Here is why we should close schools now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For basically 95% of people it is a cold. Relax.

Agree.
It is less lethal than the flu. Do we close schools when there is the flu? No.

Read actual medical data. This is patently false. 10% in Italy in ICU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For basically 95% of people it is a cold. Relax.

Agree.
It is less lethal than the flu. Do we close schools when there is the flu? No.

Read actual medical data. This is patently false. 10% in Italy in ICU.

Yep, it’s a minimum 10-20 times as lethal as the flu and that’s assuming we have enough hospital beds for everyone that is critical. Without enough it could be 50 times as lethal which was the case in Wuhan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys are so cute with concern about education continuing.

ICUs are soon going to be overwhelmed.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/812967454/u-s-hospitals-prepare-for-a-covid-19-wave

As the coronavirus spreads in the U.S., public health agencies are starting to worry about hospital capacity.

Overseas, China was forced to build two new hospitals on an emergency basis, and in South Korea earlier this week, the government said over two thousand people were waiting for hospital care.

The potential numbers in the U.S. are daunting. Richard Waldhorn is a pulmonary critical care physician who's studied hospital preparedness for the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Last week, he co-wrote an article arguing that American hospitals should prepare for the possibility of too many patients.

"The arithmetic suggests that we will outstrip hospital resources, particularly instensive care resources, in waves as the pandemic spreads," he says.

He says government planning assumptions based on past flu pandemics suggest a surge in demand for intensive care that could range somewhere between 200,000 thousand and 2.9 million patients.

The American Hospital Association says the total number of Intensive Care Unit beds is about 65,000.

Waldhorn says hospitals can make more ICU beds available in a crisis, perhaps doubling the capacity, but there's still a chance it won't be enough.

That's what we are trying to avoid by slowing spread.

Schools WILL CLOSE. No matter what. It's just a question of whether we are smart and do it early, while not everyone is infected (and parents can share childcare duties with other parents in relative comfort and safety) or later in the epidemic when schools close reactively.

Watch Germany.

Agreed.

At this point I think the people wanting life to continue as usual may be trolls, possibly working for other countries (guess which one), or just very low IQ people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only close schools when there is confirmed community spread in that area. Why close all schools everywhere?!

Well there is confirmed community spread. The fact that we don't know who gave COVID-19 to the 50 y/o DC resident in the hospital right now is the definition of community spread. However, now, we are hearing the slightly changed definition, of "widespread" community spread. We'd know if it were widespread, if you had only conducted more tests. But they ran 10 tests, and one is already a case resulting from community spread.
In DC we have skipped over the normal phase of an outbreak in which we can "investigate" and do contact tracing and find the thread of contagion and quarantine/test a few people and help it not spread further. If we don't know how he got it, many others got it the same way, and gave it to others the same way. There was a week between him falling ill and going to the hospital. He was contagious that whole time (he was probably also somewhat contagious before feeling ill).

Academics around the world seem to know what measures to take and when. Governments around the world seem to make the wrong decisions, one after the other, and inflict maximum unnecessary pain to their countries, because they are completely uneducated on the topic, and apparently never listen to their experts quite enough. It's heart breaking.

I completely agree. It's mind-boggling to me how dumb some people are. I'm a microbiologist, but I'd like to think that even if I didn't have that training, I would have the common sense to think things through and realize that closures and quarantines are the most powerful tools at our disposal. My parents, who don't have much science education, understand this perfectly. Some rational people do. But when I read all the stupidities that have recently been posted on all the coronavirus threads on DCUM, as well as those expressed live on TV by politicians and passersby, it makes me weep for humanity.

The fact is, there is a window when school closings and other NPIs will help flatten the curve/shift the peak. In the absence of widespread testing we don’t know whether we are in that window or if it has passed. There are a lot of costs to school closing... many healthcare workers will be out of childcare, for instance. So it’s not really as simple as you guys are making it sound.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s my plan, which is full of holes I’m sure.

Tomorrow, MCPS announces that Friday is the last day of school for March and the following Monday will be a teacher work day for training on online instruction for GS credit courses.

