Best Post I’ve Seen in a Month on DL/Hybrid Choice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what if he has a job at a teachers association? Are teachers association not allowed to have logical sound thoughts?

I thought what he was saying made a lot of sense.

Because his numbers are completely wrong, so either he’s a liar or really bad at math. Either way, those are not logical, sound thoughts.

It also exposes how so many FCPS parents, who think themselves so smart, are not critical thinkers!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: This post going viral is a beautiful case study in the way misinformation spreads. This guy, grabs the number .0016 from the internet NOT understanding it is actually .0016 PERCENT. It is 3.02 kids, not 302. And that’s assuming all 189,000 students test positive. It’s really a fatality rate of less than one kid.

As soon as I got to the 3rd paragraph I knew his math had to be wrong bc if kids are not dropping dead all over the country. I’m very disturbed how many of my friends believed this number and shared this on social media.

And if you say 1 kid dying is still too much, you better rethink leaving your house bc life is full of risks all day.

Great point. There are also some pretty significant issues with this statement:

“Teachers have a greater chance to being killed by a car than they do of dying from COVID.”

(Eye roll) Per the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the U.S. see approximately 36,000 auto fatalities a year. Again, there have been 133,420 COVID deaths in the United States through 12:09 July 10, 2020. So no, they do not have a great chance of being killed in a car accident.

The overwhelming majority of COVID deaths occur among those who over 65, so most of that 133,420 were well past teaching age. Looking at the chart below, only around 19% of all COVID deaths were among persons age 25-64, so the applicable number here would be closer to 25,000--most of them 55+.




In 2018, the total number of driver-involved motor vehicle fatalities among adults ages 25-64 was 33,972 (https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/query). Cut that number in half--16,986--to make it roughly comparable to the number of US COVID deaths through July 10.

Among those 16,986 motor vehicle fatalities here's the breakdown by age:

55-64: 3,630.5
45-54: 3,931.5
35-44: 4,055
25-34: 5,369

Among the 133,420 COVID deaths in the first half of 2020:

55-64: 15,889
45-54: 6,424
35-44: 2,297
25-34: 902

So among those ages 45 and up, there were indeed more COVID fatalities than motor vehicle fatalities, but among those age 25-44, there are more who die in car accidents.

[Anonymous]

We would choose hybrid if the non-in person days had online instruction. We both work and I can work from home. Sadly, DL provides more direct instruction to my third grader and will allow me to spend more time doing my job than if he was at school 2 days a week but I had to facilitate school the other three days. We are choosing DL for that reason alone, nothing to do with fear of the disease. A pediatric pulmonologist told me at my daughter’s asthma appointment that there’s no medical reason not to send a healthy child, even a child who is healthy but for asthma. For us, it all comes down to how many hours will my child have direct instruction (for both quality of education and me having to work reasons).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what if he has a job at a teachers association? Are teachers association not allowed to have logical sound thoughts?

I thought what he was saying made a lot of sense.

He made some very good points but the sensationalism with the fake number really detracts from what he’s trying to say.

Now a journalist has pointed out the error and demanding he correct it. She also reported it to Facebook.

Ooh, where’s that? I’m curious to see. He disallowed comments on his original post.

I don't know how to post a screenshot but her name is Katherine Goldstein. Here's her first comment:

So all parents are being faced w shitty choices, I just want to push back on something in this post that is very misleading. The author suggests that the Fairfax child death rate would be 302. He’s got his math/logic totally off. The death rate of those who get Covid .6% across all age groups. He’s applying the logic of every child in that district getting Covid, and then mixing the percentage of people who actually have died to this number. Doing the math correctly .09 child (not percent) would die of Covid. Just want to share this in case this part of his argument was v alarming to people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: This post going viral is a beautiful case study in the way misinformation spreads. This guy, grabs the number .0016 from the internet NOT understanding it is actually .0016 PERCENT. It is 3.02 kids, not 302. And that’s assuming all 189,000 students test positive. It’s really a fatality rate of less than one kid.

