Covid Update from Central Office

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Update: Jimmy D'Andrea, chief of staff for MCPS Superintendent Monifa McKnight, said the district didn't commit to daily updates of color-coded school data on COVID-19 cases. Actually, McKnight did promise the updates, a video shows.

https://twitter.com/BethesdaBeat/status/1479524997257437184

This is a career ended for me. No way people can defend her “leadership” anymore.

Not in MCPS! Meet the next superintendent! Jimmy D'Andrea. Guaranteed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They need to close already. It is OBVIOUS that a few more weeks of this will kill off more people in hospitals, not just the adult unvaccinated we love to hate, but the elderly (there's a thread today by someone who just her mother to Covid), the fragile, even young children. And it's not just Covid patients: all of you who are injured in accidents or who have acute health problems that need hospital care will have such lousy case that hospitals requested and received lawsuit protection from Hogan. Chemo patients whose lives depend on timely treatment are not receiving care right now. Important surgeries have been canceled.

Do you want to extend this suffering and death even more by refusing to close schools? When we KNOW that Omicron arrives and recedes rapidly and we would only need to close schools for a few weeks?

It's unconscionable.

+100

You can +100 all you want. They don’t need to close, and they aren’t going to close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Update: Jimmy D'Andrea, chief of staff for MCPS Superintendent Monifa McKnight, said the district didn't commit to daily updates of color-coded school data on COVID-19 cases. Actually, McKnight did promise the updates, a video shows.

https://twitter.com/BethesdaBeat/status/1479524997257437184

The colors don’t mean anything any more. They could color everything purple for all I care.

To me this goes to transparency and honesty from the school district. I have been giving Dr. McKnight the benefit of the doubt. This is a hard time to take over her position with so many competing demands, unclear science, and the politics of it all.

But we should draw the line at blatant lies. Why not just say that the situation is fluid and everyone is trying their best?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They need to close already. It is OBVIOUS that a few more weeks of this will kill off more people in hospitals, not just the adult unvaccinated we love to hate, but the elderly (there's a thread today by someone who just her mother to Covid), the fragile, even young children. And it's not just Covid patients: all of you who are injured in accidents or who have acute health problems that need hospital care will have such lousy case that hospitals requested and received lawsuit protection from Hogan. Chemo patients whose lives depend on timely treatment are not receiving care right now. Important surgeries have been canceled.

Do you want to extend this suffering and death even more by refusing to close schools? When we KNOW that Omicron arrives and recedes rapidly and we would only need to close schools for a few weeks?

It's unconscionable.

+100

close the bars and restaurants first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They need to close already. It is OBVIOUS that a few more weeks of this will kill off more people in hospitals, not just the adult unvaccinated we love to hate, but the elderly (there's a thread today by someone who just her mother to Covid), the fragile, even young children. And it's not just Covid patients: all of you who are injured in accidents or who have acute health problems that need hospital care will have such lousy case that hospitals requested and received lawsuit protection from Hogan. Chemo patients whose lives depend on timely treatment are not receiving care right now. Important surgeries have been canceled.

Do you want to extend this suffering and death even more by refusing to close schools? When we KNOW that Omicron arrives and recedes rapidly and we would only need to close schools for a few weeks?

It's unconscionable.

Nope, not closing. If state/county government wanted to, they could close a lot of things. They’re not, so schools certainly shouldn’t either.

I get first PPs view. I think we're in a bad situation right now with hospitals being almost full but if we shut down schools and nothing else we're really not helping the situation. The kids and teachers will just get covid elsewhere and community spread will continue. If we want to do things right we should shut down everything right now. And I mean everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They need to close already. It is OBVIOUS that a few more weeks of this will kill off more people in hospitals, not just the adult unvaccinated we love to hate, but the elderly (there's a thread today by someone who just her mother to Covid), the fragile, even young children. And it's not just Covid patients: all of you who are injured in accidents or who have acute health problems that need hospital care will have such lousy case that hospitals requested and received lawsuit protection from Hogan. Chemo patients whose lives depend on timely treatment are not receiving care right now. Important surgeries have been canceled.

