Last minute plan B if schools don’t open?

[Anonymous]

The UK literally just concluded that there isn’t sufficient information to support general vaccination of teens (12-15) without comorbidities or not living with particularly vulnerable people because of the extremely low risk Covid poses to them and the potential risk of (still low but not yet outweighed) side effects. This is the country that just experienced an onslaught of Delta. And they were talking about 12-15, not even under 12 which is shown to be lower risk (with the exception perhaps of under 1)!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The UK literally just concluded that there isn’t sufficient information to support general vaccination of teens (12-15) without comorbidities or not living with particularly vulnerable people because of the extremely low risk Covid poses to them and the potential risk of (still low but not yet outweighed) side effects. This is the country that just experienced an onslaught of Delta. And they were talking about 12-15, not even under 12 which is shown to be lower risk (with the exception perhaps of under 1)!!

Thank you for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sooo... there is nothing that says that the increased virulence is magically restricted to adults.

Remember when we were reading that children could magically never be infected? Or be ill? Or when we read that they magically never could transmit?

This poor NYTimes article came out many long long hours before the WaPo game-changing article on CDC's new understanding of the pandemic.

No, no one said that children couldn't be infected or be ill or transmit. Yes, it is still true that children are less likely to get, be ill from, and (probably) transmit alpha covid.

Yes, delta is being shown to be more transmissible, and that is true for children, as reflected in the articles cited above.

No, you haven't seen anything that says that delta is worse than alpha for kids who contract it.

Yes, there are more cases of delta in children than alpha, because it is more transmissible. Yes, that means that the overall number of kids who get sick from covid (delta) will be higher.

Why don't we....idk....wait for data before losing our minds?

Ohh, you're *that* kind of guy.
The kind that denies the prior batch of untrue placating bullshit, feeds a new fresh heaping, and when that doesn't work, suggests we wait before losing our minds.

I'm a guy? Neat.

You suggested I take or maybe stop taking Xanax, called a NYT article "poor" for no substantiated reason, created strawmen to support your arguments, and now are just reaching at personal attacks. You are just trying to smear anything that doesn't agree with your current belief about delta, but not offering any evidence to support the things you are saying.

I'll just peace out because I don't need to engage with your abuse.

Nice, thanks for the break.
I declined an offer to take the information equivalent of a Xanax.
I expressed sympathy for the authors of an article that was made so irrelevant within hours.
I disagreed that the article contradicted what I said.
The quotes say, "we don't have data to say that it also causes worse illness in kids," which is ridiculous on its face, just like all the denials about risks to children early in the pandemic were wrong.
Except now, we potentially will get to see it because if you fill up a classroom with unvaccinated kids in an area of substantial transmission, they. will. all. get. it. And the "1 in 200 pediatric cases are hospitalized" fact in the UK will translate into several kids per school here.
None of this even considering long-covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The UK literally just concluded that there isn’t sufficient information to support general vaccination of teens (12-15) without comorbidities or not living with particularly vulnerable people because of the extremely low risk Covid poses to them and the potential risk of (still low but not yet outweighed) side effects. This is the country that just experienced an onslaught of Delta. And they were talking about 12-15, not even under 12 which is shown to be lower risk (with the exception perhaps of under 1)!!

Yes, but we've already vaccinated 12-15-year-olds, so clearly their drug approval process is different from ours.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s maybe best not to lump in teens and younger children. Their bodies are different (and changing) so they are not physically the same as children or adults. Secondly, the Netherlands (which also kept their schools open etc) DID authorize vaccines for 12-15 so obviously their medical regulators reached a very different conclusion than the UK regulators. (And the spacing out was mostly due to scarcity of vaccines not because they confirm more immunity with a single dose or whatever nonsense you’re telling yourself contrary to the the evidence emerging that the single dose of Pfizer is NOT anything close to as protective as the double dose.)

