Taking Bets: Does DCPS go through with it?? Please no other posts

[Anonymous]

What you are all forgetting is, now that European countries are experiencing the numbers the US have had, they are going into lockdowns, closing schools, imposing curfews etc.
Common sense tells me schools will not open in February.

[Anonymous]

DCPS will open Feb 1 and kids will go into the school buildings. Yes, cases are going up, but in a per capita basis we are still better than most of the country.

When it spreads schools will close, clean and then re-open again. Then cycle will repeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:France decided to keep their schools fully open and considers there to be a lack of evidence that the new variant will change transmission in schools significantly. I think dc will go through with it. Children are at low risk if they catch the virus. Their teachers will have had at least their first dose of the vaccine, and although there have been cases in DC schools (as is to be expected), schools are not drivers of community spread. Testing protocol will even further reduce any risk of a child catching the virus at school. The only downside I can see is that the dcps plan only serves a small portion of the priority population while inconveniencing many.

My MD relative in Paris says that there is no systematic testing in schools, and that if there were, schools would shut down pronto. Although instead of "pronto", she said "vite fait", French for pronto.

I would also like to add: schools may have been open, but there have been rolling lockdowns of varying strictness, during which you couldn't leave your house without a note, or you couldn't leave your city, or you could only buy from 20% of the supermarket, because 80% of items were considered non-essential (nail clippers? non-essential, move along!), and right now there are curfews. The curfew in Paris was just pulled back to 6pm. So you have to be in your own home by 6pm or you get yourself a nice fine.

The reason for the difference in opening schools in France versus Britain is that Britain is still researching the impacts of the new variant on schools, and preparing schools for reopening. In France the variant is not yet widespread (though it will be widespread within about one month). France considers that the research is not conclusive enough that the variant will become a problem in schools. Additional testing would of course show additional cases. However, we already know from experiments where children were tested widely in schools (such as NYC) that the prevalence of covid among schoolchildren is lower than that in the community. This is the basis for keeping schools open. In-person school has been such a priority in France that attendance is required with no distance learning option.

[Anonymous]

Nope!