Have you sign-up for weekly asymptomatic testing at APS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s ironic that the open uppers are doing the things that will close schools. Going to be a rough fall.

I will bet 100 that this family is not going to test after going to the football covid fest.

Too worried about quarantine, better to spread covid to others!

Yes, maybe it wasn't really about "open schools" after all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:there is scant evidence that truly asymptomatic (not pre-symptomatic) people can spread covid. There is substantial evidence that children spread less than adults. Surveillance testing that is designed to catch asymptomatic cases, means that we are putting into quarantine kids, and their contacts, who are 95% unlikely to spread covid to anyone. But we are jerking them out of school for 10 days, as well as their siblings, etc. This surveillance testing program is not 'a basic thing to keep kids in school' it is a way to ensure there are lots of needless quarantines.
Now- switch the program to removing symptomatic kids, and implementing test to stay for all of the symptomatic case contacts? I'm on board.

APS has very strict definition of close contact so I don't get the "concern" there.

Even if we don't have "substantial" evidence yet about asymptomatic spread it sounds like a possibility:
https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/asymptomatic-coronavirus-infections-contribute-to-over-50-percent-of-spread

Plus, we can can also catch the pre-symptomatic and people with minimals/early symptoms. Look at how many people on DCUM have already admitted they'd send their runny nose kids to school anyway (it's allergies!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:there is scant evidence that truly asymptomatic (not pre-symptomatic) people can spread covid. There is substantial evidence that children spread less than adults. Surveillance testing that is designed to catch asymptomatic cases, means that we are putting into quarantine kids, and their contacts, who are 95% unlikely to spread covid to anyone. But we are jerking them out of school for 10 days, as well as their siblings, etc. This surveillance testing program is not 'a basic thing to keep kids in school' it is a way to ensure there are lots of needless quarantines.
Now- switch the program to removing symptomatic kids, and implementing test to stay for all of the symptomatic case contacts? I'm on board.

Switch it to a test to stay program, my kids will be signed up for sure

[Anonymous]

An opt-in testing, batch testing program, where less than a fifth of the students are being tested will not keep the kids in school. This whole discussion seems to have become a matter of religion. You either are a) 100% on board with whatever testing approach APS serves or you are b) a Covid spreader. I don't think that there are many people out there who are anti-testing, but there are plenty who are in disagreement with the APS half-arsed approach to it. If you want to set up a testing program:
1) Test a random sample of ALL kids and teachers every week, quarantine the (+)
2) Allow close contacts to stay in attendance with daily (-) test results

You will not get more families on board with mandatory quarantining of close contacts without a test to stay option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An opt-in testing, batch testing program, where less than a fifth of the students are being tested will not keep the kids in school. This whole discussion seems to have become a matter of religion. You either are a) 100% on board with whatever testing approach APS serves or you are b) a Covid spreader. I don't think that there are many people out there who are anti-testing, but there are plenty who are in disagreement with the APS half-arsed approach to it. If you want to set up a testing program:
1) Test a random sample of ALL kids and teachers every week, quarantine the (+)
2) Allow close contacts to stay in attendance with daily (-) test results

You will not get more families on board with mandatory quarantining of close contacts without a test to stay option.

APS defines "close contacts" very narrowly so shouldn't be a big concern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An opt-in testing, batch testing program, where less than a fifth of the students are being tested will not keep the kids in school. This whole discussion seems to have become a matter of religion. You either are a) 100% on board with whatever testing approach APS serves or you are b) a Covid spreader. I don't think that there are many people out there who are anti-testing, but there are plenty who are in disagreement with the APS half-arsed approach to it. If you want to set up a testing program:
1) Test a random sample of ALL kids and teachers every week, quarantine the (+)
2) Allow close contacts to stay in attendance with daily (-) test results

You will not get more families on board with mandatory quarantining of close contacts without a test to stay option.

APS defines "close contacts" very narrowly so shouldn't be a big concern.

Have you been looking at the Qualtrics numbers? It seems that for every + there are 5-6 close contacts (at least at the elementary level). This is before the asymptomatic testing has even begun. The kids who up until now are getting (+) results either had symptoms or were in contact with a known family member / friend with known (+) result. Once asymptomatic testing starts, I think we are going to see much larger amounts of kids being pulled out for close contact. Some unlucky kids will be getting pulled out of school for multiple rounds of this...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An opt-in testing, batch testing program, where less than a fifth of the students are being tested will not keep the kids in school. This whole discussion seems to have become a matter of religion. You either are a) 100% on board with whatever testing approach APS serves or you are b) a Covid spreader. I don't think that there are many people out there who are anti-testing, but there are plenty who are in disagreement with the APS half-arsed approach to it. If you want to set up a testing program:
1) Test a random sample of ALL kids and teachers every week, quarantine the (+)
2) Allow close contacts to stay in attendance with daily (-) test results

You will not get more families on board with mandatory quarantining of close contacts without a test to stay option.

