APS mask policy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22207 is seeing quite the spike in covid cases. Nottingham is now leading the pack for the past seven days, and my kid said there were a lot of kids out today who were there last week. Williamsburg just got a bunch of new cases today that will hit the dashboard in the next day or two. Mask optional seems to be working out brilliantly!

Who cares. It’s still low level transmission. The whole point is the individuals in question and the community can handle these cases. We’re not in total covid panic avoidance anymore. And if you are, mask up with a good mask and call yourself the smartest one in the room and feel smug when others get covid.

Ten days of missed instruction even if you are asymptomatic is not nothing.

It's ten calendar days so less days of missed instruction but agreed that sucks and is THE thing that hangs over my head as a parent at this point in time.

The dashboard actually has so much good news but leave it to people to focus on bad news. 1 case at Wakefield in past 7 days is amazing.

Articles like these have just become noise to me. There might be some connection, limited sample sizes, needs further study - all of these things just can’t make me worry anymore.

Probably a bad time for me to be posting this new paper out explaining covid's effects on T cells, then. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-022-00919-x

I'm no expert, but I think this is showing that the covid virus acts even more destructively against the body's existing immunity system than was was previously understood. We knew that the virus had an aging effect on the body's T cells. This paper shows that in total, covid attacks stem cells, invades and infects CD4+ T-cells, and exhausts CD8 + T-cells. With severe infections, "infected T lymphocytes not only lost the ability to control viral infection but may also carry viruses to other parts of the body through blood circulation." I think that previously the only other diseases we knew about that acted in this way were, like, HIV and MERS?

I think the cases studied were severe infections, so I'm not saying that every Omicron infection has this devastating effect. But if covid does a lot of this in severe cases, wouldn't it do some of this in mild cases? Any doctors on here have a better understanding of this?

Anyhow, nothing to worry about, carry on with the great unmasking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22207 is seeing quite the spike in covid cases. Nottingham is now leading the pack for the past seven days, and my kid said there were a lot of kids out today who were there last week. Williamsburg just got a bunch of new cases today that will hit the dashboard in the next day or two. Mask optional seems to be working out brilliantly!

Who cares. It’s still low level transmission. The whole point is the individuals in question and the community can handle these cases. We’re not in total covid panic avoidance anymore. And if you are, mask up with a good mask and call yourself the smartest one in the room and feel smug when others get covid.

Ten days of missed instruction even if you are asymptomatic is not nothing.

It's ten calendar days so less days of missed instruction but agreed that sucks and is THE thing that hangs over my head as a parent at this point in time.

The dashboard actually has so much good news but leave it to people to focus on bad news. 1 case at Wakefield in past 7 days is amazing.

Sorry, 8 missed instructional days is not nothing. Is that better? For parents in schools starting to see spikes, the dashboard is concerning. That other schools are seeing lower case numbers is pretty cold comfort.

Sounds like your issue is with the policy. We need to stop all of this mandatory isolation non-sense. COVID's done, and we can't run a society like this. If you're sick, don't go to school.

My family is done with all this nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22207 is seeing quite the spike in covid cases. Nottingham is now leading the pack for the past seven days, and my kid said there were a lot of kids out today who were there last week. Williamsburg just got a bunch of new cases today that will hit the dashboard in the next day or two. Mask optional seems to be working out brilliantly!

]

This is predictable given that 22207 is the home of the privileged antimask Covid deniers who have to get back to "normal."

COVID Deniers is the term COVIDians that can assess that kids (even before vaccines) and vaccinated adults have a flu level risk with COVID. As for those unvaccinated who haven't had COVID, they're assuming the risk.

Time to move on. Even the Biden administration has now thrown the COVIDians off the bus too - they're an electoral anchor.

