The Wisconsin Study - valid analysis?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:VARIANTS, people. Europe was forced to close most schools despite having been opened during most of the pandemic. Why would our crowded schools be an exception?

K-4 is still open with VARIANTS at a pretty high percentage of cases. France changed a few protocols for 2 of the 3 variants but stayed open...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:VARIANTS, people. Europe was forced to close most schools despite having been opened during most of the pandemic. Why would our crowded schools be an exception?

Sorry, we’re just over it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:VARIANTS, people. Europe was forced to close most schools despite having been opened during most of the pandemic. Why would our crowded schools be an exception?

K-4 is still open with VARIANTS at a pretty high percentage of cases. France changed a few protocols for 2 of the 3 variants but stayed open...

First sentence should say “in Denmark.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, here.

Why does everyone assume a post is always an argument for or against school opening or closing? I wasn’t trying to build an evidenced based argument; in fact I wasn’t trying to build an argument at all. I was asking a question and reaching out to people who could better assess the quality of an “analysis” I encountered in the comments section of WaPo. Yeah, that is random, but I am not writing a research paper or trying to present an oral argument.

I created two threads based on this guy’s comments. Why did I feel the need to do that? Because people on this forum have been citing the “wisconsin study” and “cdc guidelines” as “supporting school opening” and this commenter’s analysis of the studies - which I admit I am too lazy undertake myself — made me feel a bit bamboozled by random DCUM posters who I had never pressed for details or explanation when they cited the “wisconsin study” or “the cdc report” as their “evidence.”

In short, I was admitting I am not a science person and examining and evaluating these studies with care would involve a lot of mental focus I need to dedicate to other projects so I was saying “Hey smart stem trained DCUM moms, is this guy’s analysis legitimate or flawed?”

I don’t know how to post a direct link to the guy’s comments but here is the link to the article he commented on. One of his posts brought up the CDC report and another the Wisconsin study:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/biden-schools-reopen/2021/02/11/3a63e3ee-6b2d-11eb-ba56-d7e2c8defa31_story.html

I'm not a science person either, but I could tell within seconds that the argument, with the links, made no sense whatsoever. I don't believe your intentions and believe you must be a teacher desperate to keep schools closed. This forum isn't helpful for that.

Well, I don’t believe you could “tell within seconds that the argument with the links made no sense whatsoever.” That is utter BS.

I am a teacher but I am hardly desperate to keep schools closed. I am vaccinated, so it’s not me who will be getting sick if going back to schools turns to be a source of spread. It’s my students and their families who could suffer.

This forum isn’t helpful for discussion or soliciting advice? Or perhaps you are saying no one here is intelligent enough to take apart Mr. WaPo Commenter’s analysis? Clearly, you weren’t. Feel free to prove me wrong. I am disappointed as I expected this community to contain a surfeit of smarter women and mothers.

So why do you think people come to this forum? Is it to battle over the same arguments using the same “evidence” and the same metaphors over and over again? How very dull.

[Anonymous]

Washington Post guy/gal is saying it's not fair to compare total in-school rates to rates for everyone else in the community because school populations are heavily weighted toward kids who are less likely to get COVID regardless of setting.

The 2728/100k child school rate is (133 school kids who got COVID)/(4867 total students in school). That's a higher rate than the 1811/100k for all kids. (I'm assuming that 1811 rate came from the state data in the other link. I didn't look at that).

The rate for in-school teachers was 58/654 = 8868.5/100k.

The study adds kids and teachers together to get (133+58)/(4876+654) = 3454/100k.

They then say that is better than the community rate of 4746/100k (I'm estimating this based on 73k total population in the county for kids+adults because I don't think the study shows community rates split by kids and adults).

WP guy is saying of course the rate for people in school is lower than for people not in school because school is made up of 88% kids. The remaining community members will be very highly weighted toward adults. I don't think we can figure out the exact % from the study because we can't tell how many children there are below school age in the county, but we do know it will be quite high and nowhere near 88% kids.

This does not address anything about about where transmission occurred, but this is what WP guy is saying. I apologize for any typos. I am very tired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post guy/gal is saying it's not fair to compare total in-school rates to rates for everyone else in the community because school populations are heavily weighted toward kids who are less likely to get COVID regardless of setting.

The 2728/100k child school rate is (133 school kids who got COVID)/(4867 total students in school). That's a higher rate than the 1811/100k for all kids. (I'm assuming that 1811 rate came from the state data in the other link. I didn't look at that).

The rate for in-school teachers was 58/654 = 8868.5/100k.

The study adds kids and teachers together to get (133+58)/(4876+654) = 3454/100k.

They then say that is better than the community rate of 4746/100k (I'm estimating this based on 73k total population in the county for kids+adults because I don't think the study shows community rates split by kids and adults).

WP guy is saying of course the rate for people in school is lower than for people not in school because school is made up of 88% kids. The remaining community members will be very highly weighted toward adults. I don't think we can figure out the exact % from the study because we can't tell how many children there are below school age in the county, but we do know it will be quite high and nowhere near 88% kids.

This does not address anything about about where transmission occurred, but this is what WP guy is saying. I apologize for any typos. I am very tired.

I thought the whole point of the ridiculous numbers of the study was where transmission occurred - that it wasn't in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post guy/gal is saying it's not fair to compare total in-school rates to rates for everyone else in the community because school populations are heavily weighted toward kids who are less likely to get COVID regardless of setting.

The 2728/100k child school rate is (133 school kids who got COVID)/(4867 total students in school). That's a higher rate than the 1811/100k for all kids. (I'm assuming that 1811 rate came from the state data in the other link. I didn't look at that).

