closures would recur and who would stay open were borne out, so it is best classified as right overall.