All schools should offer an all-virtual option

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's safe to reopen schools. It has all along, even before people were vaccinated. If you're concerned about the safety, demand teachers get vaccinated. They're the biggest health risk in all of this. The pandemic would be over if people would just get vaccinated.

Teachers and staff!

Also I would hope there are some pushes to get parents vaccinated (via schools); I think the vaccine clinics at schools are a good way to go, but hopefully schools are also providing the messaging that the best way to provide safety to kids is for parents to be vaxxed.

it actually appears that staff are the bigger COVID issue - big % of cases in DCPS from staff. and given that staff move between classes/cohorts (eg janitors, guards, secretaries) a positive staff member can force the quarantine of a lot of kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Articles specifically on delta in children:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/990789.page

An MD"s thread specifically on delta in children:

How is Delta doing in DC? Is Childrens filled? No? Then what’s the relevance?

Stop trying to ruin school for everyone else.

Hypothetically, would you evacuate your beachfront Florida home if meteorologists told you a hurricane was coming but you couldn't see it out the window? Sounds like not.

Oh ffs. That is a totally inapt analogy. This is more like “would you bulldoze your neighbors house because you heard their may be strong winds with a 0.01% percentage of falling on your house”?

I know you feel we want to bulldoze your figurative house - you've behaved accordingly this past week. We just want to learn from home until the vaccine is ready or the virus numbers are low enough to be safe. We don't even want your kid to do that. Your kid go to school, go. No bulldozing.

YOU may homeschool. Stop demanding everyone cater to you.

After a year of DL, hybrid, concurrent, asymptomatic testing, smaller cohorts, it isn't ethical to tell families "Yeah, we're not doing any of that anymore, no version of it. We know the risks are far greater now, but we can't afford to mitigate them. So send your kids in with us or figure something out on your own." DCPS has a responsibility towards all of its students, including those whose families want their children vaccinated before going into a full classroom with delta circulating.

NP. You hit the nail on the head. The problem is that everyone, DCPS, teachers unions, the media, and some public health experts, have scared parents into thinking that schools are dangerous by closing them last year and only opening them partially with an abundance of partially unproven precautions. The reality is, schools should never have fully closed, and most of these precautions weren’t necessary to make it safe enough for kids to go to school. Now that they finally realized that, they are facing a scared population wary of ever sending their kids back to school.

Thanks. Although that's the the nail I was going for, as I don't consider myself part of a scared population wary of ever sending my kids back to school. I am an over-educated health analyst who wants their kids vaccinated, and doesn't want their kids to have long-term sequelae because DCPS chose to drop most mitigation and shrug off the risk of the next 4 months for all but 19 medically fragile students.

what makes you think DCPS dropped all mitigation? nothing has changed from the spring as far as I know. there were very few cases in schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Articles specifically on delta in children:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/990789.page

An MD"s thread specifically on delta in children:

How is Delta doing in DC? Is Childrens filled? No? Then what’s the relevance?

Stop trying to ruin school for everyone else.

Hypothetically, would you evacuate your beachfront Florida home if meteorologists told you a hurricane was coming but you couldn't see it out the window? Sounds like not.

Oh ffs. That is a totally inapt analogy. This is more like “would you bulldoze your neighbors house because you heard their may be strong winds with a 0.01% percentage of falling on your house”?

I know you feel we want to bulldoze your figurative house - you've behaved accordingly this past week. We just want to learn from home until the vaccine is ready or the virus numbers are low enough to be safe. We don't even want your kid to do that. Your kid go to school, go. No bulldozing.

YOU may homeschool. Stop demanding everyone cater to you.

After a year of DL, hybrid, concurrent, asymptomatic testing, smaller cohorts, it isn't ethical to tell families "Yeah, we're not doing any of that anymore, no version of it. We know the risks are far greater now, but we can't afford to mitigate them. So send your kids in with us or figure something out on your own." DCPS has a responsibility towards all of its students, including those whose families want their children vaccinated before going into a full classroom with delta circulating.

So much this.

