It feels like Christmas - DCPS adopts CDC rules!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps because the changes seem politically motivated, rather than scientific. Look, I’m sending my kid, but I think it’s likely he/she will get Covid this year. It’s just a bit unsettling to see the “science” change so rapidly. Considering the risk seems greater for them now, it’s painfully obvious that schools weren’t closed last year to protect them from getting Covid.

This is actually a correction of politically motivated BS and errors. Schools should have never been virtual and rolled back as they were to begin with. This is what the rules should have been even pre-vaccine

I’m PP and I tend to agree with you. But I bristle at people suggesting that CDC = science and anyone disagreeing is irrational.

[Anonymous]

How many pediatric beds are normally available in any given hospital?

Just saying "the beds are full!" sounds scary but if it is like 10 beds that's a different take-away.

Also isn't RSV making a bunch of kids hospitalized right now? And the thought is that because they were quarantined last year they are getting it early this year (when restrictions were relaxed)? So aren't a portion of the beds due to...past quarantines?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many pediatric beds are normally available in any given hospital?

Just saying "the beds are full!" sounds scary but if it is like 10 beds that's a different take-away.

Also isn't RSV making a bunch of kids hospitalized right now? And the thought is that because they were quarantined last year they are getting it early this year (when restrictions were relaxed)? So aren't a portion of the beds due to...past quarantines?

Right. Not to mention all the normal vaccines kids didn't get last year. Flu, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps because the changes seem politically motivated, rather than scientific. Look, I’m sending my kid, but I think it’s likely he/she will get Covid this year. It’s just a bit unsettling to see the “science” change so rapidly. Considering the risk seems greater for them now, it’s painfully obvious that schools weren’t closed last year to protect them from getting Covid.

School were not closed last year to protect children. They were closed to protect adults and to mitigate spread of a virus that was killing lots of adults. COVID posed (and poses) low (non-zero, but low) risk to children, especially under 12s. That is the science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps because the changes seem politically motivated, rather than scientific. Look, I’m sending my kid, but I think it’s likely he/she will get Covid this year. It’s just a bit unsettling to see the “science” change so rapidly. Considering the risk seems greater for them now, it’s painfully obvious that schools weren’t closed last year to protect them from getting Covid.

School were not closed last year to protect children. They were closed to protect adults and to mitigate spread of a virus that was killing lots of adults. COVID posed (and poses) low (non-zero, but low) risk to children, especially under 12s. That is the science.

This this this this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many pediatric beds are normally available in any given hospital?

Just saying "the beds are full!" sounds scary but if it is like 10 beds that's a different take-away.

Also isn't RSV making a bunch of kids hospitalized right now? And the thought is that because they were quarantined last year they are getting it early this year (when restrictions were relaxed)? So aren't a portion of the beds due to...past quarantines?

Right. Not to mention all the normal vaccines kids didn't get last year. Flu, etc.

+1

As someone with a medically fragile child who has spent a lot of time at children’s hospitals, bed availability ebbs and flows. There have been times the hospital turned away ER patients to other hospitals due to lack of space. This was well before the pandemic, so a ‘full hospital’ doesn’t paint the whole picture.

[Anonymous]

I think the pediatric hospitalizations stories are largely made in areas with very low vaccination rates. So they are pushing for parents to get vaccinated (through fear) to protect their kids. I would hate to see pediatric hospitalizations increase in DC, but they might in Wards 7 and 8 due to very low adult vaccination rates. That's a sad choice but it's not something the schools can control.

Notably, no pediatric, medical, or educational authority is suggesting closing schools again based on the pediatric hospitalizations. At most they are saying you need masks in schools. Which was have in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many pediatric beds are normally available in any given hospital?

Just saying "the beds are full!" sounds scary but if it is like 10 beds that's a different take-away.

Also isn't RSV making a bunch of kids hospitalized right now? And the thought is that because they were quarantined last year they are getting it early this year (when restrictions were relaxed)? So aren't a portion of the beds due to...past quarantines?

Thank you.

I am really starting to feel like the media is fear mongering on the kids and Covid issue specifically to drive a wedge issue they can feed off of for the next month or two. They obviously need to report on the spread of Covid in children due to Delta, but they should also be explaining that much of it is driven by factors like large numbers of unvaccinated adults in places like Florida and Louisiana, poor access to healthcare in many places even before Covid, high rates of uninsured, etc. Plus, yes, put things into context with RSV and other viruses that are likely hitting kids harder right now after not being exposed to much the last year.

