Have you sign-up for weekly asymptomatic testing at APS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vaccinate & mask & test until we get past this surge.

Almost over, people. We can do this.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/22/1039272244/is-the-worst-over-modelers-predict-a-steady-decline-in-covid-cases-through-march

You mean, get adults vaccinated and live your life.

Modelers?!? HAHAHA They've been so wrong this entire pandemic. This guy, Justin Lessler, on May 4, 2020 predicted 3,000 deaths by June 1, 2020 - there were actually 750 - so he was off by 4x. See predictions about Freedom Day in the UK this July. They were predicting cases would skyrocket, and they actually plummeted. See also Neil Ferguson's ridiculous modeled predictions in March 2020.

Do you have an RCT that shows masks work? No, you don't (and don't say the Bangladesh study, which showed cloth masks do NOT work and medical masks only worked for those over 40 - it didn't analyze kids either and was done prior to a vaccine).

My family has only masked since January where legally required and I encourage everyone in Arlington to stop wearing masks.



And when his kid's class is quarantined, let the s***show begin.

We follow the science --> no masks.

There's no RCT that shows that masks work (other than a KN95 or N95). The burden is on the party proposing the intervention to scientifically prove it works. Thus, we're following the science.

COVID is endemic and will be here forever. Everyone will be exposed to it repeatedly for the rest of their lives. Trying to "slow the spread" is a worthless endeavor, considering COVID will spread for the rest of your life. Best to get vaccinated to protect yourself.

Us adults are vaccinated. The unvaccinated kids under 12 have lower risk than us vaccinated adults (as shown by Public Health England's Data)

Please focus on your kids' health by returning to normal as their mental health matters.

CDC says vaccinate, mask, and test. I trust CDC over anonymous ODD poster.

Do your part as a member of society. Perhaps this is something you could discuss with your therapist.

The CDC also says don't let your dog lick you in the face and don't eat hamburgers and steak unless cooked well done. I think they have a very different risk perspective than most people.

The difference here is we are doing those things not just for ourselves. It’s a community / public health crisis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two questions I haven't seen the answer to. But I'm only asking here, anonymously, as there is so much division and judgment in the community over these issues.

(1) I am curious if my kids table-mates at school are opted-in to testing or not. Could the teacher seat the opted-in kids together, and the opted-out kids together? That would seem to suit both groups needs best.

(2) Does the teacher know which kids are opted in, and which aren't?

(Our family is not opted-in due to the many problems with the design and execution of the APS testing program. But I generally would support an evidence-based, rapid, test to stay program using best practices to keep kids in school.)

Bumping this again

To #2, I think the teacher must know - at my kids' ES, they get pulled out around lunch/recess to go test. So there's visibility. I'm trying to get my kids to tell me how many in their classes are doing the testing, but they're unreliable narrators.

[Anonymous]

Feel free to let your dog lick your face right after he licked his butt hole.

But please vaccinate (incl kids this fall), mask, and test.

[Anonymous]

Here is a study on the effectiveness of masks generally which also discusses cloth vs. other types of masks, noting that N95 masks are the most effective at prevention but that when there is a shortage of N95 masks or they need to be reserved for health care workers, cloth masks and other types of masks are also effective barriers against Covid infection. https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118. Cloth masks were found to be extremely effective in preventing contaminants from a infected person invected with seasonal coronaviruses, influenza, and rhinovirus, though not specifically Covid 19, from being released into the air -- they were effective at filtering out over 97% of contaminants. They have generally been found to be extremely effective at greatly limiting the spread of an emission cloud from an infected person. "In summary, there is laboratory-based evidence that household masks have filtration capacity in the relevant particle size range, as well as efficacy in blocking aerosols and droplets from the wearer."

From the perspective of the wearer, the study noted that research "on aerosol exposure has found all types of masks are at least somewhat effective at protecting the wearer. Vander der Sande et al found that 'all types of masks reduced aerosol exposure, relatively stable over time, unaffected by duration of wear or type of activity,' and concluded that 'any type of general mask use is likely to decrease viral exposure and infection risk on a population level, despite imperfect fit and imperfect adherence."