On Friday, all secondary students will get a Chromebook and a WiFi hotspot. And any students on FARMs who receive FARMS will be given WIC-type vouchers for two weeks of food at local grocery stores. If the closure is extended, more vouchers can be mailed. Or an EBT card can be issued (since WIC now uses cards) and more ration money can be transferred to it at two week intervals.

Who exactly is going to pay for that food?

The same funding as feeding them breakfast, lunch, and weekend backpacks now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only close schools when there is confirmed community spread in that area. Why close all schools everywhere?!

Well there is confirmed community spread. The fact that we don't know who gave COVID-19 to the 50 y/o DC resident in the hospital right now is the definition of community spread. However, now, we are hearing the slightly changed definition, of "widespread" community spread. We'd know if it were widespread, if you had only conducted more tests. But they ran 10 tests, and one is already a case resulting from community spread.
In DC we have skipped over the normal phase of an outbreak in which we can "investigate" and do contact tracing and find the thread of contagion and quarantine/test a few people and help it not spread further. If we don't know how he got it, many others got it the same way, and gave it to others the same way. There was a week between him falling ill and going to the hospital. He was contagious that whole time (he was probably also somewhat contagious before feeling ill).

Academics around the world seem to know what measures to take and when. Governments around the world seem to make the wrong decisions, one after the other, and inflict maximum unnecessary pain to their countries, because they are completely uneducated on the topic, and apparently never listen to their experts quite enough. It's heart breaking.

I completely agree. It's mind-boggling to me how dumb some people are. I'm a microbiologist, but I'd like to think that even if I didn't have that training, I would have the common sense to think things through and realize that closures and quarantines are the most powerful tools at our disposal. My parents, who don't have much science education, understand this perfectly. Some rational people do. But when I read all the stupidities that have recently been posted on all the coronavirus threads on DCUM, as well as those expressed live on TV by politicians and passersby, it makes me weep for humanity.

The fact is, there is a window when school closings and other NPIs will help flatten the curve/shift the peak. In the absence of widespread testing we don’t know whether we are in that window or if it has passed. There are a lot of costs to school closing... many healthcare workers will be out of childcare, for instance. So it’s not really as simple as you guys are making it sound.

So this is the social dilemma. Do we help those who need the schools open for their survival, and close schools or do we all go down...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Keep the schools open, but lots of other risk areas we are simply ignoring , why ? Why just take a reflective action that dissproportionately impacts HS students that are low risk? To make ourselves feel like we are " doing something " when really , we continue to have our big CPAC conventions and our political rallies and fund raising dinners with all these people over 50 mingling across state lines ???

That's really weak on execution and planning and is just knee . jerk if you asked me.


**** as for how to intelligently deal with schools, don't just knee jerk close the schools, but rather have kids attend ( they are VERY low risk) , but have those teachers who are 60+ as well as those teachers who smoke or who underlying heath conditions tele teach to their MS/ HS classrooms ( assembled at school)

All outdoor HS Athletic events go on as planned, but no spectators


Its the 21st Century and technology gives us lots of options better than closing schools. A few of them:

First, all cruise ships bookings and permissions to dock at any port should be banned by Federal order ( these are just floating germ farms and most of the cases in US can be traced to Cruise ships )

1) close movie theatres , play sporting events with no fans in attendance and cancel all indoor conventions, business meetings where adults in high risk group mingle ( across state lines) ie CPAC/ AIPAC
2) ban all political rallies
3) close religious services
4) no adult over 60 should be allowed to visit a school and , if they teach there they should tele teach



5) All outdoor HS Athletic events go on as planned, but no spectators

UBER/ Lyft should be banned in every city in the USA . Go back to taxi companies who's employees have sick pay and health insurance ( people without sick pay, who won't be able to earn a living if they don't take riders who are picking up travelers from airports, out of state and riding with them in a close space

I can see you put a lot of thought into this, but it’s just not going to work. Closing all major gatherings except for the largest one in the town that takes place every day is going to negate all other measures. The kids will still be infected and feeling fine and spreading it to their households and thereby the greater community. We also don’t know how kids with asthma and other underlying conditions will fare with the virus. Closing everything is really the only solution. Health and life needs to come above education and commerce right now.

