Why online learning must remain part of the education toolkit

Numerous studies and anecdotes point to deteriorating student performance during the pandemic and cite remote instruction as the reason. There seems to be a cause-and-effect bandwagon that a strict diet of online learning is bad for students at any level and a return to in-person instruction is the answer. However, students need the best tools we can give them, in tandem, all the time, in combinations that work for them. Those tools include remote and online instruction.