Pediatricians call for in person school this fall

[artradley]

Their recommendation is basically you have a couple months to get your infection rates low enough that it's "safe", and that SHOULD be our priority.

Neither stated nor implied.

https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2...ons-return-to-in-person-education-in-schools/

What they did say, however, includes this:

Policy makers must also consider the mounting evidence regarding COVID-19 in children and adolescents, including the role they may play in transmission of the infection. SARS-CoV-2 appears to behave differently in children and adolescents than other common respiratory viruses, such as influenza, on which much of the current guidance regarding school closures is based. Although children and adolescents play a major role in amplifying influenza outbreaks, to date, this does not appear to be the case with SARS-CoV-2. Although many questions remain, the preponderance of evidence indicates that children and adolescents are less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, children may be less likely to become infected and to spread infection. Policies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 within schools must be balanced with the known harms to children, adolescents, families, and the community by keeping children at home.

See what they're doing here? Balancing the pros and cons. More people should do this.

 

[Tom Paris]

They are saying in-person classes. That is the point of emphasis. They weighed the pros and the cons, and believe in person causes the less damage.

Pediatricians, right?

 

[Joes Place]

Neither stated nor implied.

https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2...ons-return-to-in-person-education-in-schools/

What they did say, however, includes this:

Policy makers must also consider the mounting evidence regarding COVID-19 in children and adolescents, including the role they may play in transmission of the infection. SARS-CoV-2 appears to behave differently in children and adolescents than other common respiratory viruses, such as influenza, on which much of the current guidance regarding school closures is based. Although children and adolescents play a major role in amplifying influenza outbreaks, to date, this does not appear to be the case with SARS-CoV-2. Although many questions remain, the preponderance of evidence indicates that children and adolescents are less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, children may be less likely to become infected and to spread infection. Policies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 within schools must be balanced with the known harms to children, adolescents, families, and the community by keeping children at home.

See what they're doing here? Balancing the pros and cons. More people should do this.

MIS-C is a "known harm" to children.
And they have eliminated it from the discussion.

 

[artradley]

Did I ssy that?

Yes.

 

[RileyHawk]

Well, Fauci is not an expert on the ramifications of massive shutdowns and the ensuing societal ills. I said the from the beginning it's beyond foolish to only listen to people whose only expertise is minimizing health care risks. We should have had a panel of health care experts, mental health experts, economists, etc. to create a strategy that balanced everything in our approach to battling the pandemic. Sacrificing children to save the elderly is not a wise or caring strategy.

At least this group is trying to find that balance.

But not pediatricians. That's my point.

 

[RileyHawk]

We are supposed to be making our public policy based on the experts. The experts say we should open schools. But nobody is forcing you to follow that advice. If it's more risk than you can bare, you can stay home.

But it is intolerable for you to both ignore the advice of experts and in so doing remove the choice of others, and inflict the ills upon them that they wish to avoid.

That's simply not true. There is no consensus among the experts on this.

 

[dgordo]

Our pediatrician is advising us to keep our kids home. There’s really no consensus here because it’s too unpredictable.

 

[mcgrawfsu]

Virtual schools are great for high achievers. The rest not so much.

Maybe so for schools that specialize in virtual learning. Not so much for FL public schools. Several peasant friends send their kids to the local public high school and their kids were hung out to dry when it came to AP testing. My son’s private prep school has incredible prep for AP’s. We know a ton of families planning on sending their kids to the prep school if the public schools are not on campus this fall

 

[Rudolph]

Same here. Wife teaches 5th. Also, the virtual public HS in our county was a disaster. And we live in one of the better districts in FL.

Judging the entire concept of virtual classrooms based on an unprepared reaction to this pandemic is hardly fair, you know what I mean? I'm doing design projects with high school kids via Zoom, and while it is a freaking struggle, we're getting better at it.

Taking groups of 10 kids at a time through a design program—in person—starting in a few days.

RIP in peace, Rudolph.

 

[mcgrawfsu]

Judging the entire concept of virtual classrooms based on an unprepared reaction to this pandemic is hardly fair, you know what I mean? I'm doing design projects with high school kids via Zoom, and while it is a freaking struggle, we're getting better at it.

Taking groups of 10 kids at a time through a design program—in person—starting in a few days.

RIP in peace, Rudolph.

