Dropping the school mask mandate and rise in Covid cases - looking at local data

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

When your family had COVID, how much work and school was missed? How many times a year do you want to do this?

Obviously where this goes is that no one will be quarantining and missing school for ten days for COVID unless they're actually sick for that period. The only question is how long it takes is to get there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

or its not a minor cold for you. know two friends who got it this month having a really rough go. i don't mind if you aren;t worried about it, but please stop assuring people its a teensy little nuisance when there is NO WAY to predict if it will be for you or a family member as individuals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

or its not a minor cold for you. know two friends who got it this month having a really rough go. i don't mind if you aren;t worried about it, but please stop assuring people its a teensy little nuisance when there is NO WAY to predict if it will be for you or a family member as individuals.[/quote

+1 I feel like this is being missed. Many people only have minor cold symptoms, but some people are sick for days and even weeks. I've only had the flu once in my life, but it knocked me out for a good week. When we are dealing with an airborne virus that is much more transmissible than any of the other viruses we regularly encounter, those days and weeks of sickness add up and have a disruptive impact throughout society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

or its not a minor cold for you. know two friends who got it this month having a really rough go. i don't mind if you aren;t worried about it, but please stop assuring people its a teensy little nuisance when there is NO WAY to predict if it will be for you or a family member as individuals.[/quote

+1 I feel like this is being missed. Many people only have minor cold symptoms, but some people are sick for days and even weeks. I've only had the flu once in my life, but it knocked me out for a good week. When we are dealing with an airborne virus that is much more transmissible than any of the other viruses we regularly encounter, those days and weeks of sickness add up and have a disruptive impact throughout society.

Right, but we don't maks for the flu. And masksing isn't cost-free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

or its not a minor cold for you. know two friends who got it this month having a really rough go. i don't mind if you aren;t worried about it, but please stop assuring people its a teensy little nuisance when there is NO WAY to predict if it will be for you or a family member as individuals.

+1 I feel like this is being missed. Many people only have minor cold symptoms, but some people are sick for days and even weeks. I've only had the flu once in my life, but it knocked me out for a good week. When we are dealing with an airborne virus that is much more transmissible than any of the other viruses we regularly encounter, those days and weeks of sickness add up and have a disruptive impact throughout society.

So make your kid wear a mask forever then, but this isn't an argument for mask mandates. The incidence of actual sickness is going to keep declining as we build immunity as a society, and even the current disruptions are mostly due to the policies we have created around positive tests. Unfortunately, for those to change, the fear needs to come down, and masks play a significant role in keeping the fear alive, especially in children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

or its not a minor cold for you. know two friends who got it this month having a really rough go. i don't mind if you aren;t worried about it, but please stop assuring people its a teensy little nuisance when there is NO WAY to predict if it will be for you or a family member as individuals.[/quote

+1 I feel like this is being missed. Many people only have minor cold symptoms, but some people are sick for days and even weeks. I've only had the flu once in my life, but it knocked me out for a good week. When we are dealing with an airborne virus that is much more transmissible than any of the other viruses we regularly encounter, those days and weeks of sickness add up and have a disruptive impact throughout society.

Right, but we don't maks for the flu. And masksing isn't cost-free.

We don't mask for the flu because the flu is seasonal, less transmissible, is not a novel virus, and has a lower mortality rate than COVID.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

or its not a minor cold for you. know two friends who got it this month having a really rough go. i don't mind if you aren;t worried about it, but please stop assuring people its a teensy little nuisance when there is NO WAY to predict if it will be for you or a family member as individuals.

+1 I feel like this is being missed. Many people only have minor cold symptoms, but some people are sick for days and even weeks. I've only had the flu once in my life, but it knocked me out for a good week. When we are dealing with an airborne virus that is much more transmissible than any of the other viruses we regularly encounter, those days and weeks of sickness add up and have a disruptive impact throughout society.

Right, but we don't maks for the flu. And masksing isn't cost-free.

We don't mask for the flu because the flu is seasonal, less transmissible, is not a novel virus, and has a lower mortality rate than COVID.