[Anonymous]

For those who are more data savvy than me, can you help out this in context?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/

“ Almost half of children who contract covid-19 may have lasting symptoms, which should factor into decisions on reopening schools, reports Helen Thomson

A SERIOUS picture is emerging about the long-term health effects of covid-19 in some children, with UK politicians calling the lack of acknowledgment of the problem a “national scandal”.”

I know folks are pointing to the UK. The symptoms debilitating daily activity is scary to me as are the recent tweets by doctors on Twitter talking about covid in kids.

[Anonymous]

If you want a virtual option, leave. Move somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who are more data savvy than me, can you help out this in context?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/

“ Almost half of children who contract covid-19 may have lasting symptoms, which should factor into decisions on reopening schools, reports Helen Thomson

A SERIOUS picture is emerging about the long-term health effects of covid-19 in some children, with UK politicians calling the lack of acknowledgment of the problem a “national scandal”.”

I know folks are pointing to the UK. The symptoms debilitating daily activity is scary to me as are the recent tweets by doctors on Twitter talking about covid in kids.

For starters:
"These interim results are based on periodic assessments of 129 children in Italy who were diagnosed with covid-19 between March and November 2020 at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome"

So this is the children that presented in hospitals, it sounds like (versus all kids testing positive for Covid).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Articles specifically on delta in children:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/990789.page

An MD"s thread specifically on delta in children:

How is Delta doing in DC? Is Childrens filled? No? Then what’s the relevance?

Stop trying to ruin school for everyone else.

Hypothetically, would you evacuate your beachfront Florida home if meteorologists told you a hurricane was coming but you couldn't see it out the window? Sounds like not.

Oh ffs. That is a totally inapt analogy. This is more like “would you bulldoze your neighbors house because you heard their may be strong winds with a 0.01% percentage of falling on your house”?

I know you feel we want to bulldoze your figurative house - you've behaved accordingly this past week. We just want to learn from home until the vaccine is ready or the virus numbers are low enough to be safe. We don't even want your kid to do that. Your kid go to school, go. No bulldozing.

YOU may homeschool. Stop demanding everyone cater to you.

After a year of DL, hybrid, concurrent, asymptomatic testing, smaller cohorts, it isn't ethical to tell families "Yeah, we're not doing any of that anymore, no version of it. We know the risks are far greater now, but we can't afford to mitigate them. So send your kids in with us or figure something out on your own." DCPS has a responsibility towards all of its students, including those whose families want their children vaccinated before going into a full classroom with delta circulating.

So much this.

But ... that’s not what they are doing. classes in the spring were normal sized. They are keeping masking, ventilation, and cohorts. and now of course all adults should be vaccinated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who are more data savvy than me, can you help out this in context?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/

“ Almost half of children who contract covid-19 may have lasting symptoms, which should factor into decisions on reopening schools, reports Helen Thomson

A SERIOUS picture is emerging about the long-term health effects of covid-19 in some children, with UK politicians calling the lack of acknowledgment of the problem a “national scandal”.”

I know folks are pointing to the UK. The symptoms debilitating daily activity is scary to me as are the recent tweets by doctors on Twitter talking about covid in kids.

That’s contrary to better research showing “long covid” is very rare for kids.

[Anonymous]

The denominator is unclear in most of the stats in this article.

Looking at the original study about Italy doesn't even state how patients were selected, just that they had covid. So the point is if you've got a very tiny chance of showing up to the hospital (this has been consistently true for kids and Covid, particularly younger kids), and then only half of the kids of this tiny percentage have long covid, you have an even tinier percentage getting long covid.

As it is, I don't find this study very informative for deciding on behaviors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who are more data savvy than me, can you help out this in context?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/

“ Almost half of children who contract covid-19 may have lasting symptoms, which should factor into decisions on reopening schools, reports Helen Thomson

A SERIOUS picture is emerging about the long-term health effects of covid-19 in some children, with UK politicians calling the lack of acknowledgment of the problem a “national scandal”.”

I know folks are pointing to the UK. The symptoms debilitating daily activity is scary to me as are the recent tweets by doctors on Twitter talking about covid in kids.

For starters:
"These interim results are based on periodic assessments of 129 children in Italy who were diagnosed with covid-19 between March and November 2020 at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome"

So this is the children that presented in hospitals, it sounds like (versus all kids testing positive for Covid).