APS defines "close contacts" very narrowly so shouldn't be a big concern.

Have you been looking at the Qualtrics numbers? It seems that for every + there are 5-6 close contacts (at least at the elementary level). This is before the asymptomatic testing has even begun. The kids who up until now are getting (+) results either had symptoms or were in contact with a known family member / friend with known (+) result. Once asymptomatic testing starts, I think we are going to see much larger amounts of kids being pulled out for close contact. Some unlucky kids will be getting pulled out of school for multiple rounds of this...

This is going to close the school to so many healthy kids. We need to move to a "test-to-stay" model quickly to keep close contacts in school by testing regularly.

A daily contact testing study was carried out in primary schools in Northern Ireland during summer term 2021 when Delta was becoming dominant. It found across all schools taking part, only 1.6% of those identified as close contacts went on to become confirmed cases within 14 days.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-58507030

[Anonymous]

And from that linked article:

Dr McClean said schools had been "majorly disrupted" over the past two years and at this point, there was a need to balance the impact on children's education with the need to control Covid-19 infection rates.

"We reached the stage in the pandemic now with the vaccination programme having reached 90% of the adult population, and other restrictions being lifted, that we can no longer justify an approach where really we're harming children by sending them home from school.

A-freakin-men! Kids should not be suffering the brunt of the consequences of continued restrictions caused by a portion of the American populace that refuses to vaccinate. If the illness has no worse outcomes than the flu for vaccinated adults and children under 12, then why are we continuing to quarantine contacts in schools? The DC metro area has a high enough vaccination rate that our hospitals and ICU's aren't overrun with covid cases. Our goal this year should be educating students, not preventing spread of Covid at all costs. That ship has sailed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An opt-in testing, batch testing program, where less than a fifth of the students are being tested will not keep the kids in school. This whole discussion seems to have become a matter of religion. You either are a) 100% on board with whatever testing approach APS serves or you are b) a Covid spreader. I don't think that there are many people out there who are anti-testing, but there are plenty who are in disagreement with the APS half-arsed approach to it. If you want to set up a testing program:
1) Test a random sample of ALL kids and teachers every week, quarantine the (+)
2) Allow close contacts to stay in attendance with daily (-) test results

You will not get more families on board with mandatory quarantining of close contacts without a test to stay option.

APS defines "close contacts" very narrowly so shouldn't be a big concern.

Have you been looking at the Qualtrics numbers? It seems that for every + there are 5-6 close contacts (at least at the elementary level). This is before the asymptomatic testing has even begun. The kids who up until now are getting (+) results either had symptoms or were in contact with a known family member / friend with known (+) result. Once asymptomatic testing starts, I think we are going to see much larger amounts of kids being pulled out for close contact. Some unlucky kids will be getting pulled out of school for multiple rounds of this...

There will be a lot more +s if we don't contain outbreaks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And from that linked article:

Dr McClean said schools had been "majorly disrupted" over the past two years and at this point, there was a need to balance the impact on children's education with the need to control Covid-19 infection rates.

"We reached the stage in the pandemic now with the vaccination programme having reached 90% of the adult population, and other restrictions being lifted, that we can no longer justify an approach where really we're harming children by sending them home from school.

A-freakin-men! Kids should not be suffering the brunt of the consequences of continued restrictions caused by a portion of the American populace that refuses to vaccinate. If the illness has no worse outcomes than the flu for vaccinated adults and children under 12, then why are we continuing to quarantine contacts in schools? The DC metro area has a high enough vaccination rate that our hospitals and ICU's aren't overrun with covid cases. Our goal this year should be educating students, not preventing spread of Covid at all costs. That ship has sailed.

Trying to contain outbreaks is far from "preventing spread of COVID at all costs".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And from that linked article:

Dr McClean said schools had been "majorly disrupted" over the past two years and at this point, there was a need to balance the impact on children's education with the need to control Covid-19 infection rates.

"We reached the stage in the pandemic now with the vaccination programme having reached 90% of the adult population, and other restrictions being lifted, that we can no longer justify an approach where really we're harming children by sending them home from school.