I don’t believe the situation is at all comparable to last year in many ways though we will have to see what happens in the areas with low vaccination rates that also are not enforcing mask mandates in schools. DC has a mask mandate and opportunities for all adults and all kids over 12 to be vaccinated which *should* protect younger kids in their households alongside the masks mandated in schools. I also think it’s unlikely that DC will go it alone - MD and VA schools in the areas contiguous to DC ALSO closed down for much of last year but if they’re open, I doubt the mayor will close JUST DC.

With that said if there’s a surprise awaiting us in August, my fully vaxxed middle schooler is going to live with family in New England for the school year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As a teacher, I’m 100% confident that we will be in person. I just finished DCs leadership academy this week and they have every indication of business as usual 8/30
If I was a parent I’d be real worried that there are no quarantine policies for concurrent teaching. Last year it was easier when we had to shut down bc students were used to virtual learning, and a lot of teachers already had created in person lessons that could be accessible virtually. I’m not sure how that’s all going to work this year. When we ask Dcps we get nothing

Great job, everyone. The political pressure you've applied have scared DCPS away from having any contingency plans. Because so many of you have screamed bloody murder that the schools better not be planning for anything less than 100% attendance, full day, 5 days a way -- no matter what the metrics may actually look during the school year.

More than 16,600 children had been hospitalized with the coronavirus thus far, and schools haven't started back up yet. Kids are on ventilators. For the idiots who think "Delta doesn't make kids more ill," it does make MORE kids ill, and so there will be a lot more kids who will be severely ill.

But your tantrums have resulted in there being no backup plan, so kids will be in school until Delta is already spreading like wildfire because there's nothing to fall back on.

Yes, I want kids to remain in school as long as possible. I have a kid who is high risk, and I haven't requested a virtual waiver because their ADHD makes it impossible for them to access virtual learning. I full expect that we will have to pull our kid our early because the pigheadedness that has resulted in no backup plan.

So thanks a lot for making it impossible for schools to take action before someone's kid -- maybe your own, maybe mine -- has to pay the price.

+1
And as of yesterday's news, apparently, not just more kids ill, but kids more ill, as they've now established that delta causes more severe illness.

Please cite the link for delta causing more severe illness in children.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/
More severe illness. It doesn't specify 'in children', it just implies 'in humans,' which children are.

and yet, UK and Netherlands did not see an epidemic of child covid deaths.

Long-term sequelae are what we are worried about with kid covid.
Think, polio.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The UK literally just concluded that there isn’t sufficient information to support general vaccination of teens (12-15) without comorbidities or not living with particularly vulnerable people because of the extremely low risk Covid poses to them and the potential risk of (still low but not yet outweighed) side effects. This is the country that just experienced an onslaught of Delta. And they were talking about 12-15, not even under 12 which is shown to be lower risk (with the exception perhaps of under 1)!!

yeah. I actually wonder if one issue was that they weren’t seeing any serious covid at all in the trial group!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

As a teacher, I’m 100% confident that we will be in person. I just finished DCs leadership academy this week and they have every indication of business as usual 8/30
If I was a parent I’d be real worried that there are no quarantine policies for concurrent teaching. Last year it was easier when we had to shut down bc students were used to virtual learning, and a lot of teachers already had created in person lessons that could be accessible virtually. I’m not sure how that’s all going to work this year. When we ask Dcps we get nothing

Great job, everyone. The political pressure you've applied have scared DCPS away from having any contingency plans. Because so many of you have screamed bloody murder that the schools better not be planning for anything less than 100% attendance, full day, 5 days a way -- no matter what the metrics may actually look during the school year.

More than 16,600 children had been hospitalized with the coronavirus thus far, and schools haven't started back up yet. Kids are on ventilators. For the idiots who think "Delta doesn't make kids more ill," it does make MORE kids ill, and so there will be a lot more kids who will be severely ill.

But your tantrums have resulted in there being no backup plan, so kids will be in school until Delta is already spreading like wildfire because there's nothing to fall back on.