Also the study notes up front that there are obvious ethical reasons why we do not have controlled studies from the pandemic showing the effectiveness of masks, specifically cloth masks, vs. no masks against Covid: "Cochrane (7) and the World Health Organization (8) both point out that, for population health measures, we should not generally expect to be able to find controlled trials, due to logistical and ethical reasons, and should therefore instead seek a wider evidence base. This issue has been identified for studying community use of masks for COVID-19 in particular (9). Therefore, we should not be surprised to find that there is no RCT for the impact of masks on community transmission of any respiratory infection in a pandemic." In other words, it would be highly unethical to force some people not to wear masks and to give others cloth masks and N95 masks and then expose them to Covid. No scientist could perform such a study.

PP is looking at the "science" in such a skewed way that s/he is negating all the dozens/hundreds of studies previously performed showing that cloth masks, while not as effective as N95 masks, are still an effective filter against airborne disease generally and requiring something specifically designed to show effectiveness against Covid-19. Scientists generally recommend cloth masks when better masks aren't available, but PP has "done their own research" ha.

It's the same thing with testing: scientists generally recommend testing as much as possible including testing asymptomatic people because they still spread Covid.

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure teachers don't have the time to separate kids out at lunchtime according to who is getting tested. I wouldn't support further burdening teachers and aides with this. The teachers at my kid's middle school don't seem to know who gets tested, as the kids self report for testing and are not called from any roster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Making the contacts of asymptomatic Covid positive kids stay home from school is unnecessary and cruel. It will make no dent on the spread of Covid

How do you know the kids are asymptomatic vs. pre-symptomatic?

And asymptomatic cases can infect others...estimated to cause "one fifth of household infections".
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00059-4/fulltext

Link doesn’t work.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00059-4/fulltext

DP, but for future reference you can just copy and paste the text of the link and put in in your browser and hit go. But do you actually not know and need someone to prove to you that people who have covid but are asymptomatic actually can and have transmitted the virus to others? I thought we all learned that in early times even before Delta. I don't understand how you don't know this.

‘Can and have’ is extraordinarily different than ‘likely to’. So the study says that 20 percent of infections from a household member (eg those you live with, unmasked) were a symptomatic. 80 percent were symptomatic.
Last year 1.4 percent of school contacts developed COVID. That’s extraordinarily low. Now make that asymptotic s hook contacts and we are way below a 1 percent probability. Yet we are quarantining those kids and forcing them out of school

Last year the kids were spaced 6 feet and 10 at lunch, and schools were far below capacity, and we were dealing with a different variant. We're in different times now. Or haven't you been keeping up with the news?

Cases are going down in Arlington, now that schools are open.

Sometimes I feel like certain people want in-person school to fail, because its success will be a rebuke of everything they did last year (Ventilation Woman, Lunch Petitioner, CO2 Monitor Woman). I suppose if I fought for what will be the biggest educational disaster of my lifetime, I'd be pretty defensive about it too.

Admitting that schools are safe (and were safe last year) would mean coming to terms with the fact that you destroyed the educations of an entire generation of kids because of your own irrational anxiety. I'd be desperate too.

This surveillance testing is another way to pad these people's ego. I won't sign up.

So you won’t sign your kids up for testing…out of spite? Wow. You’re totally mental.

This is a fascinating window into the twisted APE mindset. I still don't understand how you don't see that better ventilation and outdoor lunch and testing are the things we need to keep schools open. It's right there in the CDC and all public health guidance. But that doesn't seem convincing to APE. Better to sit back and gripe and give nicknames to the people who advocate for these things, I guess. It's so sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Making the contacts of asymptomatic Covid positive kids stay home from school is unnecessary and cruel. It will make no dent on the spread of Covid

How do you know the kids are asymptomatic vs. pre-symptomatic?

And asymptomatic cases can infect others...estimated to cause "one fifth of household infections".
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00059-4/fulltext

Link doesn’t work.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00059-4/fulltext

DP, but for future reference you can just copy and paste the text of the link and put in in your browser and hit go. But do you actually not know and need someone to prove to you that people who have covid but are asymptomatic actually can and have transmitted the virus to others? I thought we all learned that in early times even before Delta. I don't understand how you don't know this.

‘Can and have’ is extraordinarily different than ‘likely to’. So the study says that 20 percent of infections from a household member (eg those you live with, unmasked) were a symptomatic. 80 percent were symptomatic.
Last year 1.4 percent of school contacts developed COVID. That’s extraordinarily low. Now make that asymptotic s hook contacts and we are way below a 1 percent probability. Yet we are quarantining those kids and forcing them out of school

Last year the kids were spaced 6 feet and 10 at lunch, and schools were far below capacity, and we were dealing with a different variant. We're in different times now. Or haven't you been keeping up with the news?