I agree 100%. But even with time to prepare I don’t really trust the public schools to put out a decent product. My son’s private school started preparing for it in January and rolled it out mid February. It was extremely well run. The public schools wouldn’t get enough families to buy in to be affective

 

[Kenneth Griffin]

If we really wanted kids back in school we never should have let people back in bars, restaurants or gyms. But we chose those over school and sports.

 

[tarheelbybirth]

You think their recommendation is for the majority of schools to be online? Come on.

Btw, it is under control in the vast majority of school districts across the country.

Their recommendation is basically you have a couple months to get your infection rates low enough that it's "safe", and that SHOULD be our priority.

It’s not under control anywhere until they have the testing and tracing capacity to quash outbreaks. That doesn’t exist anywhere in the country thanks to our horrific response.

As for the “socialization” these folks think is so important (and I agree) are they recommending sending kids back to school with no mitigation efforts at all? No? Take a look at what school systems are planning in order to bring students back. Each student will exist in their own bubble. No sharing. No group work. As little contact as possible.

They talk about children being less susceptible and less likely to transmit and they completely ignore that that concept is totally compromised when you put 24 of them in the same room all day with adults.

Like I said, anyone who wants to can host 20-30 kids in their own house for 9 hours a day and allow them to socialize under your careful and close supervision. There are parents out there right now who need free child care who would jump on it. I suspect those wanting a return to the traditional model of school pre-COVID...including these pediatricians...would quickly say “Oh hell no” to the idea.

 

[BBHawk]

Yes.

GFY.

Good bye.

 

[LBoogie28]

I agree 100%. But even with time to prepare I don’t really trust the public schools to put out a decent product. My son’s private school started preparing for it in January and rolled it out mid February. It was extremely well run. The public schools wouldn’t get enough families to buy in to be affective

Or effective

 

[Joes Place]

It’s not under control anywhere until they have the testing and tracing capacity to quash outbreaks. That doesn’t exist anywhere in the country thanks to our horrific response.

As for the “socialization” these folks think is so important (and I agree) are they recommending sending kids back to school with no mitigation efforts at all? No? Take a look at what school systems are planning in order to bring students back. Each student will exist in their own bubble. No sharing. No group work. As little contact as possible.

They talk about children being less susceptible and less likely to transmit and they completely ignore that that concept is totally compromised when you put 24 of them in the same room all day with adults.

Like I said, anyone who wants to can host 20-30 kids in their own house for 9 hours a day and allow them to socialize under your careful and close supervision. There are parents out there right now who need free child care who would jump on it. I suspect those wanting a return to the traditional model of school pre-COVID...including these pediatricians...would quickly say “Oh hell no” to the idea.

4 months from the onset of these outbreaks will be the end of this month (August); let's see where these states are with MIS-C cases by then...

 

[tarheelbybirth]

Policies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 within schools must be balanced with the known harms to children, adolescents, families, and the community by keeping children at home.

Here's what those policies look like:

• Minimize movement throughout the building, and restrict mixing between groups. Try to keep the same student and staff groupings together throughout the school day as much as possible.
• Cancel all field trips. Limit gatherings, events, and extracurricular activities to those that can maintain proper social distancing.
• Restrict nonessential visitors, volunteers, and activities involving groups of people at the same time.
• Space student desks and seating at least six feet apart.
• Close communal-use spaces such as dining halls and playgrounds if possible; otherwise, stagger their use and disinfect them in between uses.
• Have students eat meals in classrooms. Serve individually plated meals.
• Stagger arrival and drop-off times or locations, or put in place other measures to limit direct contact with parents as much as possible.
• Keep each child’s belongings separated from others’ and in individually labeled containers, cubbies, or areas.
• Have enough supplies to minimize the sharing of high-touch materials to the extent possible (art supplies, math manipulatives, science equipment, etc.), or limit the use of supplies and equipment to one group of children at a time and clean and disinfect these items between uses.
• Avoid sharing electronic devices, books, games, and other learning aids. Students might need their own bin of materials that they use for learning — and these materials will need to be cleaned regularly.

I'm guessing the socialization in such an environment will be minimal.

Model Classroom?

BZZZZZT!!! Wrong answer!! That carpet has to go. Can't disinfect it. No soft surfaces at all that children can come in contact with.

 

[Joes Place]

Wait........wut?
They're learning off computer & TV screens, anyway?

No way THAT can be done from home!!!

