45catfan

Just now, Wes21 said:

The higher risk category starts in the early 40s.  And it goes up with health factors, including obesity.  How many chubby teachers did you have?  How many teachers in their 40s or older did you have?  I think when you combine the two, you will see a ton of them.

And the sheer number doesnt matter as much as the fact that every school has them.  So once a handful or more of them get it...now what?  And again, you also have to account for the administration staff as well.  Lots and lots of them are in the higher risk category as well.

How is this different than many other occupations?  Most office buildings have their share of overweight, middle-aged people.  Now we are setting different standards based on occupation?

2 minutes ago, KSpan said:

I haven't advocated for anything - that's what you're projecting onto my comments. I am in the same position as millions of other parents, weighing whether we would/should send our kids back or go with home-based and accommodate accordingly. 

Regarding kids and permanent damage, that has been discussed here in the form of MIS-C. It is rare but can cause permanent damage. This is why I asked about acceptable risk level.

Regarding your premise that online falls behind as a general outcome, please cite a source. It's certainly a complicated issue that in my experience with educators (I studied education in college and many in my family are teachers and administrators) they cite pros and cons to both, but also acknowledge that there can be confounding factors such as SES and home situations. That can't be ignored, andother studies have shown that homeschooling is as effective, if not moreso, than public education in many ways while falling short in others. A pretty balanced overview can be seen here: https://home-school.lovetoknow.com/Statistics_on_Public_School_Vs_Homeschooling  

Regarding daycare there is variability in state licensing requirements and how they're run but the groups are typically much smaller and spaces more controlled. I worked at a daycare for several years during college and agreed that it's conceptually the same thing but there's a notable difference between having 10-15 kids to monitor, with more than 1 adult for the younger groups, and class sizes that extend upward of 20 or 25.

Regarding vaccines I'm just saying that those diseases pose a threat of permanent damage and mandatory vaccines have been instituted to mitigate it. I've no idea if a vaccine is around the corner and as someone in the dug development industry I have my concerns about the pace and rigor with which these current IPs are being developed. I'm simply pointing out how other such things have been handled in today's environment.

Who is doing the homeschooling?  One parent would have to stay home.  How about single parent homes, who stays home to do the schooling?  I agree homeschooling is better than public schools in most scenarios, but that should be a decision the family makes outside of a pandemic.

2 minutes ago, Ja Rhule said:

I think the isolation will mentally fug next generation.  Here comes the next wave of republicans.

 Was that a slight or optimism?  Honestly it can be interpreted both ways. 

MSNBC journo's shocked about doctors opinions concerning sending kids back to school.  Pressed by the reporter and all these Pediatricians didn't hesitate, not once.  The news anchor at the end looked dejected: "they all said, yes" 

34 posts and counting.

30 minutes ago, Tbe said:

 

 

*Professional writer /story.  See the funny thing about statistics is you have to have a hypothesis and verify it for any findings to be further extrapolated to have any meaning.  His argument is flawed from the rip.  Nobody honestly thinks nearly 3.3 million US citizens is dying from this so his continued cranking out of numbers is pointless.  

2 minutes ago, KSpan said:

I have not taken any position on this subject nor moved any goalposts, though I acknowledged that the risks are as much to the adults as to the kids. However, what risk is tolerable when it comes to permanent damage to children (or anyone) for something that can be avoided by staying home/doing online schooling and should the teachers and school staff be obligated into a much higher risk situation given that kids can't be trusted to follow protocols?  It's as much a philosophical question as practical one.

We've been able to minimize risks of things like MMR, polio, etc through vaccines and in many places kids can't go without that protection. Should this be different when the protection is avoiding the situation?

The goalpost moving was directed to the crowd arguing to keep kids home in the fall in the broader context of the COVID-19 dialogue. Notice I didn't say 'you' are moving the goalposts.

