Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

… and an apt, albeit unwilling …

http://www.webdc.com/pdfs/deathbymedicine.pdf

 

With the NHS barely better …

I Was on the NHS Covid Frontline But Quit When I Saw the Harm We Were Doing – The Daily Sceptic

 

That the head person that kept schools closed in some states for 1.5 years is now lying about her role in that situation. I guess you are cool with hypocrisy. I’m not.

 

I guess I just don't see it as hypocritical in wanting to have safety measures to keep teachers safe. That's not the same as saying she doesn't support schools reopening under any circumstance, unless that was her position and I missed it.

 

Covidians furiously backpedaling is a sight to behold.

 

So let me get this straight. You think Randi tried to open schools like she said? Just want you on record before I post some of her comments from the past.

 

1.2 million excess deaths and counting since 2020.

And not a one of them from a non-existent pathogen.

 

Am I under oath? I haven't followed this at all so I don't know. What I've seen is that she claims she was for opening schools so long as there are appropriate safety measures in place to protect teachers, which is her job as head of a teacher's union. From what i can tell, it seems people are twisting that as evidence that she was against schools closures. If she's not telling the truth about wanting to open schools with safety measures, and there's evidence to the contrary (i.e., she was against opening schools no matter what or wanted completely unrealistic safety measures), then I'd take a look. Otherwise it just stinks of looking for someone to vilify.

 

Which countries did NOT close schools due to Covid? Sweden? Anyone else? Just so weird to me people are still melting about this.

 

You know the answer but are choosing to gloss it over. It's ok to say the Dem led states closed schools for too long and let the teachers unions grift those states for money. Let me know if you want more articles.


https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/9341...e-where-cases-are-rising-but-schools-are-open

No masks, no distancing: Schools in Denmark defy COVID-19 — with success so far | CBC News

Anacortes Now - FactCheck: What Science Says About Children, COVID-19 and School Reopenings

 

"Twisting that as evidence that she was against school closures"? Ok. Let me know if you want some more "twisting" LOL.

'Reckless, callous, cruel': teachers' chief denounces Trump plan to reopen schools

How Teachers' Unions Are Influencing Decisions on School Reopenings

Return to Learn Tracker

As More Teachers’ Unions Push for Remote Schooling, Parents Worry. So Do Democrats. (Published 2022)

 

I don't see the problem here. She wanted to ensure the teachers were safe and didn't agree with re-opening schools blindly without safety measures. Her job is to look out for the interest and safety of teachers so I this is what I would expect.

This wasn't unique to schools - it was same for every sector. Determining what measures needed to be in place to reopen safely - masks, social distancing, vaccinations, etc. You may not agree that some of those measures were helpful in hindsight but the reality at the time is that it was a very uncertain time and it was completely reasonable to insist that steps were being taken to protect teacher's health.

 

You latched on to an early opinion/fact, and never followed the story. You simply found confirmation bias in the early story and latched on to it. But, your one-size-fits-all answer was just as wrong as the one-size-fits-all answer that you are railing against from the teachers union. Worse yet, you continue to ignore details, details I share with you nearly 2 years ago when you were wrong then and sadly you still have not learned. In science, 1) we keep learning and 2) details matter. You, just like the head of the teachers union, gloss over details with broad stroke assertions.

1. Yes, children get sick and nearly 1000 have died from COVID. Nearly 40% of had no known medical issues prior to infection. That number is probably greatly under reported.
2. Schools in many of the European countries you sited can open to the outdoors to make sure a high level of circulation during classes. Further, many also have year around schools and had classes outdoors at the time. Many, many schools in the US are built as indoor buildings with no ventalation and no possbility for outdoor classes.
3. The problem with the Trump Administration, Biden Administration, Teachers Union President and people who agree with you is that not one of you could admit that there was never going to be a one-size-fits-all solution. Florida, for example, may have actually been doing the right things if they had not attacked COVID precautions and had ANYONE in the state that understood science (sadly they did not) and used targeted closures for short durations in HOT spots, while encouraging students to take safety precautions since the cr@ppy schools in Florida have to be built like indoor prisons and cannot accomodate open-air classrooms.

What people should be asking, if everyone wants to be honest is, after the 2020 , why didn't we start treating SARS-CoV-2 like every other respiratory infection. Open the schools, businesses etc in areas of low spread and close back down when there were major surges impacting public safety and threatening the healthcare systems locally.

Truly follow the learning from Europe.

Germany - 38 weeks full or partial school closures during 2021 when they had a more severe outbreak than in 2020

Germany’s education policy during the COVID-19 crisis - Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft

Denmark - closed schools on multiple occassions for shorter durations, just during periods of peak virus spread.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-12-denmark-covid-surge-school-closures.html

UK- closed schools on multiple occassions for shorter durations.

Other countries such as Italy and Austria had much longer and frequent closures.

Country Dashboard - Covid-19 Response

 

We already had evidence schools weren't vectors for transmission. Purely a money grab. You keep playing politics while the kids suffered.

 

LOL. You were wrong on this and are now trying to make it seem like it was a good decision. It wasn't. Germany apologized for closing schools. I want Randi and Fauci and others responsible(trump and biden) to admit they were wrong. Not hard to do. Trying to compare Denmark closing schools for a week or so to states like CA make you look like a fool. But that's your issue, not mine.

 

Beautifully explained and broken down. Now expect a laughing emoji and the same typical regurgitated response because you’re literally responding to children.

 

It's not beautifully explained, unless you buy that premise that we didn't have data showing schools didn't increase covid spread(but we did). The people like this poster is trying revisionist history and he looks foolish. A simple "We were wrong" goes a long way towards moving on from this. Until then I'll call out those were wrong.

We went too far with Covid restrictions, says Germany’s pro-lockdown minister

 

Good article on Yahoo about the subject.


Randi Weingarten, Anthony Fauci, and why we are still talking about pandemic school closures

Earlier this year, Germany's health minister, Karl Lauterbach, admitted that school closures had been a “big mistake.” There has been no such acknowledgment in the United States. If anything, positions have only hardened with time, and are likely to stay that way as the 2024 election approaches. That could help Republicans, who generally pushed to reopen schools — and much of the rest of society — faster than Democrats.


“The Democratic Party is responsible for these prolonged school closures, and public health aligns very strongly with Democrats,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, told Yahoo News. “Moreover, it may be that admitting wrong looks like they were at fault. Instead of apologizing, politicians in this country seem to take a position of doubling down. I do not understand it.”

 

You’re Monday morning Quarterbacking again. We did not know that with the confidence required to send kids back to school yet. It was not settled science and some studies showed schools WERE vectors. It’s crazy you can’t seem to wrap your head around the concept of being safe rather than sorry. Erring on the side of caution.

 

This just isn't true. Initially, there was worry that schools could be super spreaders but that was found to not be the case. That is NOT the same as schools not being vectors for transmission at all. Kids can (and could) get and spread COVID which is a risk to teachers. Blindly reopening schools would have put teachers at risk. It's just that simple. It's not a conspiracy and I don't even know what you mean by money grab. It's the Republicans who are now trying to politicize this by looking for scapegoats who made reasonable decisions at the time.