Do you want to extend this suffering and death even more by refusing to close schools? When we KNOW that Omicron arrives and recedes rapidly and we would only need to close schools for a few weeks?

It's unconscionable.

+100

You can +100 all you want. They don’t need to close, and they aren’t going to close.

Close the bars, restaurants, malls, travel, gyms, hair salons etc. don’t you dare talk about closing schools to stop the spread when everything else is open.

I am guessing there are many high school students who are on this forum pressing for virtual. Not sure if this is a big joke to them or they just loved not learning during virtual when all the work and grading was made easy for them. Maybe they have gotten used to being lazy. There are petitions going around to demand shutdown of schools by those students who regularly go to restaurants, malls and parties. My kid was asked to sign one of these petitions by one of those students. .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They need to close already. It is OBVIOUS that a few more weeks of this will kill off more people in hospitals, not just the adult unvaccinated we love to hate, but the elderly (there's a thread today by someone who just her mother to Covid), the fragile, even young children. And it's not just Covid patients: all of you who are injured in accidents or who have acute health problems that need hospital care will have such lousy case that hospitals requested and received lawsuit protection from Hogan. Chemo patients whose lives depend on timely treatment are not receiving care right now. Important surgeries have been canceled.

Do you want to extend this suffering and death even more by refusing to close schools? When we KNOW that Omicron arrives and recedes rapidly and we would only need to close schools for a few weeks?

It's unconscionable.

+100

You can +100 all you want. They don’t need to close, and they aren’t going to close.

Close the bars, restaurants, malls, travel, gyms, hair salons etc. don’t you dare talk about closing schools to stop the spread when everything else is open.

I am guessing there are many high school students who are on this forum pressing for virtual. Not sure if this is a big joke to them or they just loved not learning during virtual when all the work and grading was made easy for them. Maybe they have gotten used to being lazy. There are petitions going around to demand shutdown of schools by those students who regularly go to restaurants, malls and parties. My kid was asked to sign one of these petitions by one of those students. .

No they are on Twitter, ratio-ing MCPS tweets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y'know, I really want my kid in in-person school. She's vaccinated, we're boosted, the whole family is going to get COVID eventually, and I'm not too worried about us. What I DON'T want is to watch the slow but accelerating collapse of our educational infrastructure for reasons that were completely predictable and obvious, and it feels like that's what's happening.

Because of an "unexpected" (seriously?) lack of bus drivers, you've got kids who live too far to walk whose shift worker parents couldn't scramble to find a carpool last minute getting - not in-person learning, not virtual learning - nothing. MCPS dropped the ball and now those kids are getting nothing. You've got other kids who live with young, unvaccinated siblings or frail, elderly grandparents who are being forced to risk their family's well-being for the privilege of sitting in a cafeteria all day doing asynchronous busy-work.

Meanwhile staffing shortages continue to grow, so we're barreling toward closures and virtual anyway, but in the most chaotic and disruptive way possible. (The new quarantine guidelines might help, won't be it fun to see if that can outrun the exponential spread of Omicron before it flames out? I can't wait!)

I would have taken 2-weeks of virtual to slow the spread over this (although we all know half of y'all would have gone to the Bahamas and ruined it for us anyway). I would have taken DCPS' test-to-stay program over this - in fact I'd still take it! Instead we got a terrible "case-by-case assessment" of schools once they reach 5% that backfired spectacularly because it didn't account for the exponential spread of the virus that we all knew was happening.

And now we get, "Oh...don't worry...we're doing something else...we won't tell you exactly what, just that it's definitely not what we were doing yesterday, BOY do we have terrible ideas sometimes, lol! Also no, we won't release positivity data anymore, because then you'd know how bad our idea was." I mean...Jesus. I get wanting in-person. I want in-person. But HOW can anyone think this is an acceptable way to run things?

The "exponential" spread part is over. It's been leveling out in MoCo and regionally. It'll likely grow (and recede), but it's already ripped through a lot of the public over December. You're not going to get multiple days of "doubling" (or more) on an extended basis.

