Gov Hogan announcement re schools this week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Are you slow about everything or just feign stupidity with respect to covid? After four months of this, you must realize that the number of positive cases is meaningless because it is dependent on how many tests are given. The number that is relevant is percent of tests positive.

No need to be rude. After 6 months of following COVID, I am aware that countries that have managed to control this virus have been paying attention to TWO measures:

1) new cases per million per day

2) test positivity


The new cases per million per day is necessary to measure how much and how fast the virus is spreading. Countries in Europe are looking at VERY low levels -- maybe 10 new cases per million per day.

The test positivity helps validate that you are doing enough testing to be able to be confident that your new cases, per million per day is an accurate measure. If you tried to pretend you didn't have a lot of cases by just not testing most people, you could claim you only had 10 new cases per million per day. But the high test positivity would rat you out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Totally agree with PP. If you go to coronavirus.maryland.gov, you will see that Maryland just administered 28K tests per day. It used to be less than 5K. Catching more cases is only natural. The positivity rate has been stable, NOT increasing. In MoCo positivity rate continues to drop, not as fast as before, but that's expected as positivity rate dips below 4%.

No. In Maryland, we are having to test more and more and more to keep that positivity rate under 5%. That means that cases are increasing.

Look at this graph showing positivity rate and number of tests. See how we have been able to keep the positivity rate below 5%.... only by testing more and more people. The past month there's a rise in number of tests.



The reason we have to keep testing more and more people to get a 5% positivity rate is that cases are climbing!

Low positivity is an indiciation that your state is doing a good job of trying to catch all the cases. But the other factor you need to consider is how many cases there are, in fact, in your state.

The number of cases in MD is RISING. It isn't rising because we are testing more. It is rising because more people are getting the virus.

These are the goals we want to look for: Positivity rate of 2% AND new cases per million of 30 per day, or fewer. If we have 5% positivity rate that isn't stable in the long run.

I'm sorry, but you are stupid. You are saying that the state intentionally test more people to reduce positivity rate! That's plain stupid. Back in the days where we were testing 5K people, the number of positives may be less, but that wasn't because there was less people infected, how can that be with 30% positivity rate. It was simply because the state was missing a lot of asymptomatic or less symptomatic people. Now with more than 20K tests per day, you are logging more positives. I'm sure if we could do 2 million tests per day, we would be seeing many thousands of positives. But that would not mean, we are deteriorating.

[Anonymous]

Some people on this board seriously sound like they want the cases go up, because otherwise it does not fit their agenda. So sad.

[Anonymous]

My concern is that there are still a lot of cases, so a lot of community spread. The numbers being stable isn't sufficient.

[Anonymous]

There's no way to be sure if extra testing is the only reason we are seeing more cases in the data or cases are increasing in the population. I suspect we'll know more in the next week or two. If we start to see more hospitalizations then that will be a clear answer.

Also, 100 new cases per day in Montgomery County is a lot. It's better than in the past but it tells me the virus will absolutely spread in schools if they open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thought I read in another thread that the official announcement for MCPS in the fall is aug 6. Did I get that wrong?

BOE is meeting that day but zero chance they have a plan ready to go. They will kick the can down the road just like they did all spring. Fire Jack Smith and vote out the BOE!

I think the official announcement for fall plan is Aug 14 or 16?

Which is why it makes no sense to make parents decide by Aug. 7.

I've been thinking about that. There is no way that I can make an informed decision on August 7. So, what happens if I just don't make a decision? What happens if lots of parents just don't make a decision?

I think by default your kids will be placed in the full DL option.

If so, there will be no practical effect to not deciding, until that far-off, sincerely-hoped-for day finally arrives when MCPS says that they will begin to open school on X date. At which point we will all have much more of the information necessary for making an informed decision.

But at that point you will only be able to change to hybrid if there is room. Teachers need to be assigned for the year. So it may not be an option anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm sorry, but you are stupid. You are saying that the state intentionally test more people to reduce positivity rate! That's plain stupid. Back in the days where we were testing 5K people, the number of positives may be less, but that wasn't because there was less people infected, how can that be with 30% positivity rate. It was simply because the state was missing a lot of asymptomatic or less symptomatic people. Now with more than 20K tests per day, you are logging more positives. I'm sure if we could do 2 million tests per day, we would be seeing many thousands of positives. But that would not mean, we are deteriorating.

Yes, the state is intentionally testing more people. Of course the hope is that doing so will lower the positivity rate. That would mean cases are low and we are doing what we need to be doing.

In Italy right now, because spread of COVID is so low, they absolutely can do 2 million tests per day but find very very few positives. That's where we need to be.

This pandemic won't be over until we get our cases under control. We need them to be low enough that any outbreak can be addressed very quickly through contact tracing and quarantine. Over and over countries and states are learning this. Either they learn it the easy way (through watching what happens in other countries) or the hard way. Unfortunately here in the US we have to do everything the hard way.

I don't WANT there to be lots of cases. I want my kids to go back to school and college! I want to go back to church and the gym and theaters and have dinner parties.

I just know by looking at our statistics that there ARE lots of cases, and we are not trending in the right direction.

[Anonymous]

I don't know the solution, but I know this:

1. The infection rate (cases per million) and positivity rate vary greatly across Maryland. It's a big state -- it would take you 5 hours to drive from Oakland to Salisbury. That's how long it takes to drive from Silver Spring to NYC. Hogan should guide, but the open/re-open should be a county-level decision at this stage. MD isn't in the middle of a state-wide outbreak nor a county-wide outbreak. We're pretty much holding steady or going down.

