I’m getting nervous about school because of delta

[Anonymous]

LA County is doing weekly testing of staff and students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LA County is doing weekly testing of staff and students.

And they gave waaaaay more students/staff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also for the "kids don't catch and spread it" crowd, my cousin's 5yo just brought it home from daycare and passed it on to the family. The parents weren't vaccinated, so I have no clue if the kids were wearing masks at daycare.

How do you know the spread wasn't the other way around?

There was a case in the 5yo's daycare class so he had to quarantine. The next day he had mild symptoms, so they got him tested and he was positive. A 2 days later one parent had symptoms and tested positive, the next day the other parent. Their 3yo never had symptoms and tested negative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LA County is doing weekly testing of staff and students.

Many doctors have said it’s pointless to do screening testing.

In school rapid diagnostic testing and contact testing (versus quarantine) are shown to reduce in-school spread from low to even lower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why I’m keeping my 11 year old child home until she is fully vaccinated. We didn’t go through everything since March of 2020 to only have her get COVID (and possible long term effects) only months before a vaccine.

Ya’ll can send your kids if you really want. Go for it. MY kid’s long term health is not worth the risk and we have enough money to make it work. She’ll walk into school when she is two weeks post her 2nd shot.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-31/what-the-delta-variant-development-means-for-unvaccinated-kids

Swann recently published a report that found that in a worst-case scenario, without masking in schools, an additional 70% of children could be infected with the coronavirus within three months. Her research also shows that even if masking is required in all schools, if there are no other mitigation strategies, she still expects 40% of elementary school students to be infected within three months.

With regards to this upcoming school year and Delta generally, I find parents have split into two groups.

1. I will double down on my efforts to keep my kid from Covid. Because delta is more transmissible and the world is more open, this means being highly restrictive and curtailing their participation in school, activities, experiences but I am willing to do that.

2. Because Delta is so much more transmissible and we clearly aren’t reaching herd immunity as planned and hoped for, I have to accept I probably cannot keep my kid from getting Covid any longer. They will likely contract it at some point because the world is more open and Delta is highly transmissible but I can’t keep them out of schools and activities and experiences any longer so I have accepted Covid for them is probably going to happen but will, for the vast vast majority of them, be a non event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why I’m keeping my 11 year old child home until she is fully vaccinated. We didn’t go through everything since March of 2020 to only have her get COVID (and possible long term effects) only months before a vaccine.

Ya’ll can send your kids if you really want. Go for it. MY kid’s long term health is not worth the risk and we have enough money to make it work. She’ll walk into school when she is two weeks post her 2nd shot.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-31/what-the-delta-variant-development-means-for-unvaccinated-kids

Swann recently published a report that found that in a worst-case scenario, without masking in schools, an additional 70% of children could be infected with the coronavirus within three months. Her research also shows that even if masking is required in all schools, if there are no other mitigation strategies, she still expects 40% of elementary school students to be infected within three months.

With regards to this upcoming school year and Delta generally, I find parents have split into two groups.

1. I will double down on my efforts to keep my kid from Covid. Because delta is more transmissible and the world is more open, this means being highly restrictive and curtailing their participation in school, activities, experiences but I am willing to do that.

2. Because Delta is so much more transmissible and we clearly aren’t reaching herd immunity as planned and hoped for, I have to accept I probably cannot keep my kid from getting Covid any longer. They will likely contract it at some point because the world is more open and Delta is highly transmissible but I can’t keep them out of schools and activities and experiences any longer so I have accepted Covid for them is probably going to happen but will, for the vast vast majority of them, be a non event.

This is a good assessment. I'd add that some posters from category #1 point their finger at posters from category #2 and effectively say "it's your fault the pandemic isn't over", which is naive, simple-minded, and untrue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why I’m keeping my 11 year old child home until she is fully vaccinated. We didn’t go through everything since March of 2020 to only have her get COVID (and possible long term effects) only months before a vaccine.

Ya’ll can send your kids if you really want. Go for it. MY kid’s long term health is not worth the risk and we have enough money to make it work. She’ll walk into school when she is two weeks post her 2nd shot.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-31/what-the-delta-variant-development-means-for-unvaccinated-kids

Swann recently published a report that found that in a worst-case scenario, without masking in schools, an additional 70% of children could be infected with the coronavirus within three months. Her research also shows that even if masking is required in all schools, if there are no other mitigation strategies, she still expects 40% of elementary school students to be infected within three months.

With regards to this upcoming school year and Delta generally, I find parents have split into two groups.

1. I will double down on my efforts to keep my kid from Covid. Because delta is more transmissible and the world is more open, this means being highly restrictive and curtailing their participation in school, activities, experiences but I am willing to do that.

2. Because Delta is so much more transmissible and we clearly aren’t reaching herd immunity as planned and hoped for, I have to accept I probably cannot keep my kid from getting Covid any longer. They will likely contract it at some point because the world is more open and Delta is highly transmissible but I can’t keep them out of schools and activities and experiences any longer so I have accepted Covid for them is probably going to happen but will, for the vast vast majority of them, be a non event.

