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Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better. |
On December 29 2020 20:32 Slydie wrote:This is one of the worst examples of covididiocy I have ever seen, wow! At least they all wear masks... kinda?? They certainly make a difference here... I am actually surprised rituals like that still exist today, even outside of pandemics. https://fb.watch/2GPb-IDOje/
In Easter in Portugal there were several cases of care homes and churches that maintained a kissing-of-the-cross cerimony tradition. It was exactly as stupid as you might imagine it to be.
Still, nothing beats the march against COVID in Brazil back in March:
+ Show Spoiler +
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On December 29 2020 20:43 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2020 09:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 29 2020 09:15 BlackJack wrote:"Not safe for students" is a subjective statement. CDC deaths for children ages 5-14 show 50 deaths from COVID and 4,748 deaths from all causes. That's 50 deaths out of a source population of 41 million. Slightly more than 1 death per million children. The 15-24 Age group shows 468 COVID deaths and 30,531 deaths from all other causes. So of all the children that died last year, COVID caused maybe 1-2% of those deaths. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htmSome quick google searches and number crunching and I surmise that teenagers are roughly 10x as likely to die from suicide than COVID Two things: 1. Students and their families, not just children. Even if children are asymptomatic, they can bring it home to their parents (or god forbid grandparents). 2. I absolutely hate when people only look at deaths as the only dangerous effect of coronavirus. It's misrepresenting statistics. Loss of senses, multiple organ failure, not being able to breathe, complications with additional diseases... it's not just a matter of dying vs. being totally fine. I don't think it's misrepresenting statistics just because the statistic doesn't fit your narrative. The point is there are tons of things out there that are more dangerous to children than COVID and we've managed to accept all of those things without hysteria for many years.
Only going to say this one more time: It's not just about the children. Just because you can cherry-pick a less symptomatic demographic doesn't mean there aren't other demographics out there who are high-risk, and we already know that children can transmit coronavirus even if they don't get super sick as frequently as adults.
And I'm all for taking seriously anything that could be dangerous to children or adults. When you say we've accepted these other things, are you saying that we've ignored them and not provided any sort of safety measures? Or are these more examples like the car accidents and sports injuries that you mentioned earlier?
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On December 29 2020 20:58 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2020 20:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 29 2020 20:32 BlackJack wrote:On December 29 2020 09:23 JimmiC wrote:
Any stats on how many are effected by long Covid? And that the consequences of that are?
There is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead. Just like there is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead in the other causes of death that are 80-100x more likely than COVID. Let's start adding up all the anoxic brain injuries from near-drownings, deformities from car crashes, lifelong paralysis from sports injuries, etc. and then we will really get some big numbers going. The only thing we know for sure is that the only safe place for a child is locked up in a padded room, just as long as there aren't any ropes they can use to make a noose, and all their food is blended up so they can't choke. These are really bad strawmen. These are simply not analogous to the global pandemic of coronavirus that has literally shut down the world. The closest I can get to finding parallels between these examples and covid is the following: -Swimming can be dangerous unless you employ safety measures, like swimming with other people, having a lifeguard on duty, and not swimming out too far if you're not a strong swimmer; -Injuries from car accidents can be mitigated by wearing a seat belt, having air bags, and driving defensively; -Sports injuries are likely to be less severe if proper equipment and protection are worn; ...Coronavirus would be less of an issue if people actually wore masks, socially distanced, and got vaccinated. The only parallel you should be looking for is that both COVID and other injuries/illnesses that affect children have non-death bad outcomes. Since I was accused of misrepresenting statistics by not talking about the non-death complications of COVID I am merely pointing out that I also didn't talk about the non-death complications of other injuries/illnesses either so I am actually being completely fair.
If this were a conversation on, say, sports-related injuries in children and adults, I would be all for looking at all the runway in between unaffected and dead. It would be equally weak of an argument for someone to say that head trauma and broken bones and everything else should be dismissed because those who are injured are still alive, especially if that individual is fighting against protective equipment and protocols recommended by the medical community.