DP. The latter has never been true for kids, and frankly isn't even true anymore for vulnerable vaccinated and boosted people either. Dr. Monica Gandhi was just making this point - in addition to very effective vaccines, we also have very effective treatments for Covid, as well as preventatives such as Evusheld, while we have nothing for other common viruses such as rhinovirus, which can also kill a vulnerable person. Tamiflu is useless against the flu compared to Paxlovid against Covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

When your family had COVID, how much work and school was missed? How many times a year do you want to do this?

The point is that the mask mandate and mandatory 10 days out for covid is an overreaction. Fix the overreaction instead of going along with this insanity. This is why parents need to opt out of asymptomatic testing at school for their kids. If your child tests positive during the asymptomatic testing, then they're forced to miss 10 days of school and their entire class has to wear a mask for 10 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

But that's due to the restriction, not the virus.

Hopefully we start treating covid like other illnesses -- stay home if you are sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

or its not a minor cold for you. know two friends who got it this month having a really rough go. i don't mind if you aren;t worried about it, but please stop assuring people its a teensy little nuisance when there is NO WAY to predict if it will be for you or a family member as individuals.

+1 I feel like this is being missed. Many people only have minor cold symptoms, but some people are sick for days and even weeks. I've only had the flu once in my life, but it knocked me out for a good week. When we are dealing with an airborne virus that is much more transmissible than any of the other viruses we regularly encounter, those days and weeks of sickness add up and have a disruptive impact throughout society.

Right, but we don't maks for the flu. And masksing isn't cost-free.

We don't mask for the flu because the flu is seasonal, less transmissible, is not a novel virus, and has a lower mortality rate than COVID.

DP. The latter has never been true for kids, and frankly isn't even true anymore for vulnerable vaccinated and boosted people either. Dr. Monica Gandhi was just making this point - in addition to very effective vaccines, we also have very effective treatments for Covid, as well as preventatives such as Evusheld, while we have nothing for other common viruses such as rhinovirus, which can also kill a vulnerable person. Tamiflu is useless against the flu compared to Paxlovid against Covid.

PP here. To be clear, I wasn't advocating for mandated masks for young kids. However, watching COVID spread like wildfire from my kids' high school it's really disruptive to staff, teachers, and students, and many kids are sick enough to be out for more than a day or two. And I wasn't talking about forever, or even in the long term, but when there is such a light level of community spread, masks might allow more normalcy.

I also listened to Dr. Gandhi's interview. She's obviously well-informed and she made some very good points, but many of her colleagues do not agree with her dismissal of long COVID risks in vaccinated people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking at the DC Schools Data, it doesn't seem like dropping the school mask mandate is the cause for the rise in cases. There is no discernible difference between DCPS schools (no mandate) and charters that are still requiring masks. In fact, Capital City, which still has a mandate, has almost as many cases as Wilson, despite having much fewer students.

So here is our real-life, "observational study" with control group, right here in DC, confirming the recent, formal studies out of Spain and Finland. Mask mandates in schools don't work. (Which doesn't mean that protecting yourself with a tightly fitted N95 doesn't work.)

Or am I reading the data wrong?

https://coronavirus.dc.gov/page/dc-schools-data

How can you tell though - since the mask mandate only was removed a few months ago.

The CDC says that by February 80 percent of kids in DC already had coronavirus. So apparently the mask mandate didnt accomplish much.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslocal_dc&stream=top#national-lab

There is NO WAY that figure is accurate. Especially as our data in DC is crap.

I agree that cannot be correct, even based on cases reported by pediatricians and the microcosm of our school. By February there hadn't even been a dozen cases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

or its not a minor cold for you. know two friends who got it this month having a really rough go. i don't mind if you aren;t worried about it, but please stop assuring people its a teensy little nuisance when there is NO WAY to predict if it will be for you or a family member as individuals.

+1 I feel like this is being missed. Many people only have minor cold symptoms, but some people are sick for days and even weeks. I've only had the flu once in my life, but it knocked me out for a good week. When we are dealing with an airborne virus that is much more transmissible than any of the other viruses we regularly encounter, those days and weeks of sickness add up and have a disruptive impact throughout society.