We aren't going to shut America down. There will be no support from the government (state or Federal) to do this because of the fear about what it would do to the economy. The most they will do is give federal employees more flexibility for teleworking, but they'll likely drag their feet on that so as to delay any negative inferences from the government making that decision. It's a calculated call. The only people who will ultimately care, sadly, will be the families of unfortunate 1-2 percent who die. If the mortality rate was closer to 20 percent, maybe you'd see things being shut down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For basically 95% of people it is a cold. Relax.

Agree.
It is less lethal than the flu. Do we close schools when there is the flu? No.

Read actual medical data. This is patently false. 10% in Italy in ICU.

10% of what “in Italy in ICU?”

[Anonymous]

If I had kids in school, I would pull them and finish the year home-schooling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For basically 95% of people it is a cold. Relax.

Agree.
It is less lethal than the flu. Do we close schools when there is the flu? No.

Read actual medical data. This is patently false. 10% in Italy in ICU.

10% of what “in Italy in ICU?”

Really? You can’t figure this out? Ten percent of people ill with Coronavirus are in ICU. Not OP, just someone who knows how to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Keep the schools open, but lots of other risk areas we are simply ignoring , why ? Why just take a reflective action that dissproportionately impacts HS students that are low risk? To make ourselves feel like we are " doing something " when really , we continue to have our big CPAC conventions and our political rallies and fund raising dinners with all these people over 50 mingling across state lines ???

That's really weak on execution and planning and is just knee . jerk if you asked me.


**** as for how to intelligently deal with schools, don't just knee jerk close the schools, but rather have kids attend ( they are VERY low risk) , but have those teachers who are 60+ as well as those teachers who smoke or who underlying heath conditions tele teach to their MS/ HS classrooms ( assembled at school)

All outdoor HS Athletic events go on as planned, but no spectators


Its the 21st Century and technology gives us lots of options better than closing schools. A few of them:

First, all cruise ships bookings and permissions to dock at any port should be banned by Federal order ( these are just floating germ farms and most of the cases in US can be traced to Cruise ships )

1) close movie theatres , play sporting events with no fans in attendance and cancel all indoor conventions, business meetings where adults in high risk group mingle ( across state lines) ie CPAC/ AIPAC
2) ban all political rallies
3) close religious services
4) no adult over 60 should be allowed to visit a school and , if they teach there they should tele teach



5) All outdoor HS Athletic events go on as planned, but no spectators

UBER/ Lyft should be banned in every city in the USA . Go back to taxi companies who's employees have sick pay and health insurance ( people without sick pay, who won't be able to earn a living if they don't take riders who are picking up travelers from airports, out of state and riding with them in a close space

I can see you put a lot of thought into this, but it’s just not going to work. Closing all major gatherings except for the largest one in the town that takes place every day is going to negate all other measures. The kids will still be infected and feeling fine and spreading it to their households and thereby the greater community. We also don’t know how kids with asthma and other underlying conditions will fare with the virus. Closing everything is really the only solution. Health and life needs to come above education and commerce right now.

We aren't going to shut America down. There will be no support from the government (state or Federal) to do this because of the fear about what it would do to the economy. The most they will do is give federal employees more flexibility for teleworking, but they'll likely drag their feet on that so as to delay any negative inferences from the government making that decision. It's a calculated call. The only people who will ultimately care, sadly, will be the families of unfortunate 1-2 percent who die. If the mortality rate was closer to 20 percent, maybe you'd see things being shut down.

Why not let those parents who want to keep kids at home and homeschool to do so to keep safe elderly at home from the kids exposure? Why the one size fits all? Why individual can not decide for their family and kids life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are so cute with concern about education continuing.

ICUs are soon going to be overwhelmed.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/812967454/u-s-hospitals-prepare-for-a-covid-19-wave

As the coronavirus spreads in the U.S., public health agencies are starting to worry about hospital capacity.