[Anonymous]

NINE cases at Nottingham reported on the dashboard now

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NINE cases at Nottingham reported on the dashboard now

Oh my god. Nine kids have the sniffles. How many cases of stomach flu (something I really worry about)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NINE cases at Nottingham reported on the dashboard now

So?? Find a hobby

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NINE cases at Nottingham reported on the dashboard now

Oh my god. Nine kids have the sniffles. How many cases of stomach flu (something I really worry about)?

Seriously. We had COVID in January when our too young to be vaxxed daughter brought it home from daycare. I am more scared of the stomach bug than I am of Omicron COVID. People need to learn to differentiate that we are not dealing in 2020 COVID. This IS different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22207 is seeing quite the spike in covid cases. Nottingham is now leading the pack for the past seven days, and my kid said there were a lot of kids out today who were there last week. Williamsburg just got a bunch of new cases today that will hit the dashboard in the next day or two. Mask optional seems to be working out brilliantly!

]

This is predictable given that 22207 is the home of the privileged antimask Covid deniers who have to get back to "normal."

This theory doesn't make any sense. If your description of 22207 were accurate, we would expect to see the 22207 schools with above-average case rates all through the pandemic because those families would have been engaged in higher-risk activities all along, but the data doesn't bear that out. For the pandemic as a whole, Yorktown is squarely in the middle between W-L and Wakefield, based on both total cases and relative to total student population. Hamm has the lowest case/student rate of the middle schools; Williamsburg is on the higher side, but clustered right with Gunston and Jefferson on a case/student basis. For the elementary schools, Discovery is above average on a case/student basis, but Nottingham, Jamestown and Taylor have been at or below average.

I can't tell you why there is a suddenly such a huge spike in cases in 22207, but the data does not support your theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NINE cases at Nottingham reported on the dashboard now

Oh my god. Nine kids have the sniffles. How many cases of stomach flu (something I really worry about)?

When kids are excluded from school for ten days due to "sniffles," that is cause for concern. You know school is about education, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22207 is seeing quite the spike in covid cases. Nottingham is now leading the pack for the past seven days, and my kid said there were a lot of kids out today who were there last week. Williamsburg just got a bunch of new cases today that will hit the dashboard in the next day or two. Mask optional seems to be working out brilliantly!

]

This is predictable given that 22207 is the home of the privileged antimask Covid deniers who have to get back to "normal."

This theory doesn't make any sense. If your description of 22207 were accurate, we would expect to see the 22207 schools with above-average case rates all through the pandemic because those families would have been engaged in higher-risk activities all along, but the data doesn't bear that out. For the pandemic as a whole, Yorktown is squarely in the middle between W-L and Wakefield, based on both total cases and relative to total student population. Hamm has the lowest case/student rate of the middle schools; Williamsburg is on the higher side, but clustered right with Gunston and Jefferson on a case/student basis. For the elementary schools, Discovery is above average on a case/student basis, but Nottingham, Jamestown and Taylor have been at or below average.

I can't tell you why there is a suddenly such a huge spike in cases in 22207, but the data does not support your theory.

Eh. Attitudes have been changing rapidly over the last few weeks and people who wore masks and took mandated precautions because they weren't rule breakers may feel more emboldened now that the mandates have dropped. If you look at the dashboard over the last 7 days for 22207 and the school breakdowns, Nottingham, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Williamsburg are all showing the highest number of cases across APS, in that order.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22207 is seeing quite the spike in covid cases. Nottingham is now leading the pack for the past seven days, and my kid said there were a lot of kids out today who were there last week. Williamsburg just got a bunch of new cases today that will hit the dashboard in the next day or two. Mask optional seems to be working out brilliantly!

]

This is predictable given that 22207 is the home of the privileged antimask Covid deniers who have to get back to "normal."

This theory doesn't make any sense. If your description of 22207 were accurate, we would expect to see the 22207 schools with above-average case rates all through the pandemic because those families would have been engaged in higher-risk activities all along, but the data doesn't bear that out. For the pandemic as a whole, Yorktown is squarely in the middle between W-L and Wakefield, based on both total cases and relative to total student population. Hamm has the lowest case/student rate of the middle schools; Williamsburg is on the higher side, but clustered right with Gunston and Jefferson on a case/student basis. For the elementary schools, Discovery is above average on a case/student basis, but Nottingham, Jamestown and Taylor have been at or below average.