Reducing this to the slippery slope of "the only safe place for a child is locked up in a padded room" is disingenuous. We're not saying that people can't ever take risks in life, and that's severely underplaying the consequences of coronavirus.
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Norway28736 Posts
On December 29 2020 20:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2020 20:42 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 29 2020 19:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 29 2020 14:53 Magic Powers wrote:On December 29 2020 09:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 29 2020 09:15 BlackJack wrote:"Not safe for students" is a subjective statement. CDC deaths for children ages 5-14 show 50 deaths from COVID and 4,748 deaths from all causes. That's 50 deaths out of a source population of 41 million. Slightly more than 1 death per million children. The 15-24 Age group shows 468 COVID deaths and 30,531 deaths from all other causes. So of all the children that died last year, COVID caused maybe 1-2% of those deaths. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htmSome quick google searches and number crunching and I surmise that teenagers are roughly 10x as likely to die from suicide than COVID Two things: 1. Students and their families, not just children. Even if children are asymptomatic, they can bring it home to their parents (or god forbid grandparents). 2. I absolutely hate when people only look at deaths as the only dangerous effect of coronavirus. It's misrepresenting statistics. Loss of senses, multiple organ failure, not being able to breathe, complications with additional diseases... it's not just a matter of dying vs. being totally fine. But that's the case with everything. The education level is linked to income and wealth is linked to health, employment is linked to health and crime rates, etc. etc. The economic outfall (which will result in human suffering and death) from the measures must be taken into account. It's a balance act, so we can't just stop deaths and suffering on one end and ignore it at the other end. Children need education, we have a duty to provide it to them. People need sunlight, socialization, a stable income, and many other things. The cure to the disease should not become worse than the disease itself. This is why, even after vaccination, we have to understand that we can't prevent every death and all suffering caused by the virus. It will be with us for many years to come, probably for hundreds of years. All we can do is reduce death and suffering, not eradicate it. Are you implying that remote teaching/learning is not education? Children need, and are receiving, education. As a teacher myself, I'm kinda implying that it isn't. I'm sure it depends on the subject, but my experience is that most children receiving online teaching are getting a way inferior product compared to the regular teaching. The most motivated and capable children from the most resourceful parents are doing just fine with online classes, but the ones who struggle in any capacity seem to struggle way, way more. Out of the ~80 or so students I'm teaching this semester, I'd estimate fewer than 10 would get a nearly equivalent education through making everything online based. I think the comparison needs to be between current remote learning models and current in-class models that abide by the necessary safety regulations of masks, social distancing, etc., as opposed to comparing remote learning models to what ideal, perfect, not-needing-to-worry-about-coronavirus teaching setups would be, because coronavirus needs to be factored into the equation. For example, in-person collaborative learning / social learning is straight-up off the table, this year, but students could still collaborate remotely. I agree with you that remote learning isn't ideal, and I don't know a single teacher who would prefer to permanently teach online and never return to the classroom, but "ideal" isn't on the table at the moment. It's simply not an option. Show nested quote +If I were given choice a) teaching as normal but a 20% chance of me catching covid the next 6 months or b) online classes, (and assuming this is just about me and not about infecting 20% of society) I'd go with a. Would your answer change if you considered the hundreds (thousands?) of other people that could catch covid from that decision? That decision doesn't only give you a 20% chance of catching covid; it would give a 20% (or whatever percent) chance to all of your students, your colleagues, and everyone's family members. It affects the entire community.
I mean, I think it's all situational. My 20% was a semi-random number. But if I only factor in teaching staff (assuming exemptions given for ones in risk groups) and children (similar exemptions given there), I'm not convinced that 20% of pupils and teachers catching covid is more detrimental to teachers and pupils than what half a year of online classes is. (Making this assessment, I am not factoring in how schools contribute to wider community spread, here, just looking at schools in isolation.)
