Have you sign-up for weekly asymptomatic testing at APS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm at the point where I'm totally losing patience with people who refuse to make small sacrifices for the greater good. This is a lack of morality, pure and simple.

I asked my twelve year old child about testing and she WANTED TO DO IT because it would help others at her school and their families.

I'm just losing patience with people who won't get vaccinated, won't vaccinate their families, won't volunteer for testing, won't mask up in public indoor spaces because FREEDOM. I don't see that much difference between all of these decisions. You are not doing your part and you suck balls.

Talk about anti-vax craziness with "I don't see much difference between vaccines and masks". They're not similar whatsoever. There are people, especially in the African American community, not getting vaccinated because they think masks protect them. Nikki Minaj said something similar yesterday.

Vaccines have proven themself repeatedly in random control trials. Masks have never done so. And please don't say the Bangladeshi mask study, which showed that only medical masks provided slight protection for those 50 and above in a pre-vaccination environment.

It's not about freedom. It's about moving on to the next stage of COVID being an endemic and living with the virus. The Beltway has done their part by getting vaccinated. We're done.

If you want Zero COVID and Australia-style COVID camps, then move there. Maybe you can volunteer to shoot the dogs at the rescue shelter like they were doing in Australia to prevent the spread of cases.

I’m not equating agreeing to get vaxxed with agreeing to wear masks. I’m equating REFUSING to do these things. You decide that getting yourself and your family vaxxed should — sooner rather than later — obviate anyone’s need to wear a mask? What new nonsense is this?

Completely amoral and a failure to look out for the people around you because of mere inconvenience to you and yours. Blech.

Refusing to do something scientifically proven is not equal to refusing to do something scientifically unproven, especially for already vaccinated people.

Amoral is wanting people to change their behavior permanently with scientifically unproven methods for a disease that is less than flu level risk for even elderly people once they are vaccinated. I don't support permanently changing our lives to avoid viruses at levels of risk we easily tolerated in the past. If you haven't noticed, much of the people in this world who are vaccinated are done with COVID. You have the freedom to continue your own individual COVID war indefinitely, like those Japanese soldiers who continued fighting for 20+ years after WWII ended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would agree with this generally although I'm not sure who Lunch Petitioner is, but I also think PP "the Democrat" poster above is using stats that aren't taking Delta into effect above. PP says that Covid is less deadly than the flu, but this simply doesn't match the actual flu vs. covid facts. Over the last twenty years, the flu has only killed from 37 to 199 kids per year. See https://www.cdc.gov/flu/highrisk/children.htm.

However, Covid has killed 355 kids already just in the last year, from 9/10/20 to 9/9/21, and the AMA and APA are noting that given Delta's higher transmittability, including among unvaccinated children, hospitals are admitting more children than ever before and more children are dying of Covid than ever before -- because of the much larger number of children that are becoming infected. See https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2030?utm_campaign=tbmj&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=trendmd&utm_term=usage-042019&utm_content=consumer and also https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20and%20CHA%20-%20Children%20and%20COVID-19%20State%20Data%20Report%209.9%20FINAL.pdf. This current rate is significantly higher than child deaths from flu per year, and it seems clear from the trend that pediatric deaths from covid will only get higher in the near future given that the Delta variant is making covid spread more quickly among children and sending more and more children to the hospital. A few weeks ago the week ending 29 July “saw the largest week-over-week percentage increase in paediatric covid-19 cases since the start of the epidemic." If you look at the recent child mortality rates from Covid that I linked in the AAP article, over the last five weeks we have been seeing ~20 kids die per week across the US, whereas back in 2020 it was unusual to see more than a few child deaths from Covid per week.

So this idea that Covid is less deadly than the flu is a cute talking point but it's pretty outdated and does not reflect current stats of the 355 actual children that have died of covid in the last year. If the flu has been killing 20 kids a week over the last month, be sure to let us know.

The already old "delta changes everything" refrain. Rachelle Walensky on September 3rd on Delta and kids: “Although we are seeing more cases in children and more overall cases, these studies demonstrated that there was not increased disease severity in children,” Dr. Walensky said. “Instead, more children have COVID-19 because there is more disease in the community.”