Cases are going down in Arlington, now that schools are open.

Sometimes I feel like certain people want in-person school to fail, because its success will be a rebuke of everything they did last year (Ventilation Woman, Lunch Petitioner, CO2 Monitor Woman). I suppose if I fought for what will be the biggest educational disaster of my lifetime, I'd be pretty defensive about it too.

Admitting that schools are safe (and were safe last year) would mean coming to terms with the fact that you destroyed the educations of an entire generation of kids because of your own irrational anxiety. I'd be desperate too.

This surveillance testing is another way to pad these people's ego. I won't sign up.

So you won’t sign your kids up for testing…out of spite? Wow. You’re totally mental.

This is a fascinating window into the twisted APE mindset. I still don't understand how you don't see that better ventilation and outdoor lunch and testing are the things we need to keep schools open. It's right there in the CDC and all public health guidance. But that doesn't seem convincing to APE. Better to sit back and gripe and give nicknames to the people who advocate for these things, I guess. It's so sad.

It’s just so counterproductive and irrational all around.

I don’t get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is a study on the effectiveness of masks generally which also discusses cloth vs. other types of masks, noting that N95 masks are the most effective at prevention but that when there is a shortage of N95 masks or they need to be reserved for health care workers, cloth masks and other types of masks are also effective barriers against Covid infection. https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118. Cloth masks were found to be extremely effective in preventing contaminants from a infected person invected with seasonal coronaviruses, influenza, and rhinovirus, though not specifically Covid 19, from being released into the air -- they were effective at filtering out over 97% of contaminants. They have generally been found to be extremely effective at greatly limiting the spread of an emission cloud from an infected person. "In summary, there is laboratory-based evidence that household masks have filtration capacity in the relevant particle size range, as well as efficacy in blocking aerosols and droplets from the wearer."

From the perspective of the wearer, the study noted that research "on aerosol exposure has found all types of masks are at least somewhat effective at protecting the wearer. Vander der Sande et al found that 'all types of masks reduced aerosol exposure, relatively stable over time, unaffected by duration of wear or type of activity,' and concluded that 'any type of general mask use is likely to decrease viral exposure and infection risk on a population level, despite imperfect fit and imperfect adherence."

Also the study notes up front that there are obvious ethical reasons why we do not have controlled studies from the pandemic showing the effectiveness of masks, specifically cloth masks, vs. no masks against Covid: "Cochrane (7) and the World Health Organization (8) both point out that, for population health measures, we should not generally expect to be able to find controlled trials, due to logistical and ethical reasons, and should therefore instead seek a wider evidence base. This issue has been identified for studying community use of masks for COVID-19 in particular (9). Therefore, we should not be surprised to find that there is no RCT for the impact of masks on community transmission of any respiratory infection in a pandemic." In other words, it would be highly unethical to force some people not to wear masks and to give others cloth masks and N95 masks and then expose them to Covid. No scientist could perform such a study.

PP is looking at the "science" in such a skewed way that s/he is negating all the dozens/hundreds of studies previously performed showing that cloth masks, while not as effective as N95 masks, are still an effective filter against airborne disease generally and requiring something specifically designed to show effectiveness against Covid-19. Scientists generally recommend cloth masks when better masks aren't available, but PP has "done their own research" ha.

It's the same thing with testing: scientists generally recommend testing as much as possible including testing asymptomatic people because they still spread Covid.

It is not a randomized control trial, which is what is standard for science.

Highly unethical to do an RCT?!? We do vaccine RCTs! That is such a joke of a line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

CDC says vaccinate, mask, and test. I trust CDC over anonymous ODD poster.

Do your part as a member of society. Perhaps this is something you could discuss with your therapist.

The CDC is looking at this from the perspective of lowering the risk to ALL (vaccinated and unvaccinated). Healthcare providers are nice like that. At this point in the pandemic, we are seeing that cases resulting in hospitalization are almost exclusively unvaccinated adults. At the risk of sounding like a jerk, I NO LONGER CARE about keeping unvaccinated people safe in NOVA. It is the CDC's job to care, but me and my kids don't have to go out of our way to protect the willfully ignorant any more. We vaccinate, we mask, we social distance, we don't go to crowded indoor places. I draw the line at quarantining healthy kids for the less than 1% chance that they may test positive for Covid.