In Trondheim, we closed down schools between March and May, but they've been running fairly normally this semester. (With way more hand sanitizer and focus on washing hands and disinfecting stuff, some adjustments for social interactions and classroom structuring depending on infection level in society, and quarantining of classes where anyone is infected. Myself, I was quarantined for 10 days between December 9th and 19th because of a confirmed case in one of the classes I'm teaching. )
Closing down in March was a move I supported. It really helped people understand the significance of what was happening, and it was crucial for bringing our numbers down. (Norway went from 200 daily cases in March to ~40 in early May, staying below 20 until August.) This was also a period where we really didn't know enough about the virus, and I think an overreaction to a pandemic is preferable to an underreaction. And in the US, I think very few of your states have been below our March numbers for any period since March anyway. So I mean, I get it. There are valid reasons why teaching in certain situations has had to go online. I'm not really making a judgement call on when it's right to do it or not. But it's certainly an emergency solution, and we shouldn't pretend that the learning experience is not significantly impaired, especially for the children (and high school students) who need school the most. I don't think there's a way to accurately quantify this (I already have big problems with school being too much of a testing institution rather than learning institution), but I genuinely believe that a big percentage of students/pupils are losing out on a big percentage of their learning, and I think it's a bigger problem the more the students/pupils are struggling in the first place, and I think it's a bigger problem the younger the students/pupils are.
Basically: If you say that 20% of pupils aged 7-9 years old only get 50% of their learning they'd normally get for half a year, and that these 20% (I think both my numbers are very conservative here - I think it's more than 20% that are significantly impaired and I think the most impaired lose a lot more than 50%) are in the 'most struggling'-groups, then I think this will contribute to a whole lot of problems down the line. How much learning is lost and what the long term consequences of said lost learning is even less quantifiable than exactly how much schools staying open contributes to wider community spread and how much death and disease is caused by this wider community spread, but it's not a dismissible point. The lost learning is a huge deal - especially for younger children, and especially for the ones who need it the most.
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On December 29 2020 21:02 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2020 20:43 BlackJack wrote:On December 29 2020 09:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 29 2020 09:15 BlackJack wrote:"Not safe for students" is a subjective statement. CDC deaths for children ages 5-14 show 50 deaths from COVID and 4,748 deaths from all causes. That's 50 deaths out of a source population of 41 million. Slightly more than 1 death per million children. The 15-24 Age group shows 468 COVID deaths and 30,531 deaths from all other causes. So of all the children that died last year, COVID caused maybe 1-2% of those deaths. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htmSome quick google searches and number crunching and I surmise that teenagers are roughly 10x as likely to die from suicide than COVID Two things: 1. Students and their families, not just children. Even if children are asymptomatic, they can bring it home to their parents (or god forbid grandparents). 2. I absolutely hate when people only look at deaths as the only dangerous effect of coronavirus. It's misrepresenting statistics. Loss of senses, multiple organ failure, not being able to breathe, complications with additional diseases... it's not just a matter of dying vs. being totally fine. I don't think it's misrepresenting statistics just because the statistic doesn't fit your narrative. The point is there are tons of things out there that are more dangerous to children than COVID and we've managed to accept all of those things without hysteria for many years. Only going to say this one more time: It's not just about the children. Just because you can cherry-pick a less symptomatic demographic doesn't mean there aren't other demographics out there who are high-risk, and we already know that children can transmit coronavirus even if they don't get super sick as frequently as adults. And I'm all for taking seriously anything that could be dangerous to children or adults. When you say we've accepted these other things, are you saying that we've ignored them and not provided any sort of safety measures? Or are these more examples like the car accidents and sports injuries that you mentioned earlier?
I wouldn't say I'm cherrypicking the 5-18 year old demographic in a discussion about reopening schools.
Also, no, I'm not saying we've ignored the other causes of death. I'm saying the mitigation that is put into place should be measured. We can always take more extreme precautions and lower the deaths of anything. There's a reason that we don't. If school is unsafe for children because of COVID then school has probably never been safe for children, period.