DP. Fingers crossed that you are right. But this also means that we could’ve switched to DL for two weeks and don’t start the paranoid shit about not ever coming back.

How is the worst over when Hogan just said that the worst is yet to come

Do you have a data to back this up? I've seen several posts like tbis, nkne with data, and based on current pisitives, it doesn't look like we're done with peak yet.

We’re not at or done with peak, but the ‘exponential’ growth is no longer exponential.

Again, Data please or this is hearsay. I'm under the impressikn that the exponential growth that you are talking about slowed down because holiday travel is over and there are less people needing PCR, there are also more people using rapid tests now or even people who can't get tested because there aren't any rapid tests available, with the weather these past few days, I don't think people with symptoms would want to line up outside for PCR. All of these are anecdotal, the only reason why I think this is still spreading is because I know more people in my circle now that were infected, which I've never experienced before.

Of course it is still spreading. That doesn’t mean it’s spreading exponentially, whereby cases are doubling (or more) every day or two.

Ok, so this is also anecdotal. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Do you find any irony in announcing new measures for in-person staff/students while dialing in from Zoom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y'know, I really want my kid in in-person school. She's vaccinated, we're boosted, the whole family is going to get COVID eventually, and I'm not too worried about us. What I DON'T want is to watch the slow but accelerating collapse of our educational infrastructure for reasons that were completely predictable and obvious, and it feels like that's what's happening.

Because of an "unexpected" (seriously?) lack of bus drivers, you've got kids who live too far to walk whose shift worker parents couldn't scramble to find a carpool last minute getting - not in-person learning, not virtual learning - nothing. MCPS dropped the ball and now those kids are getting nothing. You've got other kids who live with young, unvaccinated siblings or frail, elderly grandparents who are being forced to risk their family's well-being for the privilege of sitting in a cafeteria all day doing asynchronous busy-work.

Meanwhile staffing shortages continue to grow, so we're barreling toward closures and virtual anyway, but in the most chaotic and disruptive way possible. (The new quarantine guidelines might help, won't be it fun to see if that can outrun the exponential spread of Omicron before it flames out? I can't wait!)

I would have taken 2-weeks of virtual to slow the spread over this (although we all know half of y'all would have gone to the Bahamas and ruined it for us anyway). I would have taken DCPS' test-to-stay program over this - in fact I'd still take it! Instead we got a terrible "case-by-case assessment" of schools once they reach 5% that backfired spectacularly because it didn't account for the exponential spread of the virus that we all knew was happening.

And now we get, "Oh...don't worry...we're doing something else...we won't tell you exactly what, just that it's definitely not what we were doing yesterday, BOY do we have terrible ideas sometimes, lol! Also no, we won't release positivity data anymore, because then you'd know how bad our idea was." I mean...Jesus. I get wanting in-person. I want in-person. But HOW can anyone think this is an acceptable way to run things?

The "exponential" spread part is over. It's been leveling out in MoCo and regionally. It'll likely grow (and recede), but it's already ripped through a lot of the public over December. You're not going to get multiple days of "doubling" (or more) on an extended basis.

DP. Fingers crossed that you are right. But this also means that we could’ve switched to DL for two weeks and don’t start the paranoid shit about not ever coming back.

How is the worst over when Hogan just said that the worst is yet to come

Do you have a data to back this up? I've seen several posts like tbis, nkne with data, and based on current pisitives, it doesn't look like we're done with peak yet.

We’re not at or done with peak, but the ‘exponential’ growth is no longer exponential.

Again, Data please or this is hearsay. I'm under the impressikn that the exponential growth that you are talking about slowed down because holiday travel is over and there are less people needing PCR, there are also more people using rapid tests now or even people who can't get tested because there aren't any rapid tests available, with the weather these past few days, I don't think people with symptoms would want to line up outside for PCR. All of these are anecdotal, the only reason why I think this is still spreading is because I know more people in my circle now that were infected, which I've never experienced before.

Of course it is still spreading. That doesn’t mean it’s spreading exponentially, whereby cases are doubling (or more) every day or two.

Ok, so this is also anecdotal. Got it.