355 kids have died with COVID since March 2020 (how many from COVID is not known). Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins did a study when it was 300 and they couldn't find any of the 300 without major pre-existing conditions like leukemia. If a child has serious comorbidities, then watch out with COVID. Fortunately, all but a few children do.

Hospitals are admitting many children with COVID because of RSV. Texas Children's Hospital recently had 25 of 45 kids with COVID actually there because of RSV. The CDC's study has shown 40-45% of kids hospitalized with COVID are there for other reasons and incidentally test positive for COVID.

Not a talking point about healthy kids and the flu vs. COVID. It's a fact.

Someone here has their facts wrong and it isn’t me. Just look at the pdf I linked of the APA/Children’s Hospital Association showing child mortality from Covid since the pandemic began, with the 2021 stats around page 23, appendix 2C — there have been 355 child deaths from covid from 9/10/20 to 9/9/21 — merely one year and mot since back to March as you claim, and in particular the numbers over the last five weeks have risen to about 20 child deaths per week (btw if THAT rate holds up we will be at a rate of over 1,000 child deaths from covid per year by August 2022 but I’m sure you are fine with that too).

I agree with you that the CDC is saying this increase is not because Delta is more fatal to children (though it has also noted that covid child
Mortality has increased from 1% to 2% of kids hospitalized from covid, which I suppose it considers a negligible difference) — but CDC says more children are dying now because more children are catching covid due to Delta’s higher transmissibility. Strain yourself for a minute to consider why this might mean that early detection through testing in schools might be a really helpful tool to prevent wide spread of the virus through our student populations. Have you figured it out yet? I will wait.

And what % of them are actually healthy children? Likely very, very low (probably less than 1%). If your child has comorbidities, watch out as they should have already been doing so. The UK's medical authority (where delta has been around for much longer) wasn't even recommending vaccinating healthy kids under 15 because the risk of COVID is so low to them.

As for testing, we already know the risk of a young child spreading COVID asymptomatically is so low. The harm of children missing school is much higher, which is why many European countries aren't even quarantining close contacts any longer. Health is much more than avoiding 1 respiratory virus.

Please stop with the uncontextualized death numbers. How many children died of drowning on average in the US? 800. That is with all of the precautions being taken. 4,000 died of car wrecks in 2016 with all of the precautions taken.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1804754

School in the UK and Scandinavia is maskless. How are they all not dead yet?

Europe and Scandinavia can sit back a little now because their infection rate is so low. What about this is so difficult for you to understand? The US failed to vaccinate and still has comparatively high infection rates. And it’s child mortality rates are much higher than Scandinavia and the UK. Do you get it? They don’t have cases like we do, so they can relax. Whereas in the US our case counts are as high as ever because of stupid people who don’t vax or mask (or test!) so we still need to take all of these precautions. Why is this so hard for you?

At least you aren’t saying covid is less deadly to children than the flu anymore and have moved on to car accidents and drownings. Yay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't opted in because there is no explanation of what the supposed algorithm is and how it works. I was all for testing when it was individual and not pooled. I realize the test shortage is not APS fault, but the lack of transparency on how exactly the algorithm works gives me pause.

Us too. I wanted to sign my kids up, but I need a better understanding of how APS plans to ensure my kids aren’t excluded from school for days because some other kid they weren’t exposed to threw a positive. Because even if only one of them gets tagged by the algorithm, the other one isn’t allowed to go to school either until their sibling gets a negative test.

[Anonymous]

Completely amoral and a failure to look out for the people around you because of mere inconvenience to you and yours. Blech.

x1 million

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would agree with this generally although I'm not sure who Lunch Petitioner is, but I also think PP "the Democrat" poster above is using stats that aren't taking Delta into effect above. PP says that Covid is less deadly than the flu, but this simply doesn't match the actual flu vs. covid facts. Over the last twenty years, the flu has only killed from 37 to 199 kids per year. See https://www.cdc.gov/flu/highrisk/children.htm.