However it does seem like you are advocating to keep kids home until (if) a vaccine is developed.  It has been demonstrated grade school kids fall behind in on-line learning.  So by keeping parents home foregoing jobs, or putting them in daycare (how is that more sanitary than school?) in hopes a vaccine is right around the corner seems a bit over the top.   The secondary damage done to the body due to COVID-19 is in the exact same demographic that is the most vulnerable, the elderly.  I have yet to see where kids are showing signs of permanent damage linked to this disease.  Teachers know how to protect themselves, so let's not fain we are protecting teachers here.  Positive COVID-19 kids have to stay home until cleared and the schools can't hold it against their attendance (just like jobs can't hold it against employee attendance).  What's so hard about that?  Kids shed the virus faster than adults, usually 7-10 days.

MMR and polio took forever to develop a vaccine.  Yes, they are available now, but it's not like they were developed in mere months upon research like we are trying to do with this disease.  If we are waiting on a vaccine, the entire 2020-2021 school year (at best) will be lost....on-line, but essentially lost.  

9 minutes ago, KSpan said:

 

Agreed that the risk is as much to the adults as to the students. In Florida, 1/3 of all kids currently tested are positive. Regarding masks and hygiene there is no way kids, particularly younger elementary kids, can fully comply. Many just don't have the maturity yet and can't stop themselves from doing things that would compromise the protective measures.

Also, simply surviving doesn't guarantee damage-free with COVID. No one wants to see their kids with permanent effects, so even if chances are low it should be weighed. The seasonal flu doesn't leave people with wrecked lungs.

Here's an article about the current Florida situation. They are an extreme example at the moment but also perhaps an indicator of where things may be headed in more places. There could also be confounding/related factors to be considered with those numbers but any way of it kids are generally in school, so any kid tested would be in that environment. I would also wonder about the timing of those positives and antibodies/re-infection risk in those who have already been infected.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-pbc-health-director-covid-children-20200714-xcdall2tsrd4riim2nwokvmsxm-story.html

"State statistics also show the percentage of children testing positive is much higher than the population as a whole. Statewide, about 31% of 54,022 children tested have been positive. The state’s positivity rate for the entire population is about 11%."

Youth hospitalizations are 1% of confirmed cases of >18-years and 4 related deaths according to the stats in that article.  So are we keeping kids at home until a vaccine is developed?  The goalposts keep moving...first it was deaths, then ICU capacity, then overall hospitalizations and now is squarely on case numbers.  Really?  I guess people can finally win the case argument because the disease has to basically just go away for that to be a positive indicator.  

6 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/trump-cdc-coronavirus.html

This is deeply concerning.

I agree, but probably for completely different reasons.

1 minute ago, Ja Rhule said:

Developing countries population expected to drop by as much as 50% by end of century.

Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53409521

The cost of raising kids continues to climb is the main reason.  Third world countries still continue to pop out kids like Pez candy because they have limited access to birth control and don't have the means to send their kids to college.  

9 minutes ago, cookinbrak said:

They give people flu shots to try to lessen the spread. They can do that.

Which is seasonal and not even 100% effective depending on the strain.

This place is so freaking transparent.  On one hand, "look at the science!" and then when science is inconvenient, "but the science isn't clear on that!"

8 minutes ago, Wes21 said:

If you have kids teaching kids, kids running the schools, kids driving the school buses and kids raising themselves when they get home...there's no reason to shut down the schools.

The issue is not the kids, its all of the people they come in contact with.  And maybe school has changed since I was there, but a majority of my teachers could be considered higher risk.

60+?  Really?  I think I may have had maybe two teachers (in grade school) even pushing that demographic.  Most were in their 30's and 40's.  I had more teachers in their 20's than in their 50's.   

1 minute ago, cookinbrak said:

If everyone went potty like they should, we could eliminate diapers. Little kids have a different set of ideas than ( most) adults.

Just wow.

1 minute ago, Tbe said:

Science still does not have a firm understanding on how much kids can spread Covid. The data is just not there since schools were shut down so fast back in March.

Since we don’t know, Governors and schools are taking a cautious approach. Low risk does not mean no risk.

 

Ok.

10 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

That kids are fuging super spreaders of basically any illness. They are little disease bags.

True, but do we close down schools for the flu?  Does the flu not spread from kids to adults?  Asymptomatic folks are less likely to be a vector than symptomatic persons.  Again, college is a whole different ball of wax, but K-12 should be straight forward.

5 minutes ago, KSpan said:

I understand the statement, but what is your overall premise?

