Does DCPS care? New model shows even with masks, 40% of students will still be infected with Delta

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks delta will be gone in about 4 weeks.

More infectious = faster burn out?

That's one hypothesis. The rapid increase and decrease in delta was seen in the UK and India. India is something like 4% vaccinated, so certainly that trajectory isn't caused by a high vaccination rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey don’t get medical advice from the internet. Have you ever read the Health and Medicine threads? It will take you approximately 30 seconds to find a comment that you will immediately realize is just made by someone who is talking out of their azz. Talk to your trusted pediatrician.

Haven’t had a chance to talk to my pediatrician. But I am friends with two doctors. Neither are sending their under 12s to in-person school in the fall. That’s making me real nervous.

Where are your friends, what are the vaccination rates among different populations there, and are the schools doing mandatory masks?

Are you talking about DC?

One in DC and one in Chicago. Mandatory masks, yes. Ugh.

So what's the one in DC doing? Friendship? Homeschool?

[Anonymous]

The things that experts are recommending for the < 12s in relation to delta are:

1) vaccination of anyone around kids (focused largely on parents and other family, but easily this includes the school workforce, daycares, etc)
2) masks in schools
3) hand washing
4) ventilation in schools

No one is suggesting that schools close, because there are higher risks to schools closing to kids.

To me what I'd push for in terms of policy that is actually under the government's control, is school workforce vaccination, as that probably goes the furthest in protecting kids. At least in DC we have mandated masking already, so that's not the political fight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The things that experts are recommending for the < 12s in relation to delta are:

1) vaccination of anyone around kids (focused largely on parents and other family, but easily this includes the school workforce, daycares, etc)
2) masks in schools
3) hand washing
4) ventilation in schools

No one is suggesting that schools close, because there are higher risks to schools closing to kids.

To me what I'd push for in terms of policy that is actually under the government's control, is school workforce vaccination, as that probably goes the furthest in protecting kids. At least in DC we have mandated masking already, so that's not the political fight.

They’re also recommending asymptomatic testing, which in modeling showed a 20% drop in transmission. So of those five things, DCPS is doing one? Two? Will the bathrooms have soap this year? Does hand washing even matter at this point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The things that experts are recommending for the < 12s in relation to delta are:

1) vaccination of anyone around kids (focused largely on parents and other family, but easily this includes the school workforce, daycares, etc)
2) masks in schools
3) hand washing
4) ventilation in schools

No one is suggesting that schools close, because there are higher risks to schools closing to kids.

To me what I'd push for in terms of policy that is actually under the government's control, is school workforce vaccination, as that probably goes the furthest in protecting kids. At least in DC we have mandated masking already, so that's not the political fight.

They’re also recommending asymptomatic testing, which in modeling showed a 20% drop in transmission. So of those five things, DCPS is doing one? Two? Will the bathrooms have soap this year? Does hand washing even matter at this point?

Are you referring to the original model from this OP post? That suggests an additional 5% drop from testing (in the context of masks). Are you looking at something else?

I too am puzzled by a recommendation about hand washing (that was from the Kline video earlier). I thought that we were pretty sure this is isn’t spread via surfaces. (Not that hand washing is a bad thing, and certainly there should be soap in bathrooms — WTF?!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the kids are just going to get covid. 40-70% will get it. Just as the article states. It presents as a cold. So what. We got colds every other fall and life didn’t fall apart.

I know what you mean except aren’t infected hosts just more opportunities for mutations?

Yep. So what though?

So we get a mutation that evades our current vaccines. The lambda variant in S America is already more vaccine evasive than delta. Uncontrolled spread in England have us a new, more contagious strain last year and uncontrolled spread in India gave us delta. But so what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks delta will be gone in about 4 weeks.

More infectious = faster burn out?

That's one hypothesis. The rapid increase and decrease in delta was seen in the UK and India. India is something like 4% vaccinated, so certainly that trajectory isn't caused by a high vaccination rate.

India stopped testing people ages ago, so when 12 people in a village died of respiratory ailments, they could say “not Covid because they didn’t test positive.” Delta is still huge in the southern state of Kerala. (I have family there.)

And it wasn’t very long ago (February) that India was being congratulated on having ended the pandemic with very little damage … until they opened everything and thousands of people (likely millions because they seriously undercounted based on the government’s wishes) died or became severely ill. I wouldn’t necessarily use India to explain the virus’s behavior because the data are so flawed. If true in the UK, then that’s a basis for more confidence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks delta will be gone in about 4 weeks.