However, Covid has killed 355 kids already just in the last year, from 9/10/20 to 9/9/21, and the AMA and APA are noting that given Delta's higher transmittability, including among unvaccinated children, hospitals are admitting more children than ever before and more children are dying of Covid than ever before -- because of the much larger number of children that are becoming infected. See https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2030?utm_campaign=tbmj&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=trendmd&utm_term=usage-042019&utm_content=consumer and also https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20and%20CHA%20-%20Children%20and%20COVID-19%20State%20Data%20Report%209.9%20FINAL.pdf. This current rate is significantly higher than child deaths from flu per year, and it seems clear from the trend that pediatric deaths from covid will only get higher in the near future given that the Delta variant is making covid spread more quickly among children and sending more and more children to the hospital. A few weeks ago the week ending 29 July “saw the largest week-over-week percentage increase in paediatric covid-19 cases since the start of the epidemic." If you look at the recent child mortality rates from Covid that I linked in the AAP article, over the last five weeks we have been seeing ~20 kids die per week across the US, whereas back in 2020 it was unusual to see more than a few child deaths from Covid per week.

So this idea that Covid is less deadly than the flu is a cute talking point but it's pretty outdated and does not reflect current stats of the 355 actual children that have died of covid in the last year. If the flu has been killing 20 kids a week over the last month, be sure to let us know.

The already old "delta changes everything" refrain. Rachelle Walensky on September 3rd on Delta and kids: “Although we are seeing more cases in children and more overall cases, these studies demonstrated that there was not increased disease severity in children,” Dr. Walensky said. “Instead, more children have COVID-19 because there is more disease in the community.”

355 kids have died with COVID since March 2020 (how many from COVID is not known). Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins did a study when it was 300 and they couldn't find any of the 300 without major pre-existing conditions like leukemia. If a child has serious comorbidities, then watch out with COVID. Fortunately, all but a few children do.

Hospitals are admitting many children with COVID because of RSV. Texas Children's Hospital recently had 25 of 45 kids with COVID actually there because of RSV. The CDC's study has shown 40-45% of kids hospitalized with COVID are there for other reasons and incidentally test positive for COVID.

Not a talking point about healthy kids and the flu vs. COVID. It's a fact.

Someone here has their facts wrong and it isn’t me. Just look at the pdf I linked of the APA/Children’s Hospital Association showing child mortality from Covid since the pandemic began, with the 2021 stats around page 23, appendix 2C — there have been 355 child deaths from covid from 9/10/20 to 9/9/21 — merely one year and mot since back to March as you claim, and in particular the numbers over the last five weeks have risen to about 20 child deaths per week (btw if THAT rate holds up we will be at a rate of over 1,000 child deaths from covid per year by August 2022 but I’m sure you are fine with that too).

I agree with you that the CDC is saying this increase is not because Delta is more fatal to children (though it has also noted that covid child
Mortality has increased from 1% to 2% of kids hospitalized from covid, which I suppose it considers a negligible difference) — but CDC says more children are dying now because more children are catching covid due to Delta’s higher transmissibility. Strain yourself for a minute to consider why this might mean that early detection through testing in schools might be a really helpful tool to prevent wide spread of the virus through our student populations. Have you figured it out yet? I will wait.

And what % of them are actually healthy children? Likely very, very low (probably less than 1%). If your child has comorbidities, watch out as they should have already been doing so. The UK's medical authority (where delta has been around for much longer) wasn't even recommending vaccinating healthy kids under 15 because the risk of COVID is so low to them.

As for testing, we already know the risk of a young child spreading COVID asymptomatically is so low. The harm of children missing school is much higher, which is why many European countries aren't even quarantining close contacts any longer. Health is much more than avoiding 1 respiratory virus.

Please stop with the uncontextualized death numbers. How many children died of drowning on average in the US? 800. That is with all of the precautions being taken. 4,000 died of car wrecks in 2016 with all of the precautions taken.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1804754

School in the UK and Scandinavia is maskless. How are they all not dead yet?

