Caitlyn Peetz on Twitter: 8am MCPS press conference for a “COVID-19 update”

[Anonymous]

I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://twitter.com/caitlynnpeetz14/status/1478158575411376131

Ah, nothing like the announcement of an 8am MCPS press conference for a “COVID-19 update” on my first day back on the job in a month. Trial by fire let’s goooo.
(This will be live streamed on the MCPS website’s homepage and its YouTube page.)
See you tomorrow!

I'll make odds.

3:2 Pivot to virtual this week, more likely d/t major staffing shortages than 5% metric being reached per se

4:1 Not pivoting to virtual quite yet, but announcement of new COVID policy with some metric, that, if met, will pivot the entire county to virtual simultaneously instead of school-by-school

9:1 Announcement that they are STAYING OPEN, DANGIT, but here are some mitigation measures they'll somehow try to put in place. Everyone eats on the roof, maybe.

17:1 Some sort of weird hybrid plan so fewer students have to be in the building at once

43:1 Everyone has to switch pants, come on, switch your pants... now!

My vote is for mitigation measures that sound nice but are not really put into practice, like in August when they put out that lovely note about safety, but everyone went back in as usual and PTAs were buying picnic tables for outdoor lunch.

And thanks OP for the laugh!

[Anonymous]

Hogan has a COVID announcement scheduled for tomorrow at 10am. I wonder if it is related.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hogan has a COVID announcement scheduled for tomorrow at 10am. I wonder if it is related.

I would think that if the Hogan announcement is about schools, NCPS would wait until after that for their press conference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

The county should be getting 300,000 tests any day now, so I guess they could. I think it would be a disaster, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

There's no way they could do in person this week if that's true. We'd be lucky if they could do it next week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hogan has a COVID announcement scheduled for tomorrow at 10am. I wonder if it is related.

I would think that if the Hogan announcement is about schools, NCPS would wait until after that for their press conference.

That sounds logIcal, but as a family new to MCPS, we have seen such a cluster that it would not surprise me if they screwed this up as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

I would also like all that, but feel like 87% of what you're describing is due to the existence of a deadly pandemic and/or the poor response of the federal government, not MCPS decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

There's no way they could do in person this week if that's true. We'd be lucky if they could do it next week.

And in the meantime the school nurses would strike. There's no reasonable way to implement test-to-return without completely screwing over the nurses. You'd have thousands of students showing up on the first day of class without a test. Either you'd test them on site, or you'd have to screen them and hold them for an hour or two until staff could contact parents and get them to pick them up. To make matters worse, the kids that fail the screening would need to be isolated in some way. It would be a nightmare, and the nurses would bear the brunt of it regardless of whatever path MCPS would try to take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

I would also like all that, but feel like 87% of what you're describing is due to the existence of a deadly pandemic and/or the poor response of the federal government, not MCPS decisions.

DP. Not really. The pandemic has gone pretty well considering the new Delta and Omicron variants. We've found ourselves in a situation where, at no fault of our own, the only path forward for COVID is to accept that we're all going to get it and take appropriate measures to reduce the likelihood of severe illness (mostly through vaccination/boosters). Nothing the local, state or federal government could have done would have changed that reality-- remember, Delta and Omicron didn't originate in the US.

Besides their obvious primary goal of educating students, MCPS should be trying to minimize the harmful effects of the pandemic on kids. The best way they could do that would be to keep schools open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

There's no way they could do in person this week if that's true. We'd be lucky if they could do it next week.

And in the meantime the school nurses would strike. There's no reasonable way to implement test-to-return without completely screwing over the nurses. You'd have thousands of students showing up on the first day of class without a test. Either you'd test them on site, or you'd have to screen them and hold them for an hour or two until staff could contact parents and get them to pick them up. To make matters worse, the kids that fail the screening would need to be isolated in some way. It would be a nightmare, and the nurses would bear the brunt of it regardless of whatever path MCPS would try to take.

