Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

The thing about scientific studies is hypothesis don't always hold as things scale. The S. Korean and Israeli studies were both larger, and more recent than the German study from several weeks ago. From my perspective, you are make a poor choice sending your kids back to school at this point, and are only going to encourage community spread. Which will only make us either backtrack or keep us in a holding pattern when it comes to opening everything back up. And we all want everything to get as back to normal as quickly as possible.

But that can't happen if schools become a hotbed of COVID-19 spread. And excuse me if I don't rely on a small scale, Germany study, when more recent, larger scale studies show a completely different result.

 

Thanks for your concern. My wife and I have none such concerns. They are going back and are happy to go back.

 

Opening schools and putting teachers on the front line so parents don't have to have that responsibility is the height of arrogant selfishness. Shamefully irresponsible political leadership in some states.

 

what we have seen is that every step of the way it has to be proven to many conservatives what this virus can do by actually seeing it happen. first it was the flu, until it wasn’t. Then it was that we didn’t need to shut down until we did. Then it was we can reopen safely until we couldn’t. Now it’s schools can open safely. And who knows, maybe this time they will be right. But at every single turn when we have underestimated the virus it has come back to bite us. I would suspect this won’t be any different, but it’s a lost cause or argue it. Everything has had to be proven in funerals to this point.

 

I mean why are teachers so much more special than someone who works at Publix or Home Depot or Target? I don’t get it. Doctors have said not being in school causing a lot of issues for children but you don’t want to listen to those doctors. It’s crazy...

 

Trump's security adviser tests positive for Covid-19
By Kaitlan Collins, Kevin Liptak and Betsy Klein, CNN
Updated 1:39 PM ET, Mon July 27, 2020

"White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters that one of O'Brien's daughters also contracted Covid-19 and that's how he believes he got it."

 

His daughter is in college. But thanks for pointing out that college kids can transmit the Coronavirus

 

It's not about teachers being more or less special. In some industries it is a must that people work, but physically being in school is not one of them. And while there are no doubt negative effects, we don't know any true numbers, only some cases and concern., But we have seen what "opening back up" has meant where the pressure from some quarters have led political leaders to irresponsible decision-making, as witness by the disaster it has been in places like FL and Texas. The idea that in a few weeks time students will be back in school is ludicrous.

And by the way, teachers are damn special. They do hella lot and get crapped on by parents and pols pretty consistently.

 

Because a. That's a misrepresentation of what they said, especially the caveat that the spread has to come down dramatically before schools can open. And b. The recommendations were altered by Trump, not the doctors and scientists. The original recommendations were far safer; though with such an unknown illness, even those would've still been risky.

 

One, we should lock down more than we are currently. Limit the number of people in grocery stores at a time and encourage more delivery/carside delivery. Two, students can successfully learn in a virtual environment. We cannot, as of yet, eat virtually.

The grocery store and Target workers are important, and not enough is being done to protect them. Masks need to be mandatory and anyone not wearing one shouldn't be allowed to shop. The question is why should we put any more people at a similar risk if we have options not to put them at risk?

 

What I'm pointing out is that the father and daughter don't even really know who gave it to who.

 

Two-thirds of their cases were school-related. We don't currently have any school related cases. Take our current numbers and triple them. If Israel's experience is typical, that is what we are looking at in the fall.

 

You are literally making crap up. You have no idea if it will be a problem or not. Let the kids and teachers who want to be back in school go to school. If they don’t want to then they can do virtual. It’s not that complicated. I mean, I think we should just shut down for flu season since that kills kids at a higher rate than Covid does. And let’s shut down all non essential personal. I mean ice cream shops and cake shops aren’t essential. Heck, let’s limit Home Depot to only essential repairs. Maybe produce evidence that someone needs to be there. Let’s shut everything down and kick this virus’s ass. Let’s put another 25-30 million out of work!

 

Teachers are special. But sorry, I don’t think their life is more important than the persons life at Home Depot or Staples or anyone for that matter. Every life matters, but life has inherent risks from the moment we get out of bed. Some people will for sure die. That is a fact. It’s also a fact 7,500 people die every day in the US. If we really cared about kids we wouldn’t send them to school during flu season. That’s 4-5 times more dangerous than Coronavirus for them.

 

At its worst, the flu kills 60,000 Americans. COVID has already claimed 150,000, and this was with much of the country under some sort of lock down. What would the number had been had we not locked down? Guess you want to find out. I don't.

And it's more than just the teachers and students. It's called community spread because we all belong to the same community. If teachers and students only went to school and home and were hermetically sealed at each location, then there would be no increased threat to the community. But we know that's impossible. And the more people who have COVID-19, be they kids or adults, the more COVID will "go viral." And even with better treatment, the more cases, the more deaths. A small number will be kids. A larger number will be adults who in one way or another, interact with the kids, or interact with people who interact with the kids.

 

Child (17 and under) hospitalizations have gone up 23% in FL from July 16th to July 24th and there was a 34% increase in 17 and under cases in the same 8 day span.

 

One must make a distinction between dying of Coronavirus and dying with coronavirus. Covid-19 is for sure more deadly to older people and for sure is deadlier than the Flu overall. I’ve stated older teachers and the immune suppressed should work remotely. I love how everyone just glosses over what the CDC and Pediatricians are saying.

 

Look a few posts up.

 

Home Depot and Publix are not public entities. And as far as they go, those jobs are critical in nature, one that should actually provide for even better pay given that they are on the front lines providing critical services. Re: the flu...perhaps we need to rethink how we do things during flu season, no? In any case, this isn't only about children's safety, but adults who care for these children.Though I find it a bit perplexing that parents suddenly don't want to or seem unable to care for their own kids. What does that say about parents?

 

Here's more on schools in Israel, with a tid bit from Sweden.

Jeremy Howard, data scientist at USF, says Israel had nearly wiped out COVID-19 and were down to 10 active cases. Then schools reopened and cases are now growing "out of control", Howard said.

"Israel did a lot of things right. They did a lockdown at schools and then they gradually brought schools back in a safe way, small classes that didn't interact at all. They did it for two weeks, and then against the guidance of their health experts, the government said everything is open. Within a month, massive outbreaks."

He referred to Sweden not closing down the school system and said Sweden health officials did a survey and tested people at random.

"Turned out, kids had about as much COVID-19 as adults did," Howard said. "The transmission was just as bad. We have no reason to believe that those kids can't then pass it onto their teachers, parents and grandparents just as easily as adults."
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If you care at all about community spread, and worried about kids infecting school employees and their parents, who in turn spread the disease like a virus, then schools need to remain closed in areas where cases are high. Areas with a low number of cases can likely reopen, but if we reopen in places where the cases are high, it will only mean more spread around the community.