Europe and Scandinavia can sit back a little now because their infection rate is so low. What about this is so difficult for you to understand? The US failed to vaccinate and still has comparatively high infection rates. And it’s child mortality rates are much higher than Scandinavia and the UK. Do you get it? They don’t have cases like we do, so they can relax. Whereas in the US our case counts are as high as ever because of stupid people who don’t vax or mask (or test!) so we still need to take all of these precautions. Why is this so hard for you?

At least you aren’t saying covid is less deadly to children than the flu anymore and have moved on to car accidents and drownings. Yay?

The vaccination rate in the beltway area is sky high. Cases are super low too - the case rate average per 100K in Arlington 20, Fairfax 17 (US as a whole is 47) whereas the UK is 50. Hospital utilization is fine in the beltway too. The beltway is fine.

Maybe you're saying we have to punish our area because people in rural Arkansas aren't getting vaccinated? If not, what are your off ramps then? You obviously think the UK approach is not right (even though they had delta much earlier than us). Is your approach Zero COVID like in Australia, New Zealand or China?

COVID is less deadly to healthy children than the flu. Absolutely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Europe and Scandinavia can sit back a little now because their infection rate is so low. What about this is so difficult for you to understand? The US failed to vaccinate and still has comparatively high infection rates. And it’s child mortality rates are much higher than Scandinavia and the UK. Do you get it? They don’t have cases like we do, so they can relax. Whereas in the US our case counts are as high as ever because of stupid people who don’t vax or mask (or test!) so we still need to take all of these precautions. Why is this so hard for you?

At least you aren’t saying covid is less deadly to children than the flu anymore and have moved on to car accidents and drownings. Yay?

The vaccination rate in the beltway area is sky high. Cases are super low too - the case rate average per 100K in Arlington 20, Fairfax 17 (US as a whole is 47) whereas the UK is 50. Hospital utilization is fine in the beltway too. The beltway is fine.

Maybe you're saying we have to punish our area because people in rural Arkansas aren't getting vaccinated? If not, what are your off ramps then? You obviously think the UK approach is not right (even though they had delta much earlier than us). Is your approach Zero COVID like in Australia, New Zealand or China?

COVID is less deadly to healthy children than the flu. Absolutely.

You're wasting your time. These people don't want this pandemic to end ever. Their entire purpose in life is virus mitigation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Europe and Scandinavia can sit back a little now because their infection rate is so low. What about this is so difficult for you to understand? The US failed to vaccinate and still has comparatively high infection rates. And it’s child mortality rates are much higher than Scandinavia and the UK. Do you get it? They don’t have cases like we do, so they can relax. Whereas in the US our case counts are as high as ever because of stupid people who don’t vax or mask (or test!) so we still need to take all of these precautions. Why is this so hard for you?

At least you aren’t saying covid is less deadly to children than the flu anymore and have moved on to car accidents and drownings. Yay?

The vaccination rate in the beltway area is sky high. Cases are super low too - the case rate average per 100K in Arlington 20, Fairfax 17 (US as a whole is 47) whereas the UK is 50. Hospital utilization is fine in the beltway too. The beltway is fine.

Maybe you're saying we have to punish our area because people in rural Arkansas aren't getting vaccinated? If not, what are your off ramps then? You obviously think the UK approach is not right (even though they had delta much earlier than us). Is your approach Zero COVID like in Australia, New Zealand or China?

COVID is less deadly to healthy children than the flu. Absolutely.

You're wasting your time. These people don't want this pandemic to end ever. Their entire purpose in life is virus mitigation.

Remember all of the scientists who predicted doom and gloom for freedom day in the UK in July, ending all COVID restrictions there? 200K cases per day was one prediction by the famous Imperial college modelor Neil Ferguson. The UK is at 33K and that's after delta.

We're at a lower case rate in this area and sky high vaccination rate and a vocal tiny group of parents here wants to continue on with mitigation measures indefinitely. Now, it's vaccination for kids under 12. Once that occurs, they'll move the goal posts again.

This asymptomatic testing will never end if these parents have their way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kindergartener was rested with 4 members of his class today. He got a sponge Bob sticker. It was the highlight of his day. He's had covid tests before and they haven't gone well, so this was huge.