As soon as I got to the 3rd paragraph I knew his math had to be wrong bc if kids are not dropping dead all over the country. I’m very disturbed how many of my friends believed this number and shared this on social media.

And if you say 1 kid dying is still too much, you better rethink leaving your house bc life is full of risks all day.

Great point. There are also some pretty significant issues with this statement:

“Teachers have a greater chance to being killed by a car than they do of dying from COVID.”

(Eye roll) Per the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the U.S. see approximately 36,000 auto fatalities a year. Again, there have been 133,420 COVID deaths in the United States through 12:09 July 10, 2020. So no, they do not have a great chance of being killed in a car accident.

The overwhelming majority of COVID deaths occur among those who over 65, so most of that 133,420 were well past teaching age. Looking at the chart below, only around 19% of all COVID deaths were among persons age 25-64, so the applicable number here would be closer to 25,000--most of them 55+.




In 2018, the total number of driver-involved motor vehicle fatalities among adults ages 25-64 was 33,972 (https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/query). Cut that number in half--16,986--to make it roughly comparable to the number of US COVID deaths through July 10.

Among those 16,986 motor vehicle fatalities here's the breakdown by age:

55-64: 3,630.5
45-54: 3,931.5
35-44: 4,055
25-34: 5,369

Among the 133,420 COVID deaths in the first half of 2020:

55-64: 15,889
45-54: 6,424
35-44: 2,297
25-34: 902

So among those ages 45 and up, there were indeed more COVID fatalities than motor vehicle fatalities, but among those age 25-44, there are more who die in car accidents.

You can't compare motor vehicle fatalities and Covid deaths from going to school because the Covid deaths occurred with most of the population under confinement, and even the population not under confinement hasn't had to deal with anything like the crowding and poor air circulation and unruly kids that you'll find in schools.
So much for the rah-rah school-at-any-cost crowd's display of "critical thinking skills."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't compare motor vehicle fatalities and Covid deaths from going to school because the Covid deaths occurred with most of the population under confinement, and even the population not under confinement hasn't had to deal with anything like the crowding and poor air circulation and unruly kids that you'll find in schools.
So much for the rah-rah school-at-any-cost crowd's display of "critical thinking skills."

Except evidence suggests that kids are less likely to be infected at all, meaning you can't compare exposure to school children with exposure to the population at large. You're more likely to encounter an infected person during a trip to the grocery store than in an elementary classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: This post going viral is a beautiful case study in the way misinformation spreads. This guy, grabs the number .0016 from the internet NOT understanding it is actually .0016 PERCENT. It is 3.02 kids, not 302. And that’s assuming all 189,000 students test positive. It’s really a fatality rate of less than one kid.

As soon as I got to the 3rd paragraph I knew his math had to be wrong bc if kids are not dropping dead all over the country. I’m very disturbed how many of my friends believed this number and shared this on social media.

And if you say 1 kid dying is still too much, you better rethink leaving your house bc life is full of risks all day.

Excellent post. Can you post this as a comment to all your friends’ FB post repeating this guy? Also mention he works for NEA. I have been sitting on my hands all day but I hate FB conflict so I don’t want to post.

Thank you, I tried and a few people just posted that I was missing the whole point and there is so much more to his commentary than the number. I say his miscalculation detracts from his message but apparently I’m in the minority. The worst is he now knows of the mistake but won’t fix it. I need a social media break.

I’m not even bothering correcting people. It’s their choice and they can use whatever data or “data” they want to help them arrive at their decision, just as whatever we decide to do for our children Using whatever information we find is our choice.

Honestly if this makes people choose DL then I hope they don't notice the mistake. The less who choose hybrid the better!

My take-away is ... 3 kids. Whether his math is wrong or not, we're talking about 3 kids. That is 3 kids too many. You people are complete losers if you don't think 3 kids is worthy of more precautions.

3 kids die everyday from downing accidents. EVERY day. I bet you still take your kids swimming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just reported his post to Facebook as “False News” and I would urge others to do the same. 3 friends have reposted this factually inaccurate and inflammatory post. His post is just wrong.