 

[Joes Place]

Meanwhile, back in RealityLand, Covid-19 is now being tagged as causing brain damage in children.

LET'S GET THEM SCHOOLS REOPENED!!!!

 

[silasstarr]

In other news CNN has just netted its best ratings in 40 years and has had 190% jump in viewership since COVID started. So, regardless of the data, you can expect them to continue to scare the shit out of everyone into staying home forever. We should do what they say instead.

Scare tactics work, ask Fox News. They’ve been scaring pubbers for 20+ years into problems that are imagined.

 

[BioHawk]

Wait........wut?
They're learning off computer & TV screens, anyway?

No way THAT can be done from home!!!

Sadly, not everyone can.

 

[Joes Place]

Our pediatrician is advising us to keep our kids home. There’s really no consensus here because it’s too unpredictable.

And, as I've noted, their "statement" has completely ignored the outbreaks of MIS-C that occur 25-30 days AFTER exposure to Covid.

AND, they as yet cannot identify ANY conditions that predispose children to severe cases of it.

As I have posted, many times now, the CDC's demographics page indicated nearly 1600 deaths in the 0-4 age group, and that data have been sitting on their site for 2 weeks now. And my suspicion is those are MIS-C cases, because the timeframe those numbers "blew up" on their site was around June 23, with no explanation for it. And they conveniently dropped the raw numbers off the graphs.

With 50,000 new cases a day, we will see hundreds more MIS-C cases in children by mid August.

 

[stout1]

I always appreciate the private school folks who extol their schools’ response to online learning. I am stunned that a group of families who are deeply involved in their children’s learning had good outcomes. They have literally and figuratively bought in and the results are to be expected.

My kids are in public school and we have no desire to move them to private. Their experience was just fine as my wife and I emphasized learning and had them engaged.

Stunning how engaged parents matter.

 

[Joes Place]

Welp.....so much for that "children don't transmit the virus" nonsense....

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...mmer-camps-near-impossible-challenge-n1232916

But now even cautious hopes that COVID-19 might be kept outside Kanakuk Kamps’ gates are already dashed. On July 1, parents were notified by email that one of the camps, known as K-2, was shutting down. The Stone County Health Department’ updated the community on Facebook : 41 campers, counselors and staff tested positive for COVID-19; they had come to camp from 10 states and multiple counties in Missouri. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services later updated the count to 49, according to the Springfield News-Leader.

​

 

[tarheelbybirth]

My kids are in public school and we have no desire to move them to private. Their experience was just fine as my wife and I emphasized learning and had them engaged.

Stunning how engaged parents matter.

Check out this year's G4C video game design national competition. I have a group that had designed a game for a school club national competition but it was cancelled so they - on their own - tracked down another competition that they could enter online. They won. Public school kids.

 

[haw-key]

With 50,000 new cases a day, we will see hundreds more MIS-C cases in children by mid August.

Prediction noted.

 

[Joes Place]

Prediction noted.

Here's some reading for you, regarding setting up a registry for these cases, because other physicians and pediatricians recognize the risks along with the possibility many cases and health problems in children may be "under the radar" right now.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1058981320301028

 

[Finance85]

It is definitely not good but I would rather take the year of no education than another 100 - 200k of people dying.

Until there's a foolproof vaccine that's readily available for 340,000,000 people, we aren't going to prevent infections. We can only slow them down. It's a virus. some people are going to die from it. All we can do is take reasonable precautions.

As many as 30% of children depend on school for at least some of their nutritional needs. Think about that.

 

[Joes Place]

As many as 30% of children depend on school for at least some of their nutritional needs. Think about that.

If only we could put together "social safety nets", like many social democracies - which have been far more successful in containing the virus AND minimizing impacts to their economies, that would make those dependencies irrelevant....

 

[Joes Place]

All we can do is take reasonable precautions.

Americans cannot even do that, w/o freaking out about masks destroying their "individual freedoms"

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

In other news CNN has just netted its best ratings in 40 years and has had 190% jump in viewership since COVID started. So, regardless of the data, you can expect them to continue to scare the shit out of everyone into staying home forever. We should do what they say instead.

I don't watch CNN, but the data should scare the shit out of you. Here is the thing, we would probably be looking more like opening schools in the fall but the states opened back up too early, too quickly and not enough people did the stuff they were suppose to do to prevent the spread. Now our daily cases are going up while the rest of the world is going down. The rest of the world seeing us a giant Petri-dish of COVID doesn't want our citizens traveling to their country even though that is going to cost them money.