Pretty sad that a kindergartner's highlight of their school day was getting a sticker for a COVID test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Europe and Scandinavia can sit back a little now because their infection rate is so low. What about this is so difficult for you to understand? The US failed to vaccinate and still has comparatively high infection rates. And it’s child mortality rates are much higher than Scandinavia and the UK. Do you get it? They don’t have cases like we do, so they can relax. Whereas in the US our case counts are as high as ever because of stupid people who don’t vax or mask (or test!) so we still need to take all of these precautions. Why is this so hard for you?

At least you aren’t saying covid is less deadly to children than the flu anymore and have moved on to car accidents and drownings. Yay?

The vaccination rate in the beltway area is sky high. Cases are super low too - the case rate average per 100K in Arlington 20, Fairfax 17 (US as a whole is 47) whereas the UK is 50. Hospital utilization is fine in the beltway too. The beltway is fine.

Maybe you're saying we have to punish our area because people in rural Arkansas aren't getting vaccinated? If not, what are your off ramps then? You obviously think the UK approach is not right (even though they had delta much earlier than us). Is your approach Zero COVID like in Australia, New Zealand or China?

COVID is less deadly to healthy children than the flu. Absolutely.

You're wasting your time. These people don't want this pandemic to end ever. Their entire purpose in life is virus mitigation.

We all want it to end.

Some of us are facing reality and know that it’s not quite over yet.

Vaccinate, mask, test. It’s not that hard.

[Anonymous]

Covid has killed nearly twice as many kids in the past year as the flu has in any year over the past twenty, and has killed nearly 10x as many kids as the flu has in some of the last 20 years. So you can try to wave your hands around it with your “oh it’s less deadly to HEALTHY children” tap dancing but the simple truth is that you are wrong and that dicking around over precautions and safety caused Covid child mortality numbers to shoot up in the last six months and your old flu comparative isn’t applicable anymore. Nice job you.

So on one hand you say our numbers in nova are low compared to the south where folks aren’t wearing masks or getting vaxxed and in another post you (you appear to be the same poster) are saying that soon kids shouldn’t have to wear masks at school anymore and btw masks don’t even work. So excuse my confusion over what your endgame is here when it seems like if government officials would just go along you would be anti-test and anti mask in schools (because I guess spread shouldn’t matter if adults are vaxxed). That’s not what the CDC is saying, but go off, my dude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm at the point where I'm totally losing patience with people who refuse to make small sacrifices for the greater good. This is a lack of morality, pure and simple.

I asked my twelve year old child about testing and she WANTED TO DO IT because it would help others at her school and their families.

I'm just losing patience with people who won't get vaccinated, won't vaccinate their families, won't volunteer for testing, won't mask up in public indoor spaces because FREEDOM. I don't see that much difference between all of these decisions. You are not doing your part and you suck balls.

As someone whose family is all fully vaccinated and wears masks, and has tested when testing has been indicated, we are still doing our part regardless of a poorly organized, poorly communicated, poorly implemented voluntary random school testing program in a system with contradictory messaging, multiple interpretations of its policy, varying procedures across schools despite its own policy, and its inability to identify, explain, and communicate (1) the rationale behind their established policies and procedures or (2) what purpose the testing is actually serving; how the test results and Qualtrics survey data is being used, if it's being used; and whether 20% of the student body is sufficiently effective for fulfilling the purposes of the program. If it were all that critical, APS would be requiring the qualtrics survey (which has its own significant flaws and issues) and everyone would opt-in to the random testing by virtue of enrolling in in-person school.

Until the policies and procedures and value and implications of those policies and procedures are clearly articulated and properly implemented by the school administrations, I am not compelled to opt-in for random testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't opted in because there is no explanation of what the supposed algorithm is and how it works. I was all for testing when it was individual and not pooled. I realize the test shortage is not APS fault, but the lack of transparency on how exactly the algorithm works gives me pause.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Covid has killed nearly twice as many kids in the past year as the flu has in any year over the past twenty, and has killed nearly 10x as many kids as the flu has in some of the last 20 years. So you can try to wave your hands around it with your “oh it’s less deadly to HEALTHY children” tap dancing but the simple truth is that you are wrong and that dicking around over precautions and safety caused Covid child mortality numbers to shoot up in the last six months and your old flu comparative isn’t applicable anymore. Nice job you.