Yes, I want kids to remain in school as long as possible. I have a kid who is high risk, and I haven't requested a virtual waiver because their ADHD makes it impossible for them to access virtual learning. I full expect that we will have to pull our kid our early because the pigheadedness that has resulted in no backup plan.

So thanks a lot for making it impossible for schools to take action before someone's kid -- maybe your own, maybe mine -- has to pay the price.

+1
And as of yesterday's news, apparently, not just more kids ill, but kids more ill, as they've now established that delta causes more severe illness.

Please cite the link for delta causing more severe illness in children.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/
More severe illness. It doesn't specify 'in children', it just implies 'in humans,' which children are.

and yet, UK and Netherlands did not see an epidemic of child covid deaths.

Long-term sequelae are what we are worried about with kid covid.
Think, polio.

I’m not worried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The UK literally just concluded that there isn’t sufficient information to support general vaccination of teens (12-15) without comorbidities or not living with particularly vulnerable people because of the extremely low risk Covid poses to them and the potential risk of (still low but not yet outweighed) side effects. This is the country that just experienced an onslaught of Delta. And they were talking about 12-15, not even under 12 which is shown to be lower risk (with the exception perhaps of under 1)!!

Interestingly, the remaining DC private high schools just mandated vaccination for 12+ today.
Those turning 12 have 2 months to get fully vaccinated.

NCS, St. Albans, GDS, Sidwell, Maret, etc.

Those who do not vaccinate will be dismissed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The UK literally just concluded that there isn’t sufficient information to support general vaccination of teens (12-15) without comorbidities or not living with particularly vulnerable people because of the extremely low risk Covid poses to them and the potential risk of (still low but not yet outweighed) side effects. This is the country that just experienced an onslaught of Delta. And they were talking about 12-15, not even under 12 which is shown to be lower risk (with the exception perhaps of under 1)!!

Interestingly, the remaining DC private high schools just mandated vaccination for 12+ today.
Those turning 12 have 2 months to get fully vaccinated.

NCS, St. Albans, GDS, Sidwell, Maret, etc.

Those who do not vaccinate will be dismissed.

What do you conclude from that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s maybe best not to lump in teens and younger children. Their bodies are different (and changing) so they are not physically the same as children or adults. Secondly, the Netherlands (which also kept their schools open etc) DID authorize vaccines for 12-15 so obviously their medical regulators reached a very different conclusion than the UK regulators. (And the spacing out was mostly due to scarcity of vaccines not because they confirm more immunity with a single dose or whatever nonsense you’re telling yourself contrary to the the evidence emerging that the single dose of Pfizer is NOT anything close to as protective as the double dose.)

I don’t believe the situation is at all comparable to last year in many ways though we will have to see what happens in the areas with low vaccination rates that also are not enforcing mask mandates in schools. DC has a mask mandate and opportunities for all adults and all kids over 12 to be vaccinated which *should* protect younger kids in their households alongside the masks mandated in schools. I also think it’s unlikely that DC will go it alone - MD and VA schools in the areas contiguous to DC ALSO closed down for much of last year but if they’re open, I doubt the mayor will close JUST DC.

With that said if there’s a surprise awaiting us in August, my fully vaxxed middle schooler is going to live with family in New England for the school year.

I agree with not lumping together an age group that can be vaccinated with one that cannot, for the sake of discussing school shifting to virtual.
The spacing was indeed due to a different strategy, of getting their first shot to as many people as possible. The consequence of that, however, may be a longer lasting immunity, which has been brought up to explain the difference between UK and Israel's latest data on delta breakthrough in vaccinated people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, the FDA. Why are they asking this week? Why didn't they look at the study protocols in MARCH? This is going to set back approval. This lands on Biden. Zero urgency.