You’re the one using anecdotes on what you think spread is. Go to the MoCo Covid metrics site and see for yourself. I’m on my phone or I’d link for you. I will when I get home in 20 minutes or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are so happy to see this update! Upgrade your masks everyone and go to school!

Only complete idiots think this is good news. Enjoy your kid’s subpar education for the remainder of the year, stuffed into auditoriums with no teachers. But they are socializing! (If you actually talked to your kid, you’d know the kids are absolutely miserable in the buildings right now)

This is what I’m hearing. And not even enough teachers to stuff them in the auditorium. It’s fundamentally unsafe.

They don't talk to their kids. They just want them out of their hair.

I talk to my kids a lot. They want to be in school.
I also work out of the house. So no one is ever “in my hair.”

Don’t you get sick of trotting out the same stupid line over and over again?

My kids "want" to eat crap and no vegetables and stay up until midnight. But I'm a parent and I know better.

Try again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are so happy to see this update! Upgrade your masks everyone and go to school!

Only complete idiots think this is good news. Enjoy your kid’s subpar education for the remainder of the year, stuffed into auditoriums with no teachers. But they are socializing! (If you actually talked to your kid, you’d know the kids are absolutely miserable in the buildings right now)

This is what I’m hearing. And not even enough teachers to stuff them in the auditorium. It’s fundamentally unsafe.

They don't talk to their kids. They just want them out of their hair.

I talk to my kids a lot. They want to be in school.
I also work out of the house. So no one is ever “in my hair.”

Don’t you get sick of trotting out the same stupid line over and over again?

My kids "want" to eat crap and no vegetables and stay up until midnight. But I'm a parent and I know better.

Try again.

DP... my HS/MS kids want to be in school, and so do I, not because I want them "out of my hair" but because being out is detrimental to their overall well being, while covid is no longer detrimental to their physical health since they are vaxxed.

We have already been exposed to covid. It was mild for us. If you are not vaxxed I can see why you would be concerned. For those not vaxxed or who are immunocompromised, you can always go virtual.

[Anonymous]

On Twitter the reaction to this seems very negative, because people want virtual. Here it seems like people prefer in person but hate MCPS anyway because this is some grand conspiracy to eventually go to virtual. They just can't win.

[Anonymous]

This is from CBS news
More than 325,000 infections in kids were reported nationwide last week — the highest number since the pandemic started. That means about one in five cases is now among children. While the current strain may be milder in adults, experts say it may be cause for concern in kids. Joe Kurland is an infection preventionist at Children’s Minnesota. “We have been seeing the highest number of admissions of patients with COVID than we have throughout this entire pandemic,” Kurland said. Children’s Minnesota is monitoring how the Omicron variant impacts kids, while seeing more patients hospitalized with the virus.
“The kids that are getting admitted are on the younger side, so gonna be kids that are too young to be eligible to get vaccinated, and they’re also gonna be kids that maybe haven’t even completed their vaccine series,” Kurland said.

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2022/01/04/omicron-young-kids/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are so happy to see this update! Upgrade your masks everyone and go to school!

Only complete idiots think this is good news. Enjoy your kid’s subpar education for the remainder of the year, stuffed into auditoriums with no teachers. But they are socializing! (If you actually talked to your kid, you’d know the kids are absolutely miserable in the buildings right now)

This is what I’m hearing. And not even enough teachers to stuff them in the auditorium. It’s fundamentally unsafe.

They don't talk to their kids. They just want them out of their hair.

I talk to my kids a lot. They want to be in school.
I also work out of the house. So no one is ever “in my hair.”

Don’t you get sick of trotting out the same stupid line over and over again?

My kids "want" to eat crap and no vegetables and stay up until midnight. But I'm a parent and I know better.

Try again.

DP... my HS/MS kids want to be in school, and so do I, not because I want them "out of my hair" but because being out is detrimental to their overall well being, while covid is no longer detrimental to their physical health since they are vaxxed.

We have already been exposed to covid. It was mild for us. If you are not vaxxed I can see why you would be concerned. For those not vaxxed or who are immunocompromised, you can always go virtual.

Is “exposed to covid” a euphemism now for having covid?