COVID outbreak since masks optional

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Six cases at our small school, which has had zero cases for weeks. Thanks anti-maskers!

Well, you can still keep masking your own kid, if you think it's important to delay their infection with a virus that will be around for the rest of their lives. Unless they keep wearing a tightly fitted respirator in public for the rest of their lives, they will catch it eventually.

Some kids haven’t been vaccinated yet, a-hole.

What does that have to do with anything? The vaccine doesn’t prevent you from catching covid.

Exactly. And the risk to the unvaccinated under-5yo is so minuscule that they will have a hard time showing a meaningful reduction in the risk of hospitalization.

[Anonymous]

SWS has more cases today. I went back and looked at the stats, and verified that there have been more positive cases documented at SWS over the past 5 school days than any other week this school year (to include the height of omnicron).

[Anonymous]

Are there really many kids not masking at SWS? We are at a different Capitol Hill ES and almost everyone is still masking. Especially the PK classes. We considered sending our kid without a mask but thought they would feel uncomfortable to be an outlier, so they are still masking.

I would be surprised to hear there is a large contingent of unmasked kids at SWS given the very conservative approach to Covid I encounter on the Hill.

I think this uptick is related to BA.2 and not the new masking policy.

It would be interesting to find out if the kids or staff testing positive have been masking at the school or not. We'll never get that info, but it would help. I'd bet you anything most of the positives are from people who are still masking, at least in part because people who are still masking are also more likely to test frequently (and I say that as a family whose kid is still masking and who get weekly tests for all family members, so this is not a criticism but an observation).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SWS has more cases today. I went back and looked at the stats, and verified that there have been more positive cases documented at SWS over the past 5 school days than any other week this school year (to include the height of omnicron).

Where are you finding the stats? Is there a link?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SWS has more cases today. I went back and looked at the stats, and verified that there have been more positive cases documented at SWS over the past 5 school days than any other week this school year (to include the height of omnicron).

CDC says not to count cases as a metric anymore.

[Anonymous]

https://dcpsreopenstrong.com/updates/

Here’s the link. Today’s cases aren’t reflected yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there really many kids not masking at SWS? We are at a different Capitol Hill ES and almost everyone is still masking. Especially the PK classes. We considered sending our kid without a mask but thought they would feel uncomfortable to be an outlier, so they are still masking.

I would be surprised to hear there is a large contingent of unmasked kids at SWS given the very conservative approach to Covid I encounter on the Hill.

I think this uptick is related to BA.2 and not the new masking policy.

It would be interesting to find out if the kids or staff testing positive have been masking at the school or not. We'll never get that info, but it would help. I'd bet you anything most of the positives are from people who are still masking, at least in part because people who are still masking are also more likely to test frequently (and I say that as a family whose kid is still masking and who get weekly tests for all family members, so this is not a criticism but an observation).

I think most of teachers/students don’t mask. And I don’t mind. My child’s classroom is “quarantining” right now. That’s ok. That’s our live now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SWS has more cases today. I went back and looked at the stats, and verified that there have been more positive cases documented at SWS over the past 5 school days than any other week this school year (to include the height of omnicron).

Schools were closed during the height of Omicron in DC. So, not a good argument for your case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SWS has more cases today. I went back and looked at the stats, and verified that there have been more positive cases documented at SWS over the past 5 school days than any other week this school year (to include the height of omnicron).

Schools were closed during the height of Omicron in DC. So, not a good argument for your case.

School was in session in mid-Dec, through Dec 22.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://dcpsreopenstrong.com/updates/

Here’s the link. Today’s cases aren’t reflected yet.

There’s also good data here:

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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So there were no cases the whole time kids were masked, and now there’s 8?

Very few. Not like this.

I'm assuming your kids are still masked, and given your concerns, I'm guessing they are wearing KN95s or similar? Just focus on that, as it's something you can control. Evidence indicates that wearing a medical grade mask, even if others are unmasked, offers very good protection.

I'm also guessing that your kids are vaccinated, assuming they are old enough to be. Vaccination is consistently cited as the most important thing any individual can do to protect themselves AND others from Covid, and is shown to reduce risk across the board -- lower risk of catching it, lesser chance of symptoms if they do catch it, lower risk of long Covid and other complications.

If your kids are under 12 and have the vaccine that was recently announced to be less effective, please look at the explanation around why it has been deemed less effective. It's because kids in this age group are already at such reduced risk from covid. It's the same reason they've had trouble approving a vaccine for under 5s. It's hard to prove that a vaccine lowers risk for people who are already at such low risk and so rarely wind up hospitalized from this virus.

Try to remind yourself of these things. You cannot control other people. You cannot control a virus. But you can control your own behaviors, and you can absolutely control your outlook. Do not focus exclusively on fears and information that worries you. Please give equal weight to data that consistently shows that children are at low risk generally, masking protects the wearer, and vaccines work.

This is excellent advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SWS has more cases today. I went back and looked at the stats, and verified that there have been more positive cases documented at SWS over the past 5 school days than any other week this school year (to include the height of omnicron).

I teach in the suburbs and there have been an uptick in cases this week. We have been mask optional for a month, but students didn’t mask well anyhow. So it might be a natural increase in cases at this time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SWS has more cases today. I went back and looked at the stats, and verified that there have been more positive cases documented at SWS over the past 5 school days than any other week this school year (to include the height of omnicron).

Schools were closed during the height of Omicron in DC. So, not a good argument for your case.

+1

Our school was not closed, kids masked really well in December and about a quarter of kids still got Covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SWS has more cases today. I went back and looked at the stats, and verified that there have been more positive cases documented at SWS over the past 5 school days than any other week this school year (to include the height of omnicron).

You have an uptick citywide. If cases are rising at a school this could be due to the citywide uptick rather than to the lack of masks. I am not convinced personally that the masks are worth it at school. Despite masking a third of my daughter's class got COVID and most got it outside of school or from a sibling. Haven't they said that on the aggregate there wasn't a difference between school districts that used masks and those that didn't? I think the masks should be used at school only when there is a high incidence rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SWS has more cases today. I went back and looked at the stats, and verified that there have been more positive cases documented at SWS over the past 5 school days than any other week this school year (to include the height of omnicron).

You have an uptick citywide. If cases are rising at a school this could be due to the citywide uptick rather than to the lack of masks. I am not convinced personally that the masks are worth it at school. Despite masking a third of my daughter's class got COVID and most got it outside of school or from a sibling. Haven't they said that on the aggregate there wasn't a difference between school districts that used masks and those that didn't? I think the masks should be used at school only when there is a high incidence rate.

The best study on in-school masking we have is the recent one out of Spain, which was a large study where they compared cohorts within the same school districts over the same time periods: the over 6 year olds, who were required to mask, and the under six year olds, who were not masking. They found that transmission was actually *higher* in the masked cohorts, concluding that age, not masking, made the difference in how Covid spread in schools.

The costs of masking in schools, especially for younger kids, are almost certainly higher than the benefits, and so mask *mandates* should never return for school children. Find more effective ways to try to curb the impact of the virus (most importantly vaccination, most importantly of the elderly), and stop trying to manage the pandemic on the backs of children.