July 26 (Reuters) - U.S. regulators have asked Pfizer Inc -BioNTech and Moderna Inc to expand the size of ongoing trials testing their COVID-19 vaccines in children aged between five and 11, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The Food and Drug Administration has indicated that the current strength of the studies was inadequate to detect the rare side effects, including myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining around the heart, the report said. (https://nyti.ms/3xgzuWZ)

The health regulator has asked the companies to include 3,000 children in their trials, almost double the original number of study participants, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

FDA, Pfizer and Moderna did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. (Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Probably because the myocarditis didn't start getting reported in large enough numbers for them to think it needed to be looked at until after March? The silver lining of the new info on the delta variant, though, is that the risk/benefit calculation on vaccinating under 12 kids changes; if it's really much more contagious, the upside of vaccinating kids looks a little better compared to the (fairly small) risk of side effects from the shot. Even if kids still have pretty low risks of bad outcomes from covid itself.

Pfizer and Moderna have WAITING lists of kids for these trials. it pisses me off that the FDA wheels turned SO SLOWLY as to give this directive to double the study in LATE JULY. Since these studies are longitudinal, they probably want to see data months after the actual vaccine is administered, so for kids starting in the study now, that pushes results to October/November, and then submitting it for review and approval. Since again, these studies began in March, to tell them in July to double the child sample reflects really poorly on the sense of urgency they are bringing to rolling out the vaccines that will re-open our country.

[Anonymous]

think this previous quote puts it all in perspective:

[i]Out of about 3.5 million cases of Covid-19 in children in the United States, the National Center for Health Statistics has reported, as of July 28, that 519 children have died from Covid-19 (fewer than 0.015 percent), including 346 children 5 to 17 years of age, and 173 children 4 or younger. Children with underlying medical conditions are the most likely to be hospitalized. Black and Hispanic children also had higher rates of hospitalization, although overall risk remained low."
...
"While any death of a child is devastating, it may help parents to think about other risks to childhood health compared to Covid-19. The C.D.C. estimates there were 480 deaths among children from influenza during the 2018-19 school year. Injury is the leading cause of death among children — about 12,000 children and young adults 1 to 19 years of age die in accidents each year, including more than 4,000 deaths in car crashes, 900 drowning accidents and 761 unintentional poisonings or drug overdoses.

+1. The risk to children isn't nothing, of course. But it's on par with other risks that we know about and manage as part of navigating the world. If you are personally at higher risk from anything, you put measures in place. I'm more vigilant with groceries because my youngest has unusual food allergies. In DC, we've seen 0% mortality for anyone under age 19 due to Covid, and maybe 10 deaths across all age groups in the last two months. (Needless to say, zero would be better. But we're in a very different place than last year.)

We tend to talk about "school" like it's intrinsically risky or safe. But it's how you handle it. You can open school with no safeguards, and have a real problem. You can open a school with careful planning and multiple safeguards, and do very well. Both the data and the experience from schools who were open all last year indicate the same.

[Anonymous]

Op, I know you are coming from a good place but please. This is no longer plan B. Most families and school-based staff are on plan W.
Unpopular opinion, that I shared last March. Covid is here to stay and people will die until... and maybe even if we get the vaccine rate up. It is what it is. Life is not guaranteed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everybody has to get it at some point, get the vaccine. I’m a single mom I had to move my ex in to help with the kids as I am an essential employee. Staying at home was terrible for my kids and now my ex want to work things out. For the love of god I can’t take another year of this. When I was in college a good friend got chicken pox as an adult bc his parents were antivax. He was hospitalized for months, things like this are so preventable.

How old are you? The chicken pox vaccine was approved in 1995.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/varicella.pdf

Just because it was approved in 1995 doesn’t mean people who were adults then got it. I was 21 in 1995, didn’t have chicken pox as a kid, and only learned about and got the vaccine a few years later because I did proactive research after a friend got chicken pox as an adult.

There was no big campaign to get all of the adults who never had chicken pox vaccinated. I suspect a lot of people who were in their 20s or older when the vaccine came out never got it.

This is what I meant. PP's friend would have to be very young for the non-vac'ed status to be due to anti-vac parents.

I don’t get why PP is referring to PPP as a liar. I was born in 1987 and I also had classmates that were not vaccinated as was their parents choice. Does one have to 50+ to post on this forum?