2. DL wasn't even offered in some parts of MD in the spring, because it's very difficult to do so. They just got packets and had to drop them off at school at the end of the semester. There are mountainous and rural parts of MD which just don't have easy or widespread internet access, and there's no easy solution (can't move mountains to make it happen.. pun intended), and then add poverty to that and it's even more difficult. It's drastically different -- there are towns where there is no home mail service -- everyone in the town has a PO box. There isn't a one-size solution for all of MD.

Here's today's data on positivity rates, and note how much they vary by county:

[Anonymous]

I agree that counties have different conditions.

Yesterday I looked up the new cases for each county. It was just one day not a 7 day average (I wish we had these kinds of statistics available as well as positivity rate but right now no one is posting new cases per million per day by county.

Anyhow, it was suprising how high the new cases per million per day were for some counties!

(For comparison purposes, Italy is at THREE new cases per million per day and FLorida is at 552 new cases per million per day)


Worcester: 17/52,000= 326 new cases per million per day

Baltimore City 143/620,000 = 230 new cases per million per day

Howard County 57 / 325,000 = 175 new cases per million per day.

Baltimore County 141/827,000 = 170 new cases per million per day

AA County = 89/580,000= 153 new cases per million per day

Frederick County 40/260,000. 153 new cases per million per day.

PG County 123/909,000 = 135 new cases per million per day

Harford County 29 / 255,000 = 113 new cases per million per day

Garrett County 3/30,000 = 100 new cases per million per day

St Mary's County 11 / 113,000 = 98 new cases per million per day.

MoCo = 89 new cases per million per day

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

But at that point you will only be able to change to hybrid if there is room. Teachers need to be assigned for the year. So it may not be an option anymore.

I mean, that seems likely, but it remains to be seen. Will MCPS really say, "Nope, sorry, you have to have remote instruction, there's no room for you."?

[Anonymous]

Remember when all those posters were going to flee from Montgomery County to the rural counties where life and school were going to continue covid-free?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that counties have different conditions.

Yesterday I looked up the new cases for each county. It was just one day not a 7 day average (I wish we had these kinds of statistics available as well as positivity rate but right now no one is posting new cases per million per day by county.

Anyhow, it was suprising how high the new cases per million per day were for some counties!

(For comparison purposes, Italy is at THREE new cases per million per day and FLorida is at 552 new cases per million per day)


Worcester: 17/52,000= 326 new cases per million per day

Baltimore City 143/620,000 = 230 new cases per million per day

Howard County 57 / 325,000 = 175 new cases per million per day.

Baltimore County 141/827,000 = 170 new cases per million per day

AA County = 89/580,000= 153 new cases per million per day

Frederick County 40/260,000. 153 new cases per million per day.

PG County 123/909,000 = 135 new cases per million per day

Harford County 29 / 255,000 = 113 new cases per million per day

Garrett County 3/30,000 = 100 new cases per million per day

St Mary's County 11 / 113,000 = 98 new cases per million per day.

MoCo = 89 new cases per million per day

New cases per million per day is a very misleading metric. The result depends on how many tests are administered. If Italy does not have comparable tests administered, then we'd be comparing apples to oranges. That's why positivity rate is more meaningful to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that counties have different conditions.

Yesterday I looked up the new cases for each county. It was just one day not a 7 day average (I wish we had these kinds of statistics available as well as positivity rate but right now no one is posting new cases per million per day by county.

Anyhow, it was suprising how high the new cases per million per day were for some counties!

(For comparison purposes, Italy is at THREE new cases per million per day and FLorida is at 552 new cases per million per day)


Worcester: 17/52,000= 326 new cases per million per day

Baltimore City 143/620,000 = 230 new cases per million per day

Howard County 57 / 325,000 = 175 new cases per million per day.

Baltimore County 141/827,000 = 170 new cases per million per day

AA County = 89/580,000= 153 new cases per million per day

Frederick County 40/260,000. 153 new cases per million per day.

PG County 123/909,000 = 135 new cases per million per day

Harford County 29 / 255,000 = 113 new cases per million per day

Garrett County 3/30,000 = 100 new cases per million per day

St Mary's County 11 / 113,000 = 98 new cases per million per day.

MoCo = 89 new cases per million per day

I've been tracking for some counties using a 7- or 10-day average. I just use Excel as it's not easy to find. The ones I checked, and MoCo has about 2x higher new case rate per million. I think single day is not totally a good picture because many testing sites only operate during the weekdays, but I understand why you used it -- the 7-day average data is not readily available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But at that point you will only be able to change to hybrid if there is room. Teachers need to be assigned for the year. So it may not be an option anymore.

I mean, that seems likely, but it remains to be seen. Will MCPS really say, "Nope, sorry, you have to have remote instruction, there's no room for you."?

Yes, they will, because with half-sized classrooms, there will be a strict limit on how many there can be. It will be easier to switch form hybrid to virtual-only than vice versa

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But at that point you will only be able to change to hybrid if there is room. Teachers need to be assigned for the year. So it may not be an option anymore.

I mean, that seems likely, but it remains to be seen. Will MCPS really say, "Nope, sorry, you have to have remote instruction, there's no room for you."?

Yes, they will, because with half-sized classrooms, there will be a strict limit on how many there can be. It will be easier to switch form hybrid to virtual-only than vice versa

You're basically saying that they will because they will.