The research from Switzerland that compared kids with and without covid found **no difference** in “long covid” symptoms. this is by far the most persuasive study. long covid just not really a thing for kids - certainly should not drive school closures.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210520/Swiss-study-suggests-very-low-prevalence-of-long-COVID-in-pediatric-population.aspx

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who are more data savvy than me, can you help out this in context?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/

“ Almost half of children who contract covid-19 may have lasting symptoms, which should factor into decisions on reopening schools, reports Helen Thomson

A SERIOUS picture is emerging about the long-term health effects of covid-19 in some children, with UK politicians calling the lack of acknowledgment of the problem a “national scandal”.”

I know folks are pointing to the UK. The symptoms debilitating daily activity is scary to me as are the recent tweets by doctors on Twitter talking about covid in kids.

That’s contrary to better research showing “long covid” is very rare for kids.

That study isn't really a study, either. It's more of an opinion piece. A study describes methods and the studied population. This one does not provide that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think you have it wrong. Someone made a thread, not asking for all kids to stay home, but for all schools to offer an all-virtual option. And you've come here, and on every related thread to harass those people and tell them they have an agenda. We don't want to yuck your yum. If you're fine with risking your kid's long-term health in this way, you may know their needs better than us. We just don't want to partake. It is vastly too dangerous.

This is where you are getting the push back. You've been told by administrators, teachers, and other parents that have attended your school longer than you that this is not possible. But, that you have other options if you are concerned. What you want is to be at home but still save your seat in HRCS. And, no. That's not workable without huge sacrifices for all students and staff.

Of course it’s possible. We literally did it last spring. Wtf are you talking about.

Are you seriously holding up last spring as an example that worked??

of course. Kids were in school from Feb on and it was fine. and let’s not forget privates and Catholics were open (and will open in the Fall).

You misread my post. I was responding to the PP who suggested last spring was an example of schools successfully offering both in person and virtual options simultaneously. IPL in the spring was extremely limited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Articles specifically on delta in children:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/990789.page

An MD"s thread specifically on delta in children:

How is Delta doing in DC? Is Childrens filled? No? Then what’s the relevance?

Stop trying to ruin school for everyone else.

Hypothetically, would you evacuate your beachfront Florida home if meteorologists told you a hurricane was coming but you couldn't see it out the window? Sounds like not.

Oh ffs. That is a totally inapt analogy. This is more like “would you bulldoze your neighbors house because you heard their may be strong winds with a 0.01% percentage of falling on your house”?

I know you feel we want to bulldoze your figurative house - you've behaved accordingly this past week. We just want to learn from home until the vaccine is ready or the virus numbers are low enough to be safe. We don't even want your kid to do that. Your kid go to school, go. No bulldozing.

YOU may homeschool. Stop demanding everyone cater to you.

After a year of DL, hybrid, concurrent, asymptomatic testing, smaller cohorts, it isn't ethical to tell families "Yeah, we're not doing any of that anymore, no version of it. We know the risks are far greater now, but we can't afford to mitigate them. So send your kids in with us or figure something out on your own." DCPS has a responsibility towards all of its students, including those whose families want their children vaccinated before going into a full classroom with delta circulating.

So much this.

Agree 100%. The delta virus is more contagious and now it is also looking to be more virulent. And hospitals are seeing more serious pediatric cases. The only reason that this is not being talked about is that no politician wants to face these facts, and no public health official wants to receive death threats from angry parents. Many schools in DCPS recognized that they could not possibly open up safely last year for 100% of their students 100% of the time, whether that was due to overcrowding or other issues. Now we are supposed to celebrate 100% re-opening for everyone 5 days a week. But the virus is more dangerous and it is more contagious, and nothing has changed about schools' ability to open safely at 100% capacity. And, yes, they have dropped mitigation measures. There is no longer random asymptomatic testing. There is no longer quarantining close contacts (based on the CDC fiction that every child will be "properly wearing a well-fitted mask.") There is no longer cohorting.
And distancing is encouraged only "when possible" (which, as previously mentioned, it is not at many schools).