A-freakin-men! Kids should not be suffering the brunt of the consequences of continued restrictions caused by a portion of the American populace that refuses to vaccinate. If the illness has no worse outcomes than the flu for vaccinated adults and children under 12, then why are we continuing to quarantine contacts in schools? The DC metro area has a high enough vaccination rate that our hospitals and ICU's aren't overrun with covid cases. Our goal this year should be educating students, not preventing spread of Covid at all costs. That ship has sailed.

Trying to contain outbreaks is far from "preventing spread of COVID at all costs".

The point is that there are better ways to contain outbreaks than what APS is proposing. We have tools at our disposal that are being underutilized -- vaccines, broader random testing, and daily tests for close contact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And from that linked article:

Dr McClean said schools had been "majorly disrupted" over the past two years and at this point, there was a need to balance the impact on children's education with the need to control Covid-19 infection rates.

"We reached the stage in the pandemic now with the vaccination programme having reached 90% of the adult population, and other restrictions being lifted, that we can no longer justify an approach where really we're harming children by sending them home from school.

A-freakin-men! Kids should not be suffering the brunt of the consequences of continued restrictions caused by a portion of the American populace that refuses to vaccinate. If the illness has no worse outcomes than the flu for vaccinated adults and children under 12, then why are we continuing to quarantine contacts in schools? The DC metro area has a high enough vaccination rate that our hospitals and ICU's aren't overrun with covid cases. Our goal this year should be educating students, not preventing spread of Covid at all costs. That ship has sailed.

Agree 1000 percent. And ‘surveillance testing’ is not preventing outbreaks. There is no evidence to support that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:there is scant evidence that truly asymptomatic (not pre-symptomatic) people can spread covid. There is substantial evidence that children spread less than adults. Surveillance testing that is designed to catch asymptomatic cases, means that we are putting into quarantine kids, and their contacts, who are 95% unlikely to spread covid to anyone. But we are jerking them out of school for 10 days, as well as their siblings, etc. This surveillance testing program is not 'a basic thing to keep kids in school' it is a way to ensure there are lots of needless quarantines.
Now- switch the program to removing symptomatic kids, and implementing test to stay for all of the symptomatic case contacts? I'm on board.

Switch it to a test to stay program, my kids will be signed up for sure

+1

Not on board for asymptomatic testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This in no way addressed my questions. How do cases affect us at all? Are people allowed to not catch colds now (which is what COVID is like for a vaccinated person)? And we know that unvaccinated kids are at less risk than vaccinated adults. Highly vaccinated places like here, Israel and Iceland are still spreading it.

COVID is not going away. Your statements have an underlying assumption that COVID will eventually be eradicated. It will not. Therefore, all of your statements are an argument for mitigation measures for the rest of our lives. No way.

It’s not forever. It will be endemic at some point. It would have been sooner if not for the d1ckheads.

I know you’re tired but our kids need to be in school. Do these very basic things to make it happen.

The basic way school can be in school right now --> open the doors of the school. See the UK and Scandinavia. And let them stay in school by stop quarantining asymptomatic close contacts, as those countries have done.

It's ironic when obvious "keep school closed" Smart Restart-types from last year start lecturing about keeping schools open (guess they figured out politically that their closed school advocacy was dead wrong).

Just like those in the UK and Scandinavia are done with the restrictions, the vast majority of Americans are done too. Vaccines for adults were the train ticket out of restrictions and the DC area has jumped aboard. Time for college football today, where it's so great to see so many Americans living life again. Taking my kids later this fall to a game (maskless - the horror!).

Huh? I'm not part of SR.

I just want people to do the very basic things we can do to keep our #s low. Vaccinate, mask, test.

You are a d1ck.

Well, I'm in SR and that's pretty much exactly what I want and what other people in the group are working for too!

Don't worry about that poster, he's been calling anyone outside of APE a "closed school" advocate for months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And from that linked article:

Dr McClean said schools had been "majorly disrupted" over the past two years and at this point, there was a need to balance the impact on children's education with the need to control Covid-19 infection rates.

"We reached the stage in the pandemic now with the vaccination programme having reached 90% of the adult population, and other restrictions being lifted, that we can no longer justify an approach where really we're harming children by sending them home from school.

A-freakin-men! Kids should not be suffering the brunt of the consequences of continued restrictions caused by a portion of the American populace that refuses to vaccinate. If the illness has no worse outcomes than the flu for vaccinated adults and children under 12, then why are we continuing to quarantine contacts in schools? The DC metro area has a high enough vaccination rate that our hospitals and ICU's aren't overrun with covid cases. Our goal this year should be educating students, not preventing spread of Covid at all costs. That ship has sailed.

Actually..https://www.virginiamercury.com/2021/09/13/the-covid-19-surge-is-overwhelming-emergency-rooms-across-virginia/