Overseas, China was forced to build two new hospitals on an emergency basis, and in South Korea earlier this week, the government said over two thousand people were waiting for hospital care.

The potential numbers in the U.S. are daunting. Richard Waldhorn is a pulmonary critical care physician who's studied hospital preparedness for the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Last week, he co-wrote an article arguing that American hospitals should prepare for the possibility of too many patients.

"The arithmetic suggests that we will outstrip hospital resources, particularly instensive care resources, in waves as the pandemic spreads," he says.

He says government planning assumptions based on past flu pandemics suggest a surge in demand for intensive care that could range somewhere between 200,000 thousand and 2.9 million patients.

The American Hospital Association says the total number of Intensive Care Unit beds is about 65,000.

Waldhorn says hospitals can make more ICU beds available in a crisis, perhaps doubling the capacity, but there's still a chance it won't be enough.

That's what we are trying to avoid by slowing spread.

Schools WILL CLOSE. No matter what. It's just a question of whether we are smart and do it early, while not everyone is infected (and parents can share childcare duties with other parents in relative comfort and safety) or later in the epidemic when schools close reactively.

Watch Germany.

Agreed.

At this point I think the people wanting life to continue as usual may be trolls, possibly working for other countries (guess which one), or just very low IQ people.

And those who are fearing disruptions must never have planned a funeral.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For basically 95% of people it is a cold. Relax.

Agree.
It is less lethal than the flu. Do we close schools when there is the flu? No.

Read actual medical data. This is patently false. 10% in Italy in ICU.

10% of what “in Italy in ICU?”

Really? You can’t figure this out? Ten percent of people ill with Coronavirus are in ICU. Not OP, just someone who knows how to read.

Really? You can’t figure out that the people who test positive are the ones who are sick enough to pursue testing, and “10% in Italy” is a meaningless statement? But good on you for knowing how to read idiot, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What?! There are many kids who only eat at school. There are many families who can’t afford child care or can’t stay at home.

MCPS ALREADY PROMISED CONTINUATION OF FOOD SUPPORT FOR THOSE!!!

This had to be solved just like it is in summer when the school is out. This is the rich t approach. Help those in need without risking the entire population and the community by keeping schools open at this time.

WHAT ABOUT FAIRFAX COUNTY?

WHAT ABOUT ARLINGTON COUNTY?

WHAT ABOUT HOWARD COUNTY?

WHAT ABOUT PG COUNTY?

WHAT ABOUT LOUDON COUNTY?

WHAT ABOUT ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY?

WHAT ABOUT PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY?

WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER COUNTIES THAT ARE NOT YOUR COUNTY?????

They will likely have plans as well. We need to worry about death before malnutrition. You don't have your priorities straight.

what malnutrition, everybody is obese including many kids.

Don’t use the word malnutrition if you don’t know what it means. One can be morbidly obese and malnourished at the same time. Calories in, especially cheap carbs that starve off hunger pangs, doesn’t mean nutrients in. I used to work in WV in public health. Lots of overweight and malnourished adults and children.

oh please what a joke. most junk food is fortified with nutrients. the whole country could skip eating for a month and a vast majority would benefit from it.

At least this crisis is exposing the idiots for who they are.

never was fatter nation more concerned with missing a meal

Well put. 1/2 of all Americans could skip a week of meals a month and it would do them good. And half of the remaining half could skip a few too. I include myself here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For basically 95% of people it is a cold. Relax.

Agree.
It is less lethal than the flu. Do we close schools when there is the flu? No.

Read actual medical data. This is patently false. 10% in Italy in ICU.

10% of what “in Italy in ICU?”

Really? You can’t figure this out? Ten percent of people ill with Coronavirus are in ICU. Not OP, just someone who knows how to read.

Really? You can’t figure out that the people who test positive are the ones who are sick enough to pursue testing, and “10% in Italy” is a meaningless statement? But good on you for knowing how to read idiot, I guess.

Yeah pp That statistic makes no sense. 10% of what?