My understanding from other discussions is that the majority of people in Arlington who are not yet vaccinated are from underserved or poorer communities, often communities of color, who either work several jobs at a time and don’t have the free time to get vaccinated or who have sometimes been underserved by government medical efforts in the past and are less trusting that the vaccinations will be safe for their communities. Can you see why it is inherently inequitable to write off people who have less access to the system than you and have fewer resources? I know you guys are all “me, me, me!” but can you see how that behavior is unfair here?

That said, if you were a medical professional risking their life every day, personally I would give you a pass if you wanted some level of triage. But medical professionals are often the most outspoken about wanting to save the lives of everyone possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Making the contacts of asymptomatic Covid positive kids stay home from school is unnecessary and cruel. It will make no dent on the spread of Covid

How do you know the kids are asymptomatic vs. pre-symptomatic?

And asymptomatic cases can infect others...estimated to cause "one fifth of household infections".
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00059-4/fulltext

Link doesn’t work.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00059-4/fulltext

DP, but for future reference you can just copy and paste the text of the link and put in in your browser and hit go. But do you actually not know and need someone to prove to you that people who have covid but are asymptomatic actually can and have transmitted the virus to others? I thought we all learned that in early times even before Delta. I don't understand how you don't know this.

‘Can and have’ is extraordinarily different than ‘likely to’. So the study says that 20 percent of infections from a household member (eg those you live with, unmasked) were a symptomatic. 80 percent were symptomatic.
Last year 1.4 percent of school contacts developed COVID. That’s extraordinarily low. Now make that asymptotic s hook contacts and we are way below a 1 percent probability. Yet we are quarantining those kids and forcing them out of school

Last year the kids were spaced 6 feet and 10 at lunch, and schools were far below capacity, and we were dealing with a different variant. We're in different times now. Or haven't you been keeping up with the news?

Cases are going down in Arlington, now that schools are open.

Sometimes I feel like certain people want in-person school to fail, because its success will be a rebuke of everything they did last year (Ventilation Woman, Lunch Petitioner, CO2 Monitor Woman). I suppose if I fought for what will be the biggest educational disaster of my lifetime, I'd be pretty defensive about it too.

Admitting that schools are safe (and were safe last year) would mean coming to terms with the fact that you destroyed the educations of an entire generation of kids because of your own irrational anxiety. I'd be desperate too.

This surveillance testing is another way to pad these people's ego. I won't sign up.

So you won’t sign your kids up for testing…out of spite? Wow. You’re totally mental.

This is a fascinating window into the twisted APE mindset. I still don't understand how you don't see that better ventilation and outdoor lunch and testing are the things we need to keep schools open. It's right there in the CDC and all public health guidance. But that doesn't seem convincing to APE. Better to sit back and gripe and give nicknames to the people who advocate for these things, I guess. It's so sad.

It’s just so counterproductive and irrational all around.

I don’t get it.

I guess they need to blame someone. I could see how they have some bitterness towards those who made the decision to close. But it's so, so odd to blame the closures on the parents who didn't advocate for schools to close and instead advocated for safety measures so they could open and stay open. That's just bizarre.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

CDC says vaccinate, mask, and test. I trust CDC over anonymous ODD poster.

Do your part as a member of society. Perhaps this is something you could discuss with your therapist.

The CDC is looking at this from the perspective of lowering the risk to ALL (vaccinated and unvaccinated). Healthcare providers are nice like that. At this point in the pandemic, we are seeing that cases resulting in hospitalization are almost exclusively unvaccinated adults. At the risk of sounding like a jerk, I NO LONGER CARE about keeping unvaccinated people safe in NOVA. It is the CDC's job to care, but me and my kids don't have to go out of our way to protect the willfully ignorant any more. We vaccinate, we mask, we social distance, we don't go to crowded indoor places. I draw the line at quarantining healthy kids for the less than 1% chance that they may test positive for Covid.

My understanding from other discussions is that the majority of people in Arlington who are not yet vaccinated are from underserved or poorer communities, often communities of color, who either work several jobs at a time and don’t have the free time to get vaccinated or who have sometimes been underserved by government medical efforts in the past and are less trusting that the vaccinations will be safe for their communities. Can you see why it is inherently inequitable to write off people who have less access to the system than you and have fewer resources? I know you guys are all “me, me, me!” but can you see how that behavior is unfair here?