Good idea. He refuses to correct the mistakes and people are going to base their decisions on it.

I want them too. Leaves less kids in the building for my child to have to share air with. Also, if the parents are dumb enough to buy this then their kids will slow down the class anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate this post. My child has fairly severe disabilities. I cannot educate him or meet his needs at home. I feel that posts like this pretend that he and my family do not exist.

I hate a spectacularly miss manage global pandemic too. But it’s not the fault of this post to expose the risks to everyone. I have every empathy for you and your child. Of course they need to be back in school. But that doesn’t at all negate the truth in this post and the substantial risk we all face by returning to face-to-face school.

His post is full of errors and lies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate this post. My child has fairly severe disabilities. I cannot educate him or meet his needs at home. I feel that posts like this pretend that he and my family do not exist.

I hate a spectacularly miss manage global pandemic too. But it’s not the fault of this post to expose the risks to everyone. I have every empathy for you and your child. Of course they need to be back in school. But that doesn’t at all negate the truth in this post and the substantial risk we all face by returning to face-to-face school.

The post isn’t truthful though. It’s full of lies and innacuracies. And he conveniently leaves out the fact he works for the NEA, doubles down on his bad math, and is basically enjoying going viral with no regard for the falseness of his statements. I’m all for an honest conversation about risks and the cost vs benefits of going back to school, but this post detracts from that conversation.

I have no doubt he's a Trumper. Double down on lies is the tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't compare motor vehicle fatalities and Covid deaths from going to school because the Covid deaths occurred with most of the population under confinement, and even the population not under confinement hasn't had to deal with anything like the crowding and poor air circulation and unruly kids that you'll find in schools.
So much for the rah-rah school-at-any-cost crowd's display of "critical thinking skills."

Except evidence suggests that kids are less likely to be infected at all, meaning you can't compare exposure to school children with exposure to the population at large. You're more likely to encounter an infected person during a trip to the grocery store than in an elementary classroom.

Evidence does not suggest this. Evidence suggests they are not super spreaders. Evidence suggests that MOST (not all) children and young adults who catch it are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. If you are going to refute someone's facts, don't add false information. There have been multiple studies conducted saying that they cannot conclusively say that children do not catch and spread the virus.

[Anonymous]

It baffles me that this post is so offensive. There's been plenty of falls information roaming around the internet about COVID and kids, especially here on DCUM. Either send your kids for hybrid, or don't. Why does it matter so much what other people are doing? Brabrand said he's not being swayed from hybrid.

Frankly, I'm more worried the governor is going to shut the schools down than some random Facebook post.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to take any poster seriously who can't do basic math. I feel the same way about most of DCUM's anti-redshirting posters. The poster has wildly bad math skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't compare motor vehicle fatalities and Covid deaths from going to school because the Covid deaths occurred with most of the population under confinement, and even the population not under confinement hasn't had to deal with anything like the crowding and poor air circulation and unruly kids that you'll find in schools.
So much for the rah-rah school-at-any-cost crowd's display of "critical thinking skills."

Except evidence suggests that kids are less likely to be infected at all, meaning you can't compare exposure to school children with exposure to the population at large. You're more likely to encounter an infected person during a trip to the grocery store than in an elementary classroom.

Evidence does not suggest this. Evidence suggests they are not super spreaders. Evidence suggests that MOST (not all) children and young adults who catch it are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. If you are going to refute someone's facts, don't add false information. There have been multiple studies conducted saying that they cannot conclusively say that children do not catch and spread the virus.

So you agree that exposure to children is less risky than exposure to adults. Thanks for affirming my point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just reported his post to Facebook as “False News” and I would urge others to do the same. 3 friends have reposted this factually inaccurate and inflammatory post. His post is just wrong.

Good idea. He refuses to correct the mistakes and people are going to base their decisions on it.

I want them too. Leaves less kids in the building for my child to have to share air with. Also, if the parents are dumb enough to buy this then their kids will slow down the class anyway.

Haha good plan. So if I find that the ratio has gone down to 20 percent hybrid learning, I'm signing up my kid for it.