More infectious = faster burn out?

That's one hypothesis. The rapid increase and decrease in delta was seen in the UK and India. India is something like 4% vaccinated, so certainly that trajectory isn't caused by a high vaccination rate.

India stopped testing people ages ago, so when 12 people in a village died of respiratory ailments, they could say “not Covid because they didn’t test positive.” Delta is still huge in the southern state of Kerala. (I have family there.)

And it wasn’t very long ago (February) that India was being congratulated on having ended the pandemic with very little damage … until they opened everything and thousands of people (likely millions because they seriously undercounted based on the government’s wishes) died or became severely ill. I wouldn’t necessarily use India to explain the virus’s behavior because the data are so flawed. If true in the UK, then that’s a basis for more confidence.

That's interesting regarding India. I was looking at this, for context: https://fortune.com/2021/08/03/covid-delta-variant-wave-uk-have-already-receded-us/

Do we have info on delta in other countries that would more closely approximate the U.S.? I know that people dismiss the UK experience out of hand because we have different vaccination rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks delta will be gone in about 4 weeks.

More infectious = faster burn out?

That's one hypothesis. The rapid increase and decrease in delta was seen in the UK and India. India is something like 4% vaccinated, so certainly that trajectory isn't caused by a high vaccination rate.

India stopped testing people ages ago, so when 12 people in a village died of respiratory ailments, they could say “not Covid because they didn’t test positive.” Delta is still huge in the southern state of Kerala. (I have family there.)

And it wasn’t very long ago (February) that India was being congratulated on having ended the pandemic with very little damage … until they opened everything and thousands of people (likely millions because they seriously undercounted based on the government’s wishes) died or became severely ill. I wouldn’t necessarily use India to explain the virus’s behavior because the data are so flawed. If true in the UK, then that’s a basis for more confidence.

That's interesting regarding India. I was looking at this, for context: https://fortune.com/2021/08/03/covid-delta-variant-wave-uk-have-already-receded-us/

Do we have info on delta in other countries that would more closely approximate the U.S.? I know that people dismiss the UK experience out of hand because we have different vaccination rates.

My family lives in Delhi and they say life is back to normal pretty much, during the height of it, we knew tons of people that were sick, and everyone we know there knows multiple people that died (like they know at least 10-20 other people that died). I think part of why it went through India so quickly is that people live in multi-generational families, much easier to spread quickly and then burn out when you have 5-10 or more people living under one roof.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey don’t get medical advice from the internet. Have you ever read the Health and Medicine threads? It will take you approximately 30 seconds to find a comment that you will immediately realize is just made by someone who is talking out of their azz. Talk to your trusted pediatrician.

Haven’t had a chance to talk to my pediatrician. But I am friends with two doctors. Neither are sending their under 12s to in-person school in the fall. That’s making me real nervous.

Where are your friends, what are the vaccination rates among different populations there, and are the schools doing mandatory masks?

Are you talking about DC?

One in DC and one in Chicago. Mandatory masks, yes. Ugh.

Why would anyone think that all doctors are making completely rational decisions at all times when it comes to their own kids? Even doctors and scientists can suffer from anxiety and be excessively cautious. As some of the posters on this forum who identify as virologists and microbiologists exemplify.

[Anonymous]

Look, my kids need to be in school, and I want them in school.

But the people here trying to slam concerned parents as “anxious” and “irrational” are being unfair (to put it nicely).

It is perfectly rational to be concerned about a highly contagious, evolving disease with uncertain outcomes and limited, often-conflicting research — especially when some other parents have the attitude that “kids will get it; so what?”, which is hardly a helpful attitude towards public health.

Schools should open with lots of well-founded precautions, and people should be good, unselfish citizens and follow the rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, my kids need to be in school, and I want them in school.

But the people here trying to slam concerned parents as “anxious” and “irrational” are being unfair (to put it nicely).

It is perfectly rational to be concerned about a highly contagious, evolving disease with uncertain outcomes and limited, often-conflicting research — especially when some other parents have the attitude that “kids will get it; so what?”, which is hardly a helpful attitude towards public health.

Schools should open with lots of well-founded precautions, and people should be good, unselfish citizens and follow the rules.

Few, if any, viruses have received as much attention as this coronavirus, with the opportunity for doctors and scientists to observe this many infections all at once, which is the main reason so many peculiar seeming effects are observed. You are right that it is still a new virus so we cannot be sure of potential long term effects, but to say that the research is limited is simply not true.