That said, if you were a medical professional risking their life every day, personally I would give you a pass if you wanted some level of triage. But medical professionals are often the most outspoken about wanting to save the lives of everyone possible.

NOPE, NOPE, NOPE! I could maybe buy this argument back in summer of 2020 when there had been fewer doses administered and when you needed an appointment to get vaccinated. It has been a full year, and there has been no epidemic of vaccine side-effects, and no shortage of grocery stores, pharmacies, big-box stores that offer the vaccines. People who have not yet gotten vaccinated DO NOT WANT TO BE vaccinated. I say this as someone who grew up poor and in an immigrant household and who is still tied closely to the immigrant community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

CDC says vaccinate, mask, and test. I trust CDC over anonymous ODD poster.

Do your part as a member of society. Perhaps this is something you could discuss with your therapist.

The CDC is looking at this from the perspective of lowering the risk to ALL (vaccinated and unvaccinated). Healthcare providers are nice like that. At this point in the pandemic, we are seeing that cases resulting in hospitalization are almost exclusively unvaccinated adults. At the risk of sounding like a jerk, I NO LONGER CARE about keeping unvaccinated people safe in NOVA. It is the CDC's job to care, but me and my kids don't have to go out of our way to protect the willfully ignorant any more. We vaccinate, we mask, we social distance, we don't go to crowded indoor places. I draw the line at quarantining healthy kids for the less than 1% chance that they may test positive for Covid.

My understanding from other discussions is that the majority of people in Arlington who are not yet vaccinated are from underserved or poorer communities, often communities of color, who either work several jobs at a time and don’t have the free time to get vaccinated or who have sometimes been underserved by government medical efforts in the past and are less trusting that the vaccinations will be safe for their communities. Can you see why it is inherently inequitable to write off people who have less access to the system than you and have fewer resources? I know you guys are all “me, me, me!” but can you see how that behavior is unfair here?

That said, if you were a medical professional risking their life every day, personally I would give you a pass if you wanted some level of triage. But medical professionals are often the most outspoken about wanting to save the lives of everyone possible.

NOPE, NOPE, NOPE! I could maybe buy this argument back in summer of 2020 when there had been fewer doses administered and when you needed an appointment to get vaccinated. It has been a full year, and there has been no epidemic of vaccine side-effects, and no shortage of grocery stores, pharmacies, big-box stores that offer the vaccines. People who have not yet gotten vaccinated DO NOT WANT TO BE vaccinated. I say this as someone who grew up poor and in an immigrant household and who is still tied closely to the immigrant community.

Why don't they want to be vaccinated?

[Anonymous]

Why don't they want to be vaccinated?

For any of the reasons any other Americans don't want to be vaccinated: they think Covid isn't a big deal, they don't trust the government, they are afraid of "long-term" side effects, they heard that their cousin's friend's testicles swelled... any of the nonsense that is keeping people from getting the shot.

[Anonymous]

NOPE, NOPE, NOPE! I could maybe buy this argument back in summer of 2020 when there had been fewer doses administered and when you needed an appointment to get vaccinated. It has been a full year, and there has been no epidemic of vaccine side-effects, and no shortage of grocery stores, pharmacies, big-box stores that offer the vaccines. People who have not yet gotten vaccinated DO NOT WANT TO BE vaccinated. I say this as someone who grew up poor and in an immigrant household and who is still tied closely to the immigrant community.

Sorry, miswrote, meant summer of 2021 and over a half year since vaccines have been administered...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Why don't they want to be vaccinated?

For any of the reasons any other Americans don't want to be vaccinated: they think Covid isn't a big deal, they don't trust the government, they are afraid of "long-term" side effects, they heard that their cousin's friend's testicles swelled... any of the nonsense that is keeping people from getting the shot.

Seeing that African Americans are the least vaccinated demographic, that's why we should not have vaccine passports. Just a month ago, only 28% of black New Yorkers 18 to 44 were vaccinated. If you support vaccine passports, you're for barring almost 3 of every 4 black people from going to a restaurant. Now, even Black Lives Matters is protesting vaccine passports in New York.

People should actually trust the vaccines. COVID is not going away, no matter if 100% of people get vaccinated. Hopefully Virginia does not do this new form of segregation.

We should use positive messages to get people vaccinated, not coercion and racial segregation.