I can't tell you why there is a suddenly such a huge spike in cases in 22207, but the data does not support your theory.

Eh. Attitudes have been changing rapidly over the last few weeks and people who wore masks and took mandated precautions because they weren't rule breakers may feel more emboldened now that the mandates have dropped. If you look at the dashboard over the last 7 days for 22207 and the school breakdowns, Nottingham, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Williamsburg are all showing the highest number of cases across APS, in that order.

If that’s the case, and this is really about people who have been rule-followers all pandemic now skipping masks at schools because it’s no longer the rule, that’s a red flag that it may have been premature to remove the mask requirement now. APS’s hands are tied on that because the parental opt-out law makes it infeasible to enforce any mask requirements going forward. Youngkin and the Republicans in the General Assembly are fools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22207 is seeing quite the spike in covid cases. Nottingham is now leading the pack for the past seven days, and my kid said there were a lot of kids out today who were there last week. Williamsburg just got a bunch of new cases today that will hit the dashboard in the next day or two. Mask optional seems to be working out brilliantly!

]

This is predictable given that 22207 is the home of the privileged antimask Covid deniers who have to get back to "normal."

This theory doesn't make any sense. If your description of 22207 were accurate, we would expect to see the 22207 schools with above-average case rates all through the pandemic because those families would have been engaged in higher-risk activities all along, but the data doesn't bear that out. For the pandemic as a whole, Yorktown is squarely in the middle between W-L and Wakefield, based on both total cases and relative to total student population. Hamm has the lowest case/student rate of the middle schools; Williamsburg is on the higher side, but clustered right with Gunston and Jefferson on a case/student basis. For the elementary schools, Discovery is above average on a case/student basis, but Nottingham, Jamestown and Taylor have been at or below average.

I can't tell you why there is a suddenly such a huge spike in cases in 22207, but the data does not support your theory.

Eh. Attitudes have been changing rapidly over the last few weeks and people who wore masks and took mandated precautions because they weren't rule breakers may feel more emboldened now that the mandates have dropped. If you look at the dashboard over the last 7 days for 22207 and the school breakdowns, Nottingham, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Williamsburg are all showing the highest number of cases across APS, in that order.

If that’s the case, and this is really about people who have been rule-followers all pandemic now skipping masks at schools because it’s no longer the rule, that’s a red flag that it may have been premature to remove the mask requirement now. APS’s hands are tied on that because the parental opt-out law makes it infeasible to enforce any mask requirements going forward. Youngkin and the Republicans in the General Assembly are fools.

Some people don't view the uptick in cases as a red flag or anything to feel overly concerned about. That's the disconnect that some posters are not getting. Some people are now thinking about getting and managing covid differently moving forward. Some people are okay with a low level of covid circulating. And yes, this is still a low level. I understand it makes some uncomfortable. Calling people fools is probably not helpful.

Also, there is still a legal case to be made that School Boards have the right to enforce mask mandates in their districts under VA constitution regardless of EOs and laws passed. This was part of their original case and I think is an issue still worth settling. I don't know if the School Boards will pursue this. However in general, around here I think an overwhelming majority of people will mask again when there are surges.

I can see that if you really don't want your child to get covid under any circumstance, this is all really unsettling and upsetting. If you were my friend in real life, I would tell you to find good quality KN95 masks and have your kids wear them well. Feel good about good weather and outside lunches, which APS has made a priority. And don't see anyone unmasked indoors. That's what you can do at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22207 is seeing quite the spike in covid cases. Nottingham is now leading the pack for the past seven days, and my kid said there were a lot of kids out today who were there last week. Williamsburg just got a bunch of new cases today that will hit the dashboard in the next day or two. Mask optional seems to be working out brilliantly!