This is a good assessment. I'd add that some posters from category #1 point their finger at posters from category #2 and effectively say "it's your fault the pandemic isn't over", which is naive, simple-minded, and untrue.

Or, as the PP above shows, they believe we just don’t care as much about our kids’ health as they do about theirs. Which is also untrue, but each family will make the choices that work for them. Group 1 parents have the virtual option and presumably have chosen it, so at this point school just needs to move ahead as planned with the mitigation that is possible for the group 2’s. None of this “schools should be distance for all” nonsense. No, there is distance for the ones who wanted and needed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still think FCPS should require neg test for all staff and students 72 hours prior to the first day. To me this is a no brainer.

So I (and everyone else) should get a negative test on Friday, do all of my normal interactions thereafter, and then start school on Monday? What good would that do? I mean, we’d be negative Friday and then all bets are off.

It is the same thing taking an international flight. You could be negative 72 hours and then be positive, but it is to have a baseline to see if anyone is starting covid positive and removing them to avoid further spread.

They need to be doing rapid testing on a regular basis. I am not an epidemiologist so I don’t know best approach, but random sampling, pooled testing, etc...it is driving me crazy that public schools haven’t incorporated testing into their plans. These can be self administered tests, it doesn’t require using personal time and so on. I feel like this testing could be used to identify an emerging outbreak in a particular school.

Would that be expensive?

I’m sure it would cost $$$, but they received a lot of $ for Covid mitigation. My understanding is that pooled testing is a lot cheaper, in that they run all samples together and if they get positives they may have to go back and do more individual testing but it’s good for surveillance.

I don’t know the best way to do it, everyone on same day each week, random sampling of 20 percent each day, etc...the public health experts need to weigh in there and cost constraints may limit to some degree (I mean in an ideal world every kid and teacher would do a rapid home test every morning) but it really bothers me that this far into this thing testing isn’t part of the approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why I’m keeping my 11 year old child home until she is fully vaccinated. We didn’t go through everything since March of 2020 to only have her get COVID (and possible long term effects) only months before a vaccine.

Ya’ll can send your kids if you really want. Go for it. MY kid’s long term health is not worth the risk and we have enough money to make it work. She’ll walk into school when she is two weeks post her 2nd shot.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-31/what-the-delta-variant-development-means-for-unvaccinated-kids

Swann recently published a report that found that in a worst-case scenario, without masking in schools, an additional 70% of children could be infected with the coronavirus within three months. Her research also shows that even if masking is required in all schools, if there are no other mitigation strategies, she still expects 40% of elementary school students to be infected within three months.

What if they don’t approve a vaccine for under 12?

It’s always a possibility. I’ll reevaluate if it looks like they will not approve. Right now looks like they need more data to make a decision.

But not going to let my child walk into a situation where she (potentially) has a 4 out of 10 chance of being infected in the next three months. Nope, not for my kid. We stayed home, socially distanced and got vaccinated as soon as it was out turn. The rest of society might see children as “worth the risk”, but I’m not taking that chance with mine. If FCPS reopens the online ES option, I’ll look into that. Otherwise, happy to keep her home and she’ll learn plenty with me.

Good for you. If you don't feel comfortable with the risk of sending your ES kid to school, then you should explore home schooling or a virtual option. And maybe the equation will change in (hopefully) a few months when kids under 12 can get vaccinated. I'm personally okay with the risk as my 8 year old is very healthy and unlikely to have serious complications if she does get COVID. We all have different risk tolerance levels and it's good to have enough options out there that we can choose the one that we're most comfortable with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still think FCPS should require neg test for all staff and students 72 hours prior to the first day. To me this is a no brainer.

So I (and everyone else) should get a negative test on Friday, do all of my normal interactions thereafter, and then start school on Monday? What good would that do? I mean, we’d be negative Friday and then all bets are off.

It is the same thing taking an international flight. You could be negative 72 hours and then be positive, but it is to have a baseline to see if anyone is starting covid positive and removing them to avoid further spread.

They need to be doing rapid testing on a regular basis. I am not an epidemiologist so I don’t know best approach, but random sampling, pooled testing, etc...it is driving me crazy that public schools haven’t incorporated testing into their plans. These can be self administered tests, it doesn’t require using personal time and so on. I feel like this testing could be used to identify an emerging outbreak in a particular school.

Would that be expensive?

I’m sure it would cost $$$, but they received a lot of $ for Covid mitigation. My understanding is that pooled testing is a lot cheaper, in that they run all samples together and if they get positives they may have to go back and do more individual testing but it’s good for surveillance.

I don’t know the best way to do it, everyone on same day each week, random sampling of 20 percent each day, etc...the public health experts need to weigh in there and cost constraints may limit to some degree (I mean in an ideal world every kid and teacher would do a rapid home test every morning) but it really bothers me that this far into this thing testing isn’t part of the approach.

Do you recommend this even though FCPS trialed it and got no positives in the spring? Even though other districts STOPPED doing it last year because the only positives were false positives?

I believe in diagnostic testing or in screening of close contacts. But random screening testing has been widely panned.