The numbers should scare you man. You don't have to watch CNN. Just pull up a report of the numbers on the internet.

 

[Finance85]

If only we could put together "social safety nets", like many social democracies - which have been far more successful in containing the virus AND minimizing impacts to their economies, that would make those dependencies irrelevant....

We have a social safety net. It's called free public education. We have a social safety net. It's called SNAP.

Just because it doesn't meet your personal approval doesn't mean we don't have it.

What would you suggest, @joesplace? Keep children locked up for another year, and repurpose teachers into food delivery people?

 

[Joes Place]

We have a social safety net. It's called free public education.

Nope

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

Americans cannot even do that, w/o freaking out about masks destroying their "individual freedoms"

If we could do that we'd be doing way better right now. But even in places were masks are required people often just ignore the requirements.

I forgot about this but our county instituted a mask policy a long time ago and extended it. But I work in a place . . . a public place were no one other than me wears a mask. I'd call the health department about it, but seeming as I'm the only dude showing up in a mask every day the health department visiting and citing them for a lack of masks would mean that suspicion would fall on me.

But I will be honest with you, if I got canned for some reason, I'd be ringing up the health department before I even left the parking lot.

 

[Joes Place]

Here's your county-by-county map of where it may be safe to open schools in the fall:

https://www.endcoronavirus.org/us-counties

Trends map and Cases map

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

We have a social safety net. It's called free public education. We have a social safety net. It's called SNAP.

Just because it doesn't meet your personal approval doesn't mean we don't have it.

What would you suggest, @joesplace? Keep children locked up for another year, and repurpose teachers into food delivery people?

The fact that you think public education is part of the "social safety net" is telling.

SNAP is part of the social safety net but the amount you can get in SNAP is pretty darn small relative to the actual cost of even inexpensive groceries.

 

[Finance85]

The fact that you think public education is part of the "social safety net" is telling.

SNAP is part of the social safety net but the amount you can get in SNAP is pretty darn small relative to the actual cost of even inexpensive groceries.

So you agree that children will go hungry if they aren't in school.

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

So you agree that children will go hungry if they aren't in school.

Possibly . . . but there are solutions around that. The states can take money ment for free/reduced priced lunch and send it to the parents.

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

Here's what those policies look like:

• Minimize movement throughout the building, and restrict mixing between groups. Try to keep the same student and staff groupings together throughout the school day as much as possible.
• Cancel all field trips. Limit gatherings, events, and extracurricular activities to those that can maintain proper social distancing.
• Restrict nonessential visitors, volunteers, and activities involving groups of people at the same time.
• Space student desks and seating at least six feet apart.
• Close communal-use spaces such as dining halls and playgrounds if possible; otherwise, stagger their use and disinfect them in between uses.
• Have students eat meals in classrooms. Serve individually plated meals.
• Stagger arrival and drop-off times or locations, or put in place other measures to limit direct contact with parents as much as possible.
• Keep each child’s belongings separated from others’ and in individually labeled containers, cubbies, or areas.
• Have enough supplies to minimize the sharing of high-touch materials to the extent possible (art supplies, math manipulatives, science equipment, etc.), or limit the use of supplies and equipment to one group of children at a time and clean and disinfect these items between uses.
• Avoid sharing electronic devices, books, games, and other learning aids. Students might need their own bin of materials that they use for learning — and these materials will need to be cleaned regularly.

I'm guessing the socialization in such an environment will be minimal.

Model Classroom?

BZZZZZT!!! Wrong answer!! That carpet has to go. Can't disinfect it. No soft surfaces at all that children can come in contact with.

This seems like it could work for older children. Younger children I see this as impossible.

 

[RileyHawk]

Until there's a foolproof vaccine that's readily available for 340,000,000 people, we aren't going to prevent infections. We can only slow them down. It's a virus. some people are going to die from it. All we can do is take reasonable precautions.

As many as 30% of children depend on school for at least some of their nutritional needs. Think about that.

But that's a separate issue that does not require children to be together inside for 8+hours. That's not a reason to open schools.

 

[RileyHawk]

So you agree that children will go hungry if they aren't in school.

Do you really think the only solution for feeding children is public schools? Really?