]

This is predictable given that 22207 is the home of the privileged antimask Covid deniers who have to get back to "normal."

This theory doesn't make any sense. If your description of 22207 were accurate, we would expect to see the 22207 schools with above-average case rates all through the pandemic because those families would have been engaged in higher-risk activities all along, but the data doesn't bear that out. For the pandemic as a whole, Yorktown is squarely in the middle between W-L and Wakefield, based on both total cases and relative to total student population. Hamm has the lowest case/student rate of the middle schools; Williamsburg is on the higher side, but clustered right with Gunston and Jefferson on a case/student basis. For the elementary schools, Discovery is above average on a case/student basis, but Nottingham, Jamestown and Taylor have been at or below average.

I can't tell you why there is a suddenly such a huge spike in cases in 22207, but the data does not support your theory.

Eh. Attitudes have been changing rapidly over the last few weeks and people who wore masks and took mandated precautions because they weren't rule breakers may feel more emboldened now that the mandates have dropped. If you look at the dashboard over the last 7 days for 22207 and the school breakdowns, Nottingham, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Williamsburg are all showing the highest number of cases across APS, in that order.

If that’s the case, and this is really about people who have been rule-followers all pandemic now skipping masks at schools because it’s no longer the rule, that’s a red flag that it may have been premature to remove the mask requirement now. APS’s hands are tied on that because the parental opt-out law makes it infeasible to enforce any mask requirements going forward. Youngkin and the Republicans in the General Assembly are fools.

Some people don't view the uptick in cases as a red flag or anything to feel overly concerned about. That's the disconnect that some posters are not getting. Some people are now thinking about getting and managing covid differently moving forward. Some people are okay with a low level of covid circulating. And yes, this is still a low level. I understand it makes some uncomfortable. Calling people fools is probably not helpful.

Also, there is still a legal case to be made that School Boards have the right to enforce mask mandates in their districts under VA constitution regardless of EOs and laws passed. This was part of their original case and I think is an issue still worth settling. I don't know if the School Boards will pursue this. However in general, around here I think an overwhelming majority of people will mask again when there are surges.

I can see that if you really don't want your child to get covid under any circumstance, this is all really unsettling and upsetting. If you were my friend in real life, I would tell you to find good quality KN95 masks and have your kids wear them well. Feel good about good weather and outside lunches, which APS has made a priority. And don't see anyone unmasked indoors. That's what you can do at this point.

Or withdraw your kid(s) and home school. I don't say that in jest or lightly. But at some point, the majority moves on and if you don't align you explore other options.

[Anonymous]

And deep breaths...

https://www.statnews.com/2022/02/14/controlled-studies-ease-worries-widespread-long-covid-kids/

"Over the last two years, experts’ understanding of long Covid in children has deepened. Several peer-reviewed studies now include control groups consisting of children who did not have Covid-19 but who have lived through the same pandemic conditions — loneliness, interrupted schooling, anxiety, tensions at home, the loss of loved ones, and the like.

These studies indicate that long Covid in children is rare and, when it does occur, is short-lived."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And deep breaths...

https://www.statnews.com/2022/02/14/controlled-studies-ease-worries-widespread-long-covid-kids/

"Over the last two years, experts’ understanding of long Covid in children has deepened. Several peer-reviewed studies now include control groups consisting of children who did not have Covid-19 but who have lived through the same pandemic conditions — loneliness, interrupted schooling, anxiety, tensions at home, the loss of loved ones, and the like.

These studies indicate that long Covid in children is rare and, when it does occur, is short-lived."

Related article linked on that page: https://www.statnews.com/2021/06/10/as-more-kids-get-long-covid-doctors-still-cant-predict-who-is-at-risk/ As more kids go down the ‘deep, dark tunnel’ of long Covid, doctors still can’t predict who is at risk.

We could exchange these all day.