A rate that low implies that a testing regimen would need to identify roughly 200 infected people to prevent one person from transmitting the disease in school. It would take an awful lot of tests to achieve those numbers. In New York City, where more than 234,000 asymptomatic students and staff members across approximately 1,600 schools were tested last fall, the overall rate of positive tests was only 0.4 percent. That suggests that — even during a time of high community spread — about 40,000 tests among asymptomatic individuals would need to be performed to prevent one in-school transmission.

And how accurate are these tests? Rapid antigen and saliva PCR tests, which are frequently used in schools, can have a false positive rate of 1 or 2 percent. That may sound low, but statisticians know that, when testing in a setting of low prevalence of disease, even a single-digit false-positive rate can be extremely problematic.
...
And each positive test requires more testing to verify the result — typically with a more accurate PCR nasal swab test. This would lead to anxiety for the student and his or her classmates; missed days of school (often for an entire class, which will probably be required to quarantine); missed days of work for parents (if the children need care when out of school); and investigation by the local public health department. Since most positives would be false, much of that time and effort would be wasted.
...
Testing continues to be an essential tool within schools. But it should be reserved for people who show symptoms and those who have had contact with people known to have been infected with the coronavirus. Surveillance testing of asymptomatic teachers and students is not only a waste of resources; it also threatens to radically disrupt the day-to-day functioning of schools. After a lost year of education, that’s the last thing we need.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/19/schools-covid-testing-cost/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why I’m keeping my 11 year old child home until she is fully vaccinated. We didn’t go through everything since March of 2020 to only have her get COVID (and possible long term effects) only months before a vaccine.

Ya’ll can send your kids if you really want. Go for it. MY kid’s long term health is not worth the risk and we have enough money to make it work. She’ll walk into school when she is two weeks post her 2nd shot.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-31/what-the-delta-variant-development-means-for-unvaccinated-kids

Swann recently published a report that found that in a worst-case scenario, without masking in schools, an additional 70% of children could be infected with the coronavirus within three months. Her research also shows that even if masking is required in all schools, if there are no other mitigation strategies, she still expects 40% of elementary school students to be infected within three months.

What if they don’t approve a vaccine for under 12?

It’s always a possibility. I’ll reevaluate if it looks like they will not approve. Right now looks like they need more data to make a decision.

But not going to let my child walk into a situation where she (potentially) has a 4 out of 10 chance of being infected in the next three months. Nope, not for my kid. We stayed home, socially distanced and got vaccinated as soon as it was out turn. The rest of society might see children as “worth the risk”, but I’m not taking that chance with mine. If FCPS reopens the online ES option, I’ll look into that. Otherwise, happy to keep her home and she’ll learn plenty with me.

Good for you. If you don't feel comfortable with the risk of sending your ES kid to school, then you should explore home schooling or a virtual option. And maybe the equation will change in (hopefully) a few months when kids under 12 can get vaccinated. I'm personally okay with the risk as my 8 year old is very healthy and unlikely to have serious complications if she does get COVID. We all have different risk tolerance levels and it's good to have enough options out there that we can choose the one that we're most comfortable with.

+100. Virtual Virgina Academy and Virtual Virginia both have programs for those who don't qualify for FCPS online campus but are now nervous. Or there are other online homeschool options. However FCPS has stated over and over again that their main focus is on an excellent in-person education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LA County is doing weekly testing of staff and students.

there is zero chance that I'd consent to that and risk weeks of no school while my asymptomatic kid quarantines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LA County is doing weekly testing of staff and students.

there is zero chance that I'd consent to that and risk weeks of no school while my asymptomatic kid quarantines.

"Why is FCPS not implementing testing of staff and students?

Vaccination is currently the leading public health prevention strategy to end the COVID-19 pandemic. CDC guidance provides that people who are fully vaccinated do not need to participate in screening testing and do not need to quarantine if they do not have any symptoms; though decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level. Screening testing
may be most valuable in areas with substantial or high community transmission levels, in areas with low vaccination coverage, and in schools where other prevention strategies are not implemented. "

We have a high percentage of adults and adolescents vaccinated (and a very high percent of school staff) and it looks like there's a good chance delta will peak before school even opens and we'll be down to moderate again.

[Anonymous]

Remember when we were kids and getting chickenpox was pretty much an inevitability and some parents would purposely expose their kids to kids who had chickenpox because they knew it was going to happen but this way they could just get it out of the way and have some say so in when it would happen? I kind of think Covid is like that for us as parents. Obviously we don’t want them to get covid and our parents didn’t want us to get chickenpox but the contagiousness of it meant it was going to happen so they just has to accept it and deal with it when it came. That’s where I’m at. When Covid felt like something that would go away with vaccines it was easier to be like “yeah we can stay home and do DL.” It’s now a long term thing. I can’t evade it forever so until my kids can vaccinate it’s a healthier mindset for me to be like “we will mask and take precautions but also understand in the course of life they probably will get it and we will manage.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LA County is doing weekly testing of staff and students.

there is zero chance that I'd consent to that and risk weeks of no school while my asymptomatic kid quarantines.

If your kid has covid and is asymptomatic, they should quarantine so they don’t spread it.