Right, but we don't maks for the flu. And masksing isn't cost-free.

We don't mask for the flu because the flu is seasonal, less transmissible, is not a novel virus, and has a lower mortality rate than COVID.

DP. The latter has never been true for kids, and frankly isn't even true anymore for vulnerable vaccinated and boosted people either. Dr. Monica Gandhi was just making this point - in addition to very effective vaccines, we also have very effective treatments for Covid, as well as preventatives such as Evusheld, while we have nothing for other common viruses such as rhinovirus, which can also kill a vulnerable person. Tamiflu is useless against the flu compared to Paxlovid against Covid.

PP here. To be clear, I wasn't advocating for mandated masks for young kids. However, watching COVID spread like wildfire from my kids' high school it's really disruptive to staff, teachers, and students, and many kids are sick enough to be out for more than a day or two. And I wasn't talking about forever, or even in the long term, but when there is such a light level of community spread, masks might allow more normalcy.

I also listened to Dr. Gandhi's interview. She's obviously well-informed and she made some very good points, but many of her colleagues do not agree with her dismissal of long COVID risks in vaccinated people.

I'm not mandating masks either. I do like open windows. improved ventilation and air purifiers, and regular community testing (both PCR on a schedule and rapid in the case of symptoms or before events) and reporting of results. Testing keeps everyone safe. If you have Covid and learn that through a test, you can obviously take measures to not infect others (break the chain). Oh, and you can take Paxlovid if you are above 12 and make that choice for yourself or child with your doctor. You have to take it early in the progression for it to be effective and stop the virus from replicating in your body, so testing may let you know within the window, before you have a full blown case. The "it's just a cold" people are very all or nothing (typical in our polarized society--such a knee jerk, default position on everything).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking at the DC Schools Data, it doesn't seem like dropping the school mask mandate is the cause for the rise in cases. There is no discernible difference between DCPS schools (no mandate) and charters that are still requiring masks. In fact, Capital City, which still has a mandate, has almost as many cases as Wilson, despite having much fewer students.

So here is our real-life, "observational study" with control group, right here in DC, confirming the recent, formal studies out of Spain and Finland. Mask mandates in schools don't work. (Which doesn't mean that protecting yourself with a tightly fitted N95 doesn't work.)

Or am I reading the data wrong?

https://coronavirus.dc.gov/page/dc-schools-data

How can you tell though - since the mask mandate only was removed a few months ago.

The CDC says that by February 80 percent of kids in DC already had coronavirus. So apparently the mask mandate didnt accomplish much.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslocal_dc&stream=top#national-lab

There is NO WAY that figure is accurate. Especially as our data in DC is crap.

I agree that cannot be correct, even based on cases reported by pediatricians and the microcosm of our school. By February there hadn't even been a dozen cases.

Probably understand where that data came from before commenting.

They looked at blood samples, not the reported covid tests. They looked for antibodies for covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

I sure don’t. Thanks for asking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ger your kid vaccinated, and lets all just move on. Our family just had COVID as have most of the families we know in the last 4 months. Its a minor cold. Are kids going to start wearing masks full time forever to avoid a cold?

Minor cold or not, Covid still means your kid stays home and misses 5-10 school days and I miss work. Or if their teacher gets sick, the kid has a week with the PE teacher as a substitute.

But you’re right, it’s just a minor cold! Who cares???

or its not a minor cold for you. know two friends who got it this month having a really rough go. i don't mind if you aren;t worried about it, but please stop assuring people its a teensy little nuisance when there is NO WAY to predict if it will be for you or a family member as individuals.[/quote

+1 I feel like this is being missed. Many people only have minor cold symptoms, but some people are sick for days and even weeks. I've only had the flu once in my life, but it knocked me out for a good week. When we are dealing with an airborne virus that is much more transmissible than any of the other viruses we regularly encounter, those days and weeks of sickness add up and have a disruptive impact throughout society.

Right, but we don't maks for the flu. And masksing isn't cost-free.

We don't mask for the flu because the flu is seasonal, less transmissible, is not a novel virus, and has a lower mortality rate than COVID.

Not for kids. Those low information voters are maddening.