4.4 percent of MCPS staff report having COVID

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For everyone on this board who thinks COVID is NBD- 4.4 percent of teachers and staff have COVID. That’s a huge number and IMHO a reason to go virtual for a couple of weeks (971/22,000).

I’m super happy that my kid went back to school last fall, but I don’t hate teachers. I know that people think if MCPS goes virtual they won’t ever go back to in person. I think that’s unrealistic. 5 percent positivity rate is a stupidly high number.

Higher being, bless our teachers and nurses. They are the ones dealing with the toughest parts of this pandemic and the ills of society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that some schools have many more cases of COVID among staff than others.
Are safety protocols such as masks being followed?
Are staff eating lunch or going out together for maskless social events after work?
How well are the ventilation measures in these schools?
Are vaccination rates low among students and staff?

The extremes of the spread in some schools but relatively low numbers of COVID in other schools seems odd unless there’s an underlying risk for higher rates of transmission in specific schools.

Honey, these teachers have been on winter break. Same as families. Travel, socializing, restaurants. Majority of staff are vaccinated. We need to stop relying on vaccines to save us.

Perhaps it’s time to also point out those who want schools to close because of exposure risk, but then go out to eat and watch a moving on a theater.

The scientist in me is puzzled by the differences in the numbers within the schools. I would think the DHHS would want to comb through the numbers to see if safety protocols for staff and students could be improved.

If I were the teacher union or a parent, would you want to know if the air filtration is inadequate and needs fixing hence why one school rate of transmission is higher than another?

If I was in DHHS, do these schools represent pockets in the community that have been denied an opportunity for testing, vaccinations, and boosters because they can’t take off work. Does the county need to make testing and shots more accessible in these pockets?

The disparity in the data is something someone should comb through as a matter of public health and safety. Yes I know COVID is here, but learning to live with the virus is learning how to decrease community transmission. Sick employees can’t work, sick students can’t go to schools, and any family sick with COVID means the whole house needs to quarantine which is especially hard on hourly laborers.

I

I wonder at the differences in numbers too.

My dc goes to a high school most people on this board would scorn, but our principal and staff have impressed me with how seriously they're taking this. It occurs to me that maybe it's the UMC families that have been cushioned from covid's devastation that don't take it seriously. That's not to say every kid is wearing their mask correctly, or wearing a good mask, or there's no transmission, but there's a lot less.

[Anonymous]

Most of the cases at my high school are building services, not teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For goodness sake.

I should have made quitting DCUM my New Year's resolution. Maybe there's still time.

That number includes some who tested positive at the beginning of winter break and who are now out of the quarantine stage and able to return to work.

Source? Proof?

I can tell you that from Dec 24 to Jan 2, parents at my ES got 6 notifications for different staff members that had COVID. The MCPS pdf that circulated yesterday said we had 2 staff cases.

Regardless, MCPS is still doing a 10-day quarantine, correct? If so, 10 days from Dec 24 is exactly Jan 3, but any later than Dec 24, the person may still be in quarantine.

Just looking at this data point, it strikes me how these numbers mimic the community maps of COVID (by zip code) which might be indicative of lesser vacations and access to boosters. MCPS should work with DHHS to increase vaccinations and boosters for these communities.

...what? The data point that shows that most schools are very close to each other, especially with regard to raw numbers? Enough that the variation between 9 (Whitman) and 11 (Wheaton) could easily be explained by random chance? Even 7 (Churchill) vs 13 (Gaithersburg). It's almost double, but it's also only 6 people.

This is a really small sample size and very small actual numbers. At most, there is a small association. And maybe there is a correlation if some of these staff members got it from their student populations before break.

But you do realize that teachers and staff don't often live very near the schools they teach at anymore, right?

And these are staff numbers. These aren't a special population of poor, disadvantaged people who need more outreach and vaccine education because they live in poor, disadvantaged Silver Spring or w/e-- not on average.

In a school with 40 teachers that is less than 2 out. Very low. You're nuts.

So here's something interesting about viruses-- COVID in particular, and omicron very specifically. They-- get this-- replicate. They spread. Shocking, I know.

4% becomes 8% quite quickly, which becomes 16% pretty quickly, too, and then 32%. Without mitigation efforts, anyway. Then maybe things slow down a bit because of overlapping exposures and fewer hosts and so on. But it doesn't stop at 4% or even 8%.

When you start with a number that's already the number of typical absences during flu season-- and you're not counting additional people out with colds and flus-- and the disease is far more contagious-- that's not so good.

Barring some quirk, like another week of snow days, it's not going to stop at 4%.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, "Wait two weeks, that's what you said about X and Y and Z, I don't believe you..." Do you believe that it's never true that things will get worse in a week or two? Do you think we haven't already seen that happening with omicron, and rapidly?

The silver lining here, and a big reason that virtual should be appealing, is that it should blow through in just a few total weeks. But if we have kids in virtual during the worst of it, that will actually save lives and reduce disability among our population down the line. Sigh.

This is probably the most intelligent post I’ve seen on here in a while.
Although most people should know this, you’ve broken it down very well.
Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of the cases at my high school are building services, not teachers.

Not at my DD’s school. Several of her teachers have Covid, including one who already had it two months ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That number includes some who tested positive at the beginning of winter break and who are now out of the quarantine stage and able to return to work. Stop with your fear mongering attempts to shut down the schools.

If true it’s pretty incredible that people would be out here intentionally lying about something so important.

Some new cases are not being updated. MCPS need updated cases timely and you need stop to pretend everything was fine to put children in a risk. Don't you see what is happening to bus drivers. If you need school keep open, I understand. Please be also nice to people take this situation for caution. MCPS need giva parents options. Don't you see some schools only can keep children in cafeteria that supervised by a staff member because of the lack of teachers and sub teachers? Be real, please!

[Anonymous]

My School this week: 9 teachers out, 1 sub. Various paras and other staff out as well. Special Ed, ESOL, reading, admin, paras taking turns covering classes. Everyone sharing duties like bus duty, recess, walker door, etc. etc. Classes with only 17 out of 25 kids. Each day another covid letter sent out. Bus routes cancelled because there are no bus drivers.

For everyone who is so desperate to keep kids in school, please understand that as much as staff is trying to make it as normal as possible, it is way, way far from normal. Ranting that people should just get a grip because it doesn't affect kids or it's just like flu or it's just teachers being lazy and not wanting to work should at least try to come to terms with the reality of what schools are like right now. Everyone is exhausted, teetering on the edge of disaster.