Should schools be closed this fall to in-person learning?  If everyone masks up on on school grounds, what's the problem?  Colleges could pose some issues due to on campus living, but what's the issue for K-12?

"For children (0-17 years), cumulative COVID-19 hospitalization rates are much lower than cumulative influenza hospitalization rates at comparable time points* during recent influenza seasons."-CDC

2 minutes ago, Wes21 said:

If it was a business decision alot of the sports (particularly women's sports) would go away.

Imagine if higher learning was actually about the student and not sports or lining the PhDs "teaching" students with 6-figure salaries.  Just think colleges/universities actually existed stayed financially sound before sports proliferated on campuses 50-years or so ago.  Crazy, I know!

29 minutes ago, stirs said:

Yesterday was a big jump for the entire country and it makes you wonder since the 2 previous days were reporting a Saturday which was holiday and a Sunday.  Generally, Tuesdays have been big days anyway, but yesterday was a whopper.  Today will be a good barometer

Yep, Tuesdays usually are the largest numbers of the week due to processing weekend data.  Still looking at ratios for the number of cases compared to deaths and hospitalizations.  Obviously it will be somewhat higher, but again, how much so in relation to the increased spike in case numbers?

14 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

It is unbelievable the real behavioral changes that poo causes in people. I had a roommate on a contract job once that was an older guy from southern Georgia, fairly reasonable but conservative. Generally a pretty decent dude. 

But he would come home from work and while I would be prepping food, he'd turn on Fox News and would literally be screaming at the top of his lungs at the poo they were stirring up. It was NUTS. 

And you see the results of this kind of poo all the time. I have a friend's wife that I berated once because she just started spewing unfiltered MSNBC talking points that were VERIFIABLY untrue. 

People cannot pull their heads out of their asses and realize that this is what they want. They want divisiveness, fear and anger. Because for some reason people will watch more and then they get more ratings which gets them more money. And social media is even fuging worse.

I tell people all the time. Turn that poo off. Just don't pay attention. It is amazing how much better you feel when you leave social media and TV behind.

Americans in general are lazy and want their information spoon fed to them instead of taking some time out of their day to go find information.  It doesn't even have to be every day or for some considerable amount of time.  However, when it comes to important issues, people regurgitate headlines and sound bites from TV news (usually on in the background) not knowing or bothering to find out if the information they are processing is factual or not.  I read articles and sometimes even watch stuff on TV I normally don't agree with so I can cross-reference it for context. I feel really sorry for folks that use social media for their main source of 'enlightenment' about the world.  If it's on TV, in a newspaper or even on the internet, it's got to be true, right?  I knew we were in trouble years ago when I had room mates that were getting their daily news form the 'Daily Show' on Comedy central.  Yes, they thought it was real news just delivered through lens of humor.  Sadly, these were graduate students.

11 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Twitter is just the continuation of having complete freedom to communicate to the world, while reducing human interaction to it's most disturbing elements. 

Social media is a net negative. I have literally said that for years. All the way back to the MySpace days. It was cool and fun at one time but it was also really easy to see how it would end up and it fulfilled my expectations and then some. 

Yep and the reason why I made the decision never to get any social media account even from the very beginning.  People are increasingly deleting or simply not using their accounts.  I have talked to several people lately that has sworn off social media for good.  The crap is completely toxic, and like you, saw the writing on the wall long ago.  I have zero regrets about abstaining from social media.

Just now, Wes21 said:

List out the numbers you are talking about.

Deaths are up slightly over the past 2 weeks, from 9 on a daily average to 11.  This coming off record after record of new daily cases for a while. You would think it would be much, much worse.  So a string of record number of cases is yielding a slight increase in the daily death rates (lag argument incoming).

Hospitalizations are at 1,300 statewide in SC with 2,800 beds still available.  That is 3x higher than lock down levels, but we have since hit a case level 10x that of the lock down period.  

33 minutes ago, Devil Doc said:

So testing for anti-bodies is probably not a good indication of Herd Immunity probability? 

Not until a universal, reliable test is available.  It seems the Spanish study is probably not detecting enough of the prior infected and the Italian one probably had too many false positives.  The true answer is probably somewhere in the middle.