You mean the health techs, right? There are not nurses in every school every day, there are health techs. And it would be ridiculous for kids to come to school, get tested, and then possibly have to isolate and go back home. The testing program would be carried out in a different manner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

I would also like all that, but feel like 87% of what you're describing is due to the existence of a deadly pandemic and/or the poor response of the federal government, not MCPS decisions.

DP. Not really. The pandemic has gone pretty well considering the new Delta and Omicron variants. We've found ourselves in a situation where, at no fault of our own, the only path forward for COVID is to accept that we're all going to get it and take appropriate measures to reduce the likelihood of severe illness (mostly through vaccination/boosters). Nothing the local, state or federal government could have done would have changed that reality-- remember, Delta and Omicron didn't originate in the US.

Besides their obvious primary goal of educating students, MCPS should be trying to minimize the harmful effects of the pandemic on kids. The best way they could do that would be to keep schools open.

The real issue is people like you minimizing Covid. A child just died in a neighboring county. That child never should have died. There is no safe way to keep schools fully in person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

I would also like all that, but feel like 87% of what you're describing is due to the existence of a deadly pandemic and/or the poor response of the federal government, not MCPS decisions.

DP. Not really. The pandemic has gone pretty well considering the new Delta and Omicron variants. We've found ourselves in a situation where, at no fault of our own, the only path forward for COVID is to accept that we're all going to get it and take appropriate measures to reduce the likelihood of severe illness (mostly through vaccination/boosters). Nothing the local, state or federal government could have done would have changed that reality-- remember, Delta and Omicron didn't originate in the US.

Besides their obvious primary goal of educating students, MCPS should be trying to minimize the harmful effects of the pandemic on kids. The best way they could do that would be to keep schools open.

The real issue is people like you minimizing Covid. A child just died in a neighboring county. That child never should have died. There is no safe way to keep schools fully in person.

Children die of the flu every year. We don't shut down for the flu. Children die in car accidents. We don't shut down roads until new magical safety devices are invented that prevent all vehicular deaths.

Schools are plenty safe for students. And they're safe for teachers that actually go out and get their vaccinations and boosters.

Further, the logical mistake you're making is that your looking at the overall risk of COVID when what you should be doing is looking at how opening/closing schools changes that risk. It doesn't matter what we do with schools- COVID will remain in widespread circulation in the world, and we'll all be exposed. Probably in the very near future. For that reason, the *marginal* increase in COVID risk by keeping schools open is extremely low. But we know there is real harm to education, and development, as well as students' mental health.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

What did you think having kids was going to be? An endless round of birthday parties? Raising kids takes some effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

I would also like all that, but feel like 87% of what you're describing is due to the existence of a deadly pandemic and/or the poor response of the federal government, not MCPS decisions.

DP. Not really. The pandemic has gone pretty well considering the new Delta and Omicron variants. We've found ourselves in a situation where, at no fault of our own, the only path forward for COVID is to accept that we're all going to get it and take appropriate measures to reduce the likelihood of severe illness (mostly through vaccination/boosters). Nothing the local, state or federal government could have done would have changed that reality-- remember, Delta and Omicron didn't originate in the US.

Besides their obvious primary goal of educating students, MCPS should be trying to minimize the harmful effects of the pandemic on kids. The best way they could do that would be to keep schools open.

The real issue is people like you minimizing Covid. A child just died in a neighboring county. That child never should have died. There is no safe way to keep schools fully in person.

Children die of the flu every year. We don't shut down for the flu. Children die in car accidents. We don't shut down roads until new magical safety devices are invented that prevent all vehicular deaths.

Schools are plenty safe for students. And they're safe for teachers that actually go out and get their vaccinations and boosters.

Further, the logical mistake you're making is that your looking at the overall risk of COVID when what you should be doing is looking at how opening/closing schools changes that risk. It doesn't matter what we do with schools- COVID will remain in widespread circulation in the world, and we'll all be exposed. Probably in the very near future. For that reason, the *marginal* increase in COVID risk by keeping schools open is extremely low. But we know there is real harm to education, and development, as well as students' mental health.

Can you stick to the topic? Covid is serious right now. Pathetic you don’t get it.