Also, when you make a rational decision, you balance competing risks. There is a broad expert consensus that the risks of virtual school outweigh those of the virus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, my kids need to be in school, and I want them in school.

But the people here trying to slam concerned parents as “anxious” and “irrational” are being unfair (to put it nicely).

It is perfectly rational to be concerned about a highly contagious, evolving disease with uncertain outcomes and limited, often-conflicting research — especially when some other parents have the attitude that “kids will get it; so what?”, which is hardly a helpful attitude towards public health.

Schools should open with lots of well-founded precautions, and people should be good, unselfish citizens and follow the rules.

Pretty sure every parent that posts here is anxious. Our degrees of anxiety about different things are just different. I think some people are MORE worried about schools not opening, and they are worried that somehow very very alarmed parents will cause that to happen (I personally don't, but I think that's their investment in these arguments). Their anxiety is legitimate as well, and their reactions shouldn't be judged any more harshly than the anxiety of the people who are terrified of delta.

I think the attitude that "kids will get it" is either because we've been so alarmed for so long that we can't keep up the alarm, or we've taken the alarming information about delta spread and use it differently from others. (E.g., "if everyone unvaccinated is going to get delta, there is no reason to NOT have school" versus "every unvaccinated person is going to get delta, so we shouldn't have school". OR we look at the stats and do indeed see that the hospitalization rate for kids with covid hovers around <1.0%. And the death rate is 0.01%.

TLDR: don't judge others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, my kids need to be in school, and I want them in school.

But the people here trying to slam concerned parents as “anxious” and “irrational” are being unfair (to put it nicely).

It is perfectly rational to be concerned about a highly contagious, evolving disease with uncertain outcomes and limited, often-conflicting research — especially when some other parents have the attitude that “kids will get it; so what?”, which is hardly a helpful attitude towards public health.

Schools should open with lots of well-founded precautions, and people should be good, unselfish citizens and follow the rules.

Pretty sure every parent that posts here is anxious. Our degrees of anxiety about different things are just different. I think some people are MORE worried about schools not opening, and they are worried that somehow very very alarmed parents will cause that to happen (I personally don't, but I think that's their investment in these arguments). Their anxiety is legitimate as well, and their reactions shouldn't be judged any more harshly than the anxiety of the people who are terrified of delta.

I think the attitude that "kids will get it" is either because we've been so alarmed for so long that we can't keep up the alarm, or we've taken the alarming information about delta spread and use it differently from others. (E.g., "if everyone unvaccinated is going to get delta, there is no reason to NOT have school" versus "every unvaccinated person is going to get delta, so we shouldn't have school". OR we look at the stats and do indeed see that the hospitalization rate for kids with covid hovers around <1.0%. And the death rate is 0.01%.

TLDR: don't judge others.

I have no idea how I made a winky smiley face but didn't mean to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, my kids need to be in school, and I want them in school.

But the people here trying to slam concerned parents as “anxious” and “irrational” are being unfair (to put it nicely).

It is perfectly rational to be concerned about a highly contagious, evolving disease with uncertain outcomes and limited, often-conflicting research — especially when some other parents have the attitude that “kids will get it; so what?”, which is hardly a helpful attitude towards public health.

Schools should open with lots of well-founded precautions, and people should be good, unselfish citizens and follow the rules.

Pretty sure every parent that posts here is anxious. Our degrees of anxiety about different things are just different. I think some people are MORE worried about schools not opening, and they are worried that somehow very very alarmed parents will cause that to happen (I personally don't, but I think that's their investment in these arguments). Their anxiety is legitimate as well, and their reactions shouldn't be judged any more harshly than the anxiety of the people who are terrified of delta.

I think the attitude that "kids will get it" is either because we've been so alarmed for so long that we can't keep up the alarm, or we've taken the alarming information about delta spread and use it differently from others. (E.g., "if everyone unvaccinated is going to get delta, there is no reason to NOT have school" versus "every unvaccinated person is going to get delta, so we shouldn't have school". OR we look at the stats and do indeed see that the hospitalization rate for kids with covid hovers around <1.0%. And the death rate is 0.01%.

TLDR: don't judge others.

I’m the poster who made the comment about doctors not necessarily always making rational decisions for their kids, and I agree. Everyone has been traumatized by the last year. Some by the virus, some by virtual school, some by the way the media have covered the virus. It is hard for anybody to stay cool headed after this experience.