As part of the pro-vax campaign, public health officials are basically now screaming from the roof tops that anyone left unvaccinated against covid will eventually catch the delta variant. Of course this also applies to unvaccinated children. I'm not sure why it is so much to ask to give parents a virtual option until their kids can be vaxed. Distance learning worked very well for both of our children last year. Not only did they not fall behind academically, they achieved MORE than they had in previous years because they had so much down time when we could add supplementary material. If your child's needs to be in-school outweigh their health concerns, then that is a fine choice. But why should we be forced into a dangerous situation when we have proven that we can excel at home, and the pediatric vaccine is on its way? Then, of course, kids should all be back at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who are more data savvy than me, can you help out this in context?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/

“ Almost half of children who contract covid-19 may have lasting symptoms, which should factor into decisions on reopening schools, reports Helen Thomson

A SERIOUS picture is emerging about the long-term health effects of covid-19 in some children, with UK politicians calling the lack of acknowledgment of the problem a “national scandal”.”

I know folks are pointing to the UK. The symptoms debilitating daily activity is scary to me as are the recent tweets by doctors on Twitter talking about covid in kids.

For starters:
"These interim results are based on periodic assessments of 129 children in Italy who were diagnosed with covid-19 between March and November 2020 at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome"

So this is the children that presented in hospitals, it sounds like (versus all kids testing positive for Covid).

The research from Switzerland that compared kids with and without covid found **no difference** in “long covid” symptoms. this is by far the most persuasive study. long covid just not really a thing for kids - certainly should not drive school closures.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210520/Swiss-study-suggests-very-low-prevalence-of-long-COVID-in-pediatric-population.aspx

This is a more useful study because they base it off serology -- they find kids that have had covid based on a blood test meaning the covid could have been asymptomatic or symptomatic. It's also a larger sample size than the Italian study (2500 v. 129). Plus it is randomly selected. Additionally, this study has a control group (children who tested negative using serology). The finding is that the kids without covid had "long covid" symptoms at the same rate as the kids with covid.....which sort of suggests that "long covid" is not very well defined, at the least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Articles specifically on delta in children:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/990789.page

An MD"s thread specifically on delta in children:

How is Delta doing in DC? Is Childrens filled? No? Then what’s the relevance?

Stop trying to ruin school for everyone else.

Hypothetically, would you evacuate your beachfront Florida home if meteorologists told you a hurricane was coming but you couldn't see it out the window? Sounds like not.

Oh ffs. That is a totally inapt analogy. This is more like “would you bulldoze your neighbors house because you heard their may be strong winds with a 0.01% percentage of falling on your house”?

I know you feel we want to bulldoze your figurative house - you've behaved accordingly this past week. We just want to learn from home until the vaccine is ready or the virus numbers are low enough to be safe. We don't even want your kid to do that. Your kid go to school, go. No bulldozing.

YOU may homeschool. Stop demanding everyone cater to you.

After a year of DL, hybrid, concurrent, asymptomatic testing, smaller cohorts, it isn't ethical to tell families "Yeah, we're not doing any of that anymore, no version of it. We know the risks are far greater now, but we can't afford to mitigate them. So send your kids in with us or figure something out on your own." DCPS has a responsibility towards all of its students, including those whose families want their children vaccinated before going into a full classroom with delta circulating.

NP. You hit the nail on the head. The problem is that everyone, DCPS, teachers unions, the media, and some public health experts, have scared parents into thinking that schools are dangerous by closing them last year and only opening them partially with an abundance of partially unproven precautions. The reality is, schools should never have fully closed, and most of these precautions weren’t necessary to make it safe enough for kids to go to school. Now that they finally realized that, they are facing a scared population wary of ever sending their kids back to school.

Thanks. Although that's the the nail I was going for, as I don't consider myself part of a scared population wary of ever sending my kids back to school. I am an over-educated health analyst who wants their kids vaccinated, and doesn't want their kids to have long-term sequelae because DCPS chose to drop most mitigation and shrug off the risk of the next 4 months for all but 19 medically fragile students.

If you think that the risk of long-term sequelae from Covid in kids is a good reason to keep your kids out of school, you ARE part of a scared population, no matter how “over-educated” you are (which I am too, by the way).