We need info, but a lot of people only want to focus on the info that terrifies parents about kids and Covid and don't want to discuss what it actually means, in context, in terms of risks to kids (especially in places with high vaccination rates, for instance).

[Anonymous]

I think some of you will be surprised when large chunks of students are out with Covid during September. That won’t be normal school exactly.

I think at this point it us inevitable that most kids will get Covid, and for most it will be mild. But if it happens in a big wave, I think it willbe more dramatic than some people are prepared for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lordy DCPS’ about face on what’s safe is staggering. I’m trying to be guided by facts not emotion, but I’m much more nervous sending my kid in this fall than I was last January.

+ a million I sent my kid happily in February but I’m more concerned about now.

Why's that?

I’m the PP. Am I the only one watching the news? And the news that there are not pediatric hospital beds because of Covid?

I have been exceedingly cautious since the beginning of COVID (including not being in favor of reopening schools in-person last spring and indoor masking continuously), but context is critical here. The places experiencing shortages of pediatric beds are in places where vax rates are low and masking mandates are non-existent (and often prohibited by law). That’s not the case in DC. Universal indoor masking + higher vax rates create a different context.

This is correct. Please, don't watch the news, read the DC health updates and check hospitalization rates HERE. They are still very low.

Also, more kids may be catching Covid because it's more contagious now, but, those kids aren't wearing masks for the most part. In most of the country, NO ONE is wearing masks anymore, anywhere (believe me I've seen this with my own eyes). The actual percentage of kids being hospitalized out of overall child cases (actual rate) hasn't changed as far as we know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many pediatric beds are normally available in any given hospital?

Just saying "the beds are full!" sounds scary but if it is like 10 beds that's a different take-away.

Also isn't RSV making a bunch of kids hospitalized right now? And the thought is that because they were quarantined last year they are getting it early this year (when restrictions were relaxed)? So aren't a portion of the beds due to...past quarantines?

Thank you.

I am really starting to feel like the media is fear mongering on the kids and Covid issue specifically to drive a wedge issue they can feed off of for the next month or two. They obviously need to report on the spread of Covid in children due to Delta, but they should also be explaining that much of it is driven by factors like large numbers of unvaccinated adults in places like Florida and Louisiana, poor access to healthcare in many places even before Covid, high rates of uninsured, etc. Plus, yes, put things into context with RSV and other viruses that are likely hitting kids harder right now after not being exposed to much the last year.

We need info, but a lot of people only want to focus on the info that terrifies parents about kids and Covid and don't want to discuss what it actually means, in context, in terms of risks to kids (especially in places with high vaccination rates, for instance).

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a f***ing covid party nightmare.
This is irresponsible.

Following CDC guidelines is irresponsible now? More than half of the District's population (not eligible population, total population) is fully vaccinated, teachers will be required to get a vaccine if they haven't yet, and vaccines for kids under 12 will surely be approved at some point this school year. And despite the delta variant, D.C.'s rolling average covid case rate is still currently lower than it was most of the previous school year.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully the mandated vaccine is the next step. All this is fine for not quarantining classes but teachers and school staff who continue to refuse to vaccinate will still follow quarantine rules when symptomatic. With the challenge already to finds subs it means that other teachers will have to take on the burden of their colleagues who refuse to take the vaccine or who knows what. Vaccine refusal became a morale problem amongst colleagues in my school in the spring.

DC government needs a vaccine mandate immediately.

It looks like a mandate will be announced at 11:00 am today.

Where?

[Anonymous]

Look this pandemic is going to ebb and flow for years. We will have a variant that the vaccine won’t work against. We will be going through cycles of masking and interrupted school/work for years. Just accept it. Are all of you going to be able to sustain this level of anger and exasperation for years? This is going to be years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully the mandated vaccine is the next step. All this is fine for not quarantining classes but teachers and school staff who continue to refuse to vaccinate will still follow quarantine rules when symptomatic. With the challenge already to finds subs it means that other teachers will have to take on the burden of their colleagues who refuse to take the vaccine or who knows what. Vaccine refusal became a morale problem amongst colleagues in my school in the spring.

DC government needs a vaccine mandate immediately.

It looks like a mandate will be announced at 11:00 am today.

Where?

Maybe here? http://video.oct.dc.gov/DCN/jw.html

Most of Bowser's press conferences are here.