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On December 29 2020 21:34 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2020 20:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 29 2020 20:42 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 29 2020 19:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 29 2020 14:53 Magic Powers wrote:On December 29 2020 09:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 29 2020 09:15 BlackJack wrote:"Not safe for students" is a subjective statement. CDC deaths for children ages 5-14 show 50 deaths from COVID and 4,748 deaths from all causes. That's 50 deaths out of a source population of 41 million. Slightly more than 1 death per million children. The 15-24 Age group shows 468 COVID deaths and 30,531 deaths from all other causes. So of all the children that died last year, COVID caused maybe 1-2% of those deaths. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htmSome quick google searches and number crunching and I surmise that teenagers are roughly 10x as likely to die from suicide than COVID Two things: 1. Students and their families, not just children. Even if children are asymptomatic, they can bring it home to their parents (or god forbid grandparents). 2. I absolutely hate when people only look at deaths as the only dangerous effect of coronavirus. It's misrepresenting statistics. Loss of senses, multiple organ failure, not being able to breathe, complications with additional diseases... it's not just a matter of dying vs. being totally fine. But that's the case with everything. The education level is linked to income and wealth is linked to health, employment is linked to health and crime rates, etc. etc. The economic outfall (which will result in human suffering and death) from the measures must be taken into account. It's a balance act, so we can't just stop deaths and suffering on one end and ignore it at the other end. Children need education, we have a duty to provide it to them. People need sunlight, socialization, a stable income, and many other things. The cure to the disease should not become worse than the disease itself. This is why, even after vaccination, we have to understand that we can't prevent every death and all suffering caused by the virus. It will be with us for many years to come, probably for hundreds of years. All we can do is reduce death and suffering, not eradicate it. Are you implying that remote teaching/learning is not education? Children need, and are receiving, education. As a teacher myself, I'm kinda implying that it isn't. I'm sure it depends on the subject, but my experience is that most children receiving online teaching are getting a way inferior product compared to the regular teaching. The most motivated and capable children from the most resourceful parents are doing just fine with online classes, but the ones who struggle in any capacity seem to struggle way, way more. Out of the ~80 or so students I'm teaching this semester, I'd estimate fewer than 10 would get a nearly equivalent education through making everything online based. I think the comparison needs to be between current remote learning models and current in-class models that abide by the necessary safety regulations of masks, social distancing, etc., as opposed to comparing remote learning models to what ideal, perfect, not-needing-to-worry-about-coronavirus teaching setups would be, because coronavirus needs to be factored into the equation. For example, in-person collaborative learning / social learning is straight-up off the table, this year, but students could still collaborate remotely. I agree with you that remote learning isn't ideal, and I don't know a single teacher who would prefer to permanently teach online and never return to the classroom, but "ideal" isn't on the table at the moment. It's simply not an option. If I were given choice a) teaching as normal but a 20% chance of me catching covid the next 6 months or b) online classes, (and assuming this is just about me and not about infecting 20% of society) I'd go with a. Would your answer change if you considered the hundreds (thousands?) of other people that could catch covid from that decision? That decision doesn't only give you a 20% chance of catching covid; it would give a 20% (or whatever percent) chance to all of your students, your colleagues, and everyone's family members. It affects the entire community. I mean, I think it's all situational. My 20% was a semi-random number. But if I only factor in teaching staff (assuming exemptions given for ones in risk groups) and children (similar exemptions given there), I'm not convinced that 20% of pupils and teachers catching covid is more detrimental to teachers and pupils than what half a year of online classes is. (Making this assessment, I am not factoring in how schools contribute to wider community spread, here, just looking at schools in isolation.) In Trondheim, we closed down schools between March and May, but they've been running fairly normally this semester. (With way more hand sanitizer and focus on washing hands and disinfecting stuff, some adjustments for social interactions and classroom structuring depending on infection level in society, and quarantining of classes where anyone is infected. Myself, I was quarantined