So on one hand you say our numbers in nova are low compared to the south where folks aren’t wearing masks or getting vaxxed and in another post you (you appear to be the same poster) are saying that soon kids shouldn’t have to wear masks at school anymore and btw masks don’t even work. So excuse my confusion over what your endgame is here when it seems like if government officials would just go along you would be anti-test and anti mask in schools (because I guess spread shouldn’t matter if adults are vaxxed). That’s not what the CDC is saying, but go off, my dude.

The flu comparison is still more than applicable. Kids with significant comorobidities are at risk of COVID. You have the UK, where there are no masks in school and their health commission didn't recommend vaccinating kids under 16 because the risk to kids is so low. May COVID works differently in Europe than in the US?

The South's rates are high because they're not vaccinated, not because they're not masking. Compare Northern Virginia (no mask mandate) to DC and Montgomery County (mask mandates). Any statistically significant case difference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Europe and Scandinavia can sit back a little now because their infection rate is so low. What about this is so difficult for you to understand? The US failed to vaccinate and still has comparatively high infection rates. And it’s child mortality rates are much higher than Scandinavia and the UK. Do you get it? They don’t have cases like we do, so they can relax. Whereas in the US our case counts are as high as ever because of stupid people who don’t vax or mask (or test!) so we still need to take all of these precautions. Why is this so hard for you?

At least you aren’t saying covid is less deadly to children than the flu anymore and have moved on to car accidents and drownings. Yay?

The vaccination rate in the beltway area is sky high. Cases are super low too - the case rate average per 100K in Arlington 20, Fairfax 17 (US as a whole is 47) whereas the UK is 50. Hospital utilization is fine in the beltway too. The beltway is fine.

Maybe you're saying we have to punish our area because people in rural Arkansas aren't getting vaccinated? If not, what are your off ramps then? You obviously think the UK approach is not right (even though they had delta much earlier than us). Is your approach Zero COVID like in Australia, New Zealand or China?

COVID is less deadly to healthy children than the flu. Absolutely.

You're wasting your time. These people don't want this pandemic to end ever. Their entire purpose in life is virus mitigation.

We all want it to end.

Some of us are facing reality and know that it’s not quite over yet.

Vaccinate, mask, test. It’s not that hard.

It's actually over now, with a highly vaccinated local population. These people's ending is no COVID cases, which is impossible for an endemic virus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Covid has killed nearly twice as many kids in the past year as the flu has in any year over the past twenty, and has killed nearly 10x as many kids as the flu has in some of the last 20 years. So you can try to wave your hands around it with your “oh it’s less deadly to HEALTHY children” tap dancing but the simple truth is that you are wrong and that dicking around over precautions and safety caused Covid child mortality numbers to shoot up in the last six months and your old flu comparative isn’t applicable anymore. Nice job you.

So on one hand you say our numbers in nova are low compared to the south where folks aren’t wearing masks or getting vaxxed and in another post you (you appear to be the same poster) are saying that soon kids shouldn’t have to wear masks at school anymore and btw masks don’t even work. So excuse my confusion over what your endgame is here when it seems like if government officials would just go along you would be anti-test and anti mask in schools (because I guess spread shouldn’t matter if adults are vaxxed). That’s not what the CDC is saying, but go off, my dude.

The flu comparison is still more than applicable. Kids with significant comorobidities are at risk of COVID. You have the UK, where there are no masks in school and their health commission didn't recommend vaccinating kids under 16 because the risk to kids is so low. May COVID works differently in Europe than in the US?

The South's rates are high because they're not vaccinated, not because they're not masking. Compare Northern Virginia (no mask mandate) to DC and Montgomery County (mask mandates). Any statistically significant case difference?

You can't use these measures as strict comparisons. Regardless of mask mandates, most people I see out and about in stores and public places like church are still wearing masks. This seems to be a more voluntary people than in other places that need mandates to get them to wear masks.