The rate for in-school teachers was 58/654 = 8868.5/100k.

The study adds kids and teachers together to get (133+58)/(4876+654) = 3454/100k.

They then say that is better than the community rate of 4746/100k (I'm estimating this based on 73k total population in the county for kids+adults because I don't think the study shows community rates split by kids and adults).

WP guy is saying of course the rate for people in school is lower than for people not in school because school is made up of 88% kids. The remaining community members will be very highly weighted toward adults. I don't think we can figure out the exact % from the study because we can't tell how many children there are below school age in the county, but we do know it will be quite high and nowhere near 88% kids.

This does not address anything about about where transmission occurred, but this is what WP guy is saying. I apologize for any typos. I am very tired.

I thought the whole point of the ridiculous numbers of the study was where transmission occurred - that it wasn't in school.

This is "What is added by this report?" per CDC: "Among 17 rural Wisconsin schools, reported student mask-wearing was high, and the COVID-19 incidence among students and staff members was lower than in the county overall (3,453 versus 5,466 per 100,000). Among 191 cases identified in students and staff members, only seven (3.7%) cases, all among students, were linked to in-school spread."

All I meant was that my numbers address point #1 and not point #2 of that quote. Point #1 is just looking at # of cases for people in school or not, regardless of where they might have gotten it. Point #2 is only seven cases were linked to in-school spread. Personally, I would want to know how many of the non-school cases were linked to places of spread and how many of the school-attendee cases were not linked to a place of spread before I make any comments on that part. (I don't know if that's addressed in the article or not. I didn't read all of it.) I think WP guy is commenting on point #1 only, as far as I can tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post guy/gal is saying it's not fair to compare total in-school rates to rates for everyone else in the community because school populations are heavily weighted toward kids who are less likely to get COVID regardless of setting.

The 2728/100k child school rate is (133 school kids who got COVID)/(4867 total students in school). That's a higher rate than the 1811/100k for all kids. (I'm assuming that 1811 rate came from the state data in the other link. I didn't look at that).

The rate for in-school teachers was 58/654 = 8868.5/100k.

The study adds kids and teachers together to get (133+58)/(4876+654) = 3454/100k.

They then say that is better than the community rate of 4746/100k (I'm estimating this based on 73k total population in the county for kids+adults because I don't think the study shows community rates split by kids and adults).

WP guy is saying of course the rate for people in school is lower than for people not in school because school is made up of 88% kids. The remaining community members will be very highly weighted toward adults. I don't think we can figure out the exact % from the study because we can't tell how many children there are below school age in the county, but we do know it will be quite high and nowhere near 88% kids.

This does not address anything about about where transmission occurred, but this is what WP guy is saying. I apologize for any typos. I am very tired.

Are there any other math people here? I had backed out the 4746/100k for just non-school people last night based on "a total of 3,393 COVID cases were reported in Wood County." That implies 4648/100k in the whole community of 70k. I missed that they reported 5466/100k in the whole community, but now I'm wondering if there's a typo and they meant 3,993 instead of 3,393. Using 3,993 results in 5466/100k assuming a population of roughly 73,050.

[Anonymous]

what kind of maniac reads the WP comments and then takes them seriously?

this is not a trustworthy character

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what kind of maniac reads the WP comments and then takes them seriously?

this is not a trustworthy character

Are you referring to OP or to me (I did the math above to show what WP guy was saying) as not trustworthy? OP was actually not taking WP guy at blind faith. She wanted to understand his conclusions but didn't know how to. I think he has a point based on the math I showed. It's not helping anybody on either side to insult people without looking at what the numbers say. I don't understand why you don't want OP to be able to interpret the study and "come around" to the open schools side if that's what the study shows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what kind of maniac reads the WP comments and then takes them seriously?

this is not a trustworthy character

Are you referring to OP or to me (I did the math above to show what WP guy was saying) as not trustworthy? OP was actually not taking WP guy at blind faith. She wanted to understand his conclusions but didn't know how to. I think he has a point based on the math I showed. It's not helping anybody on either side to insult people without looking at what the numbers say. I don't understand why you don't want OP to be able to interpret the study and "come around" to the open schools side if that's what the study shows.

i do not believe that anyone asking these questions is looking for anything other than confirmation bias. would love to be proven wrong by op.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what kind of maniac reads the WP comments and then takes them seriously?

this is not a trustworthy character

Are you referring to OP or to me (I did the math above to show what WP guy was saying) as not trustworthy? OP was actually not taking WP guy at blind faith. She wanted to understand his conclusions but didn't know how to. I think he has a point based on the math I showed. It's not helping anybody on either side to insult people without looking at what the numbers say. I don't understand why you don't want OP to be able to interpret the study and "come around" to the open schools side if that's what the study shows.

i do not believe that anyone asking these questions is looking for anything other than confirmation bias. would love to be proven wrong by op.

Don't you have confirmation bias too just like everyone?

[Anonymous]

nice dodge

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:nice dodge

I said everyone has biases, and I'm not OP. The fact still remains that no one has given a solid rebuttal to why the study is drawing conclusions by comparing a group with 88% kids to a group with probably 75%+ adults, who wouldn't be expected to get sick at the same rates, which is what the original Washington Post commenter said.

The rebuttals seem to be you're a maniac if you listen to someone commenting on the Washington Post, there are other studies that show schools are safe (that may be, but it's not relevant to analyzing this one), no one cares, we're done with schools being closed., etc.

[Anonymous]

What? There have been useful comments all through this thread explaining why the original comment was incorrect.