for 10 days between December 9th and 19th because of a confirmed case in one of the classes I'm teaching. ) Closing down in March was a move I supported. It really helped people understand the significance of what was happening, and it was crucial for bringing our numbers down. (Norway went from 200 daily cases in March to ~40 in early May, staying below 20 until August.) This was also a period where we really didn't know enough about the virus, and I think an overreaction to a pandemic is preferable to an underreaction. And in the US, I think very few of your states have been below our March numbers for any period since March anyway. So I mean, I get it. There are valid reasons why teaching in certain situations has had to go online. I'm not really making a judgement call on when it's right to do it or not. But it's certainly an emergency solution, and we shouldn't pretend that the learning experience is not significantly impaired, especially for the children (and high school students) who need school the most. I don't think there's a way to accurately quantify this (I already have big problems with school being too much of a testing institution rather than learning institution), but I genuinely believe that a big percentage of students/pupils are losing out on a big percentage of their learning, and I think it's a bigger problem the more the students/pupils are struggling in the first place, and I think it's a bigger problem the younger the students/pupils are. Basically: If you say that 20% of pupils aged 7-9 years old only get 50% of their learning they'd normally get for half a year, and that these 20% (I think both my numbers are very conservative here - I think it's more than 20% that are significantly impaired and I think the most impaired lose a lot more than 50%) are in the 'most struggling'-groups, then I think this will contribute to a whole lot of problems down the line. How much learning is lost and what the long term consequences of said lost learning is even less quantifiable than exactly how much schools staying open contributes to wider community spread and how much death and disease is caused by this wider community spread, but it's not a dismissible point. The lost learning is a huge deal - especially for younger children, and especially for the ones who need it the most.
I think that makes a lot of sense where you are, especially if Norway had only 20-40 daily cases for a while, and currently has just a few thousand active cases! Norway has a population of about 5 million, whereas New Jersey, the US state I'm in, has about 9 million people. However, we have far more than double your coronavirus numbers: NJ has had almost half a million cases of coronavirus, and about 4,000 new cases every day. About 19,000 total deaths too. And unfortunately, we're not a uniquely high state at the moment; throughout the United States, we have insane daily and total numbers, with many states performing even worse, per capita, than NJ.
We (in the United States) have had zero control over coronavirus, so I don't believe we have the same luxury of being able to prioritize education yet... as much as I live my entire life around wanting to prioritize education.
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On December 29 2020 20:32 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2020 09:23 JimmiC wrote:
Any stats on how many are effected by long Covid? And that the consequences of that are?
There is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead. Just like there is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead in the other causes of death that are 80-100x more likely than COVID. Let's start adding up all the anoxic brain injuries from near-drownings, deformities from car crashes, lifelong paralysis from sports injuries, etc. and then we will really get some big numbers going. The only thing we know for sure is that the only safe place for a child is locked up in a padded room, just as long as there aren't any ropes they can use to make a noose, and all their food is blended up so they can't choke.
COVID-19 is the leading cause of death in the US, so how can other causes be more likely? Or am I misreading what you've said?
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Norway28736 Posts
On December 29 2020 22:34 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2020 20:32 BlackJack wrote:On December 29 2020 09:23 JimmiC wrote:
Any stats on how many are effected by long Covid? And that the consequences of that are?
There is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead. Just like there is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead in the other causes of death that are 80-100x more likely than COVID. Let's start adding up all the anoxic brain injuries from near-drownings, deformities from car crashes, lifelong paralysis from sports injuries, etc. and then we will really get some big numbers going. The only thing we know for sure is that the only safe place for a child is locked up in a padded room, just as long as there aren't any ropes they can use to make a noose, and all their food is blended up so they can't choke. COVID-19 is the leading cause of death in the US, so how can other causes be more likely? Or am I misreading what you've said?
He's talking about children.
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On December 29 2020 22:36 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2020 22:34 maybenexttime wrote:On December 29 2020 20:32 BlackJack wrote:On December 29 2020 09:23 JimmiC wrote:
Any stats on how many are effected by long Covid? And that the consequences of that are?
There is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead. Just like there is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead in the other causes of death that are 80-100x more likely than COVID. Let's start adding up all the anoxic brain injuries from near-drownings, deformities from car crashes, lifelong paralysis from sports injuries, etc. and then we will really get some big numbers going. The only thing we know for sure is that the only safe place for a child is locked up in a padded room, just as long as there aren't any ropes they can use to make a noose, and all their food is blended up so they can't choke. COVID-19 is the leading cause of death in the US, so how can other causes be more likely? Or am I misreading what you've said? He's talking about children.
Ah, okay. My bad.
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Here's a recent article on covid-19 transmission rates from children. Previously the evidence was often not exactly conclusive, but lately the picture has become much clearer.
The current understanding is that, despite the concerns, there's significantly less reason for worry than previously thought. If smart measures are being taken, certain schools (especially elementary schools) should be able to stay open at some capacity or - depending on the total situation - even at full capacity. There's nuance to this of course, as always.
It can't be overstated that children are in great need of good education, and there is a significant body of evidence suggesting that many life-years will be lost among younger generations as we keep dragging this out rather than spending our efforts on finding and implementing solutions.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/we-now-know-how-much-children-spread-coronavirus/
On another note: Russia reported having three times more total covid-19 deaths than previously reported.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/28/russia-admits-to-world-third-worst-covid-19-death-toll-underreported
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On December 30 2020 00:57 Magic Powers wrote:Here's a recent article on covid-19 transmission rates from children. Previously the evidence was often not exactly conclusive, but lately the picture has become much clearer. The current understanding is that, despite the concerns, there's significantly less reason for worry than previously thought. If smart measures are being taken, certain schools (especially elementary schools) should be able to stay open at some capacity or - depending on the total situation - even at full capacity. There's nuance to this of course, as always. It can't be overstated that children are in great need of good education, and there is a significant body of evidence suggesting that many life-years will be lost among younger generations as we keep dragging this out rather than spending our efforts on finding and implementing solutions. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/we-now-know-how-much-children-spread-coronavirus/
I disagree that children transmitting at half the rate as adults translates to not needing to worry about schools reopening. Keep in mind that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of children at a school, sharing the hallways and bathrooms and cafeterias, and moving from classroom to classroom. A lower rate of transmission is still concerning, given enough individuals in a school.
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Around the schools thing, BC health was pretty careful to be explicit that schools were not a common vector for transmission in our monthly update:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/COVID19_Monthly_Update_Dec_2020.pdf
From a testing standpoint:
1 in 100 school-aged children tested
7 in 100 tests are COVID-19 +
Fewer than 7 in 1000 students COVID-19 +
In VCH (a health region encompassing a fair chunk of metro vancouver, ~1.25 million people)
120,000 school-aged children
and staff in VCH region
• >600 school-aged children or
school staff diagnosed with
COVID-19 resulting in <200
school exposures
• School-based transmission
resulting from < 20 exposures
• 0 outbreaks
Additionally, the majority of transmission is outside of schools:
COVID-19 in schools in Vancouver Coastal
• 89% of cases acquired infection from confirmed case/cluster,
generally from a household contact
• Of cases in schools, 76% students, 24% staff
• No school transmission in >90% of cases
• Recently, most transmission involved a staff member
Even with the risk, I think elementary schools must remain open. Kids in elementary school need the learning, and the benefits of the social interaction far outweigh the downsides. High school is where I'd sacrifice in-person attendance, or limit it to grades 11/12, where there are bigger downstream impacts to post-secondary education from degraded learning experiences.
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On December 29 2020 23:50 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2020 20:32 BlackJack wrote:On December 29 2020 09:23 JimmiC wrote:
Any stats on how many are effected by long Covid? And that the consequences of that are?
There is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead. Just like there is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead in the other causes of death that are 80-100x more likely than COVID. Let's start adding up all the anoxic brain injuries from near-drownings, deformities from car crashes, lifelong paralysis from sports injuries, etc. and then we will really get some big numbers going. The only thing we know for sure is that the only safe place for a child is locked up in a padded room, just as long as there aren't any ropes they can use to make a noose, and all their food is blended up so they can't choke. This is a super stupid strawman, even for you it is embarrassing. Great dodge to get people riled up about the nonsense. Here’s one your style, drunk driving is not a problem because it kills almost no kids, way less then even COVID. Barley kills adults too. So to be clear, you have no idea what the long term risks are, and are 100% confident kids are at almost no risk. The big problem with your hot takes in general is you zero in on anything that “proves” what you decided months ago without looking into anything else. Might be worth investigating why the experts are doing what they are doing. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/21523448/covid-long-term-effects-symptoms-damage
JimmiC back in the flesh to mischaracterize everything I said. I didn't say I'm 100% confident kids are at no risk. In fact I said exactly the opposite: Kids are always at risk of death/injury/illness from lots of things. What I said was that mitigation efforts needed to be weighed with the benefit that something brings to society and while drunk driving provides no benefit to society, having in-person schooling provides a lot of benefit.
In fact even your articles said that we don't understand a lot about long-term effects of COVID. We especially don't know them in children who have a milder presentation of the disease. Funny that you only take issue with my supposed confidence that school is safe for children but have no issue with the idea that school is unsafe for children. I wasn't even making the argument that school was safe for children - I was objecting to the idea that the argument that school was unsafe for children has been proven. The big problem with your hot takes in general is you zero in on anything that "proves" what you decided months ago without looking into anything else.
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None of the arguments supporting school reopening precludes the possibility of per-school closures of issues arise. That’s part of the tested plan of quarantining people with an infectious disease.
The proof that kids are major spreaders is lacking. New York public schools opened for a few weeks late this year, and very low rates of transmission were observed / no major outbreaks traced to school spread. The kids summer camps back in late summer, in states that allowed them to open, showed a low rate of in-camp spread. And then also all the European countries that have opened schools ahead of other places with little observable consequence. The existing community spread is no argument against school reopenings, and as another post pointed out, keeping schools closed must be weighed in benefits against costs to the student and their parents.
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Canada11398 Posts
But it's certainly an emergency solution, and we shouldn't pretend that the learning experience is not significantly impaired, especially for the children (and high school students) who need school the most. I don't think there's a way to accurately quantify this (I already have big problems with school being too much of a testing institution rather than learning institution), but I genuinely believe that a big percentage of students/pupils are losing out on a big percentage of their learning, and I think it's a bigger problem the more the students/pupils are struggling in the first place, and I think it's a bigger problem the younger the students/pupils are.
Oh it was not good. We also did a school shut down until June and we've been operating back in the schools since September but with similar health protocols. But we had otherwise healthy students with full blown depression. In school, when a student struggles you can swing by their desk and ask to help the students who won't stick up their hand for help. Online you are reliant upon them appearing online to help. When they just disappear, you have no idea why. Then after you find out they've unable to get out of bed, covers over their head... as a teacher, you feel awful, responsible even though you had no way of knowing. How many other students that disappeared are experiencing the same? But you lack that visual feedback on how students are doing. And even when asked, middle school students seem to be a bad judge of how they are doing until things are really bad. You don't realize how reliant you are on the feedback loop within the classroom to assess when to push ahead and when to stay on an assignment longer until it's gone. What nightmare.
Homeschooling can work very well for very self-driven students with educated parents. I've seen it done very successfully with students that have gone on to become doctors. (Nor did they become the weird anti-social type as is the stereotype- I've seen very community based homeschool with the students involved in sports teams, etc.) But for most, it's a gong show of missed education, even with a teacher trying to run a distant class. Worse, combined with isolation, it seemed a rather dangerous exercise in exploding depression in an already anxiety ridden generation of youth. I hope to never go back there again.
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On December 30 2020 04:04 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2020 03:34 BlackJack wrote:On December 29 2020 23:50 JimmiC wrote:On December 29 2020 20:32 BlackJack wrote:On December 29 2020 09:23 JimmiC wrote:
Any stats on how many are effected by long Covid? And that the consequences of that are?
There is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead. Just like there is a ton of runway between unaffected and dead in the other causes of death that are 80-100x more likely than COVID. Let's start adding up all the anoxic brain injuries from near-drownings, deformities from car crashes, lifelong paralysis from sports injuries, etc. and then we will really get some big numbers going. The only thing we know for sure is that the only safe place for a child is locked up in a padded room, just as long as there aren't any ropes they can use to make a noose, and all their food is blended up so they can't choke. This is a super stupid strawman, even for you it is embarrassing. Great dodge to get people riled up about the nonsense. Here’s one your style, drunk driving is not a problem because it kills almost no kids, way less then even COVID. Barley kills adults too. So to be clear, you have no idea what the long term risks are, and are 100% confident kids are at almost no risk. The big problem with your hot takes in general is you zero in on anything that “proves” what you decided months ago without looking into anything else. Might be worth investigating why the experts are doing what they are doing. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/21523448/covid-long-term-effects-symptoms-damage JimmiC back in the flesh to mischaracterize everything I said. I didn't say I'm 100% confident kids are at no risk. In fact I said exactly the opposite: Kids are always at risk of death/injury/illness from lots of things. What I said was that mitigation efforts needed to be weighed with the benefit that something brings to society and while drunk driving provides no benefit to society, having in-person schooling provides a lot of benefit. In fact even your articles said that we don't understand a lot about long-term effects of COVID. We especially don't know them in children who have a milder presentation of the disease. Funny that you only take issue with my supposed confidence that school is safe for children but have no issue with the idea that school is unsafe for children. I wasn't even making the argument that school was safe for children - I was objecting to the idea that the argument that school was unsafe for children has been proven. The big problem with your hot takes in general is you zero in on anything that "proves" what you decided months ago without looking into anything else. Clearly you did not read my second post. I'm fine with schools being open when it is safe to do so, in the USA in most areas it is not. I'm constantly amazed at all the areas you have expertise over the people who studied and have done it their whole lives. The drunk driving was just an example of a bad straw man, but if I was to continue down it like you do I would then point out all the social benefits of alcohol especially in groups which means some where other than your health and given the extreme low risk (much less then the non risk that is covid according to you) it should be a go. I agree that we don't know what Long Covid will do long term, we do now it exists and is impacting people still, most doctors believe some of this damage is permanent. I've read some crazy high numbers on the amount effected but 10% is the lowest I've seen. That is a lot of people that if we don't need to infect them we should not. School can be open safely, but most of the US does not fit those criteria. And you're still arguing about your strawman not my initial post which was just checking to see if you actually had any information of Children being safe, but as I guessed based on your posting history it was just your assumption that they are and then a bold claim made.
I don't have information on children being safe in schools because as I said I think "being safe" is a subjective and relative term that is not quantifiable. I did have statistics on COVID deaths of children which shows about 1 death per million children that I already provided. Lmui posted some statistics on community spread from schools above.
Also I don't know where you get this idea that I'm suggesting that "I know more than the experts."
Dr. Faucci thinks schools should try as best as possible to remain open:
“The default position should be to try as best as possible within reason to keep the children in school or to get them back to school. … If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not really very big at all, not like one would have suspected. So let’s try to get the kids back, but let’s try to mitigate the things that maintain and just push the kind of community spread that we’re trying to avoid.”
So the default position, per the leading expert in our country, is to keep kids in school. Sounds like the onus is on the people that think schools remain closed to prove their position instead of on me to disprove their position.
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EPT
