Should we prepare for virtual schooling starting in January?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no point to requiring a PCR test to return to school when your school community is in the middle of a widespread outbreak of a disease.

Requiring testing makes sense when you area has little community spread, but students might have traveled to areas of spread.

But if COVID is widely circulating in the community, a single test on a single day is pretty meaningless, as they can just pick COVID up from the community that afternoon.

If you don't want COVID in the schools, either switch to virtual until COVID spread in the community is no longer widespread, or acknowledge that COVID is widespread and make KN95 masks mandatory and don't allow kids to eat near each other (this part is very hard). Or just allow spread during the lunch time and hope for the best.

What does it matter if COVID is in school buildings if students and staff have it anyway, whether you let them in the building or not? Is it worse for COVID to be in school buildings vs everywhere else?

What about the kids and staff who don’t have it? What about the staff who get sick enough to need leave? What about those with health issues?

We are talking about mcps not MoCo. MoCo Is a different topic. The issue is keeping staff, students and families safe.

The best way to keep students safe is to keep them in school. You’re obviously not interested in what is best for students here.

So you're saying the best way to keep them safe is to expose them to COVID?

Why are you so worried about your kids getting covid? Are you all not vaccinated?

You aren't concerned about your children getting a deadly virus that has claimed the lives of millions?

No, because they’re vaccinated!
And BEFORE they were vaccinated, they were STILL at less risk of severe outcomes from covid than RSV or flu!
I also have an unvaccinated 3 year old and the risk to him is still EXTREMELY small; again, less than RSV and flu.
This is actually a fact, as hard as it might be for you to hear this!
When have we ever shut down an entire school system for flu? Even though it is literally more dangerous than covid?
I swear, some of y’all covid extremists are just as ignorant and anti-science as the anti vaxxers.

And before you come in here like “but, LONG COVID!!!” the risk of long covid is, contrary to popular belief, also very small.

No person who actually works in public health (as I do) would EVER be as cavalier about the actual societal harms of shutting down essential services like education. Before vaccines, the calculation was different (and yet every other county in the world still managed to provide more school to their kids than Maryland). We are prioritizing the wrong things. A pandemic response that imposes 100% of the burden to respond on individuals and deprives kids of education is not good for society and not good for public health and not effective at mitigating spread of the virus.

But the anti-science, irrational hysteria and crippling re-entry anxiety from people like you is what gives our government cover to continue their half-assed and ineffective pandemic response.

No one who actually works in public health thinks this is what is happening, but nice try blaming your frustration with policy on random cautious individuals.

My kids are in pgcps and this is, in fact, literally what is happening.

PG had to close because they reached a point where they didn’t have enough staff to safely open the schools. I’m not sure what else they could have done. Hogan was an ass to call them out. This could happen in MCPS. MCPS should have central office staff serve as backup so schools don’t have to close but I doubt they will do that

That’s such a cop-out. Do hospitals close when they have a hard time with nurses calling out? No, they contract with other companies to bring in temporary staff that are paid at much higher than usual rates.

Actually many hospitals have empty beds because they cannot get enough staff. That's why you see ER's overcrowded because they cannot quickly shift people to inpatient beds and they have to hold them till a bed is available.

And do short-staffed hospitals close, telling patients to Zoom into a telemedicine visit instead? Do they send ventilators home for family members to use after on patients after watching a youtube video?

No, they do what they have to do to stay open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Md hospitals already having issues

+1 Elective surgeries already cancelled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no point to requiring a PCR test to return to school when your school community is in the middle of a widespread outbreak of a disease.

Requiring testing makes sense when you area has little community spread, but students might have traveled to areas of spread.

But if COVID is widely circulating in the community, a single test on a single day is pretty meaningless, as they can just pick COVID up from the community that afternoon.

If you don't want COVID in the schools, either switch to virtual until COVID spread in the community is no longer widespread, or acknowledge that COVID is widespread and make KN95 masks mandatory and don't allow kids to eat near each other (this part is very hard). Or just allow spread during the lunch time and hope for the best.

What does it matter if COVID is in school buildings if students and staff have it anyway, whether you let them in the building or not? Is it worse for COVID to be in school buildings vs everywhere else?

What about the kids and staff who don’t have it? What about the staff who get sick enough to need leave? What about those with health issues?

We are talking about mcps not MoCo. MoCo Is a different topic. The issue is keeping staff, students and families safe.

The best way to keep students safe is to keep them in school. You’re obviously not interested in what is best for students here.

So you're saying the best way to keep them safe is to expose them to COVID?

Why are you so worried about your kids getting covid? Are you all not vaccinated?

Here’s why:

I know several families who have covid. All were vaccinated. Here’s how it played out:

Older kids who were vaxxed but not boosted got very sick. Think: 2 weeks of symptoms.

Those who were very recently boosted (1-3 weeks) had the mildest symptoms. Everyone who was boosted more than a month out were laid up in bed for nearly two weeks (or on the toilet).

I’m boosted, but I’m convinced the protection wanes much faster than doctors predict.

I don’t have time for my family of six to be sick for weeks on end. Since my kids aren’t boosted, I’m worried they will be sick for a while. My booster is 1+ month out, and dh’s is 2+ months out.

Ok, so you “don’t have time…”
I thought this was about safety?
Is 2 weeks of illness less “inconvenient” than 4 weeks of virtual school + 2 weeks of Illness? If getting a breakthrough case is inevitable, I think 6 weeks of inconvenience is greater than 2, no? Is my math correct here?

Let me clarify: when one person gets covid, your household doesn’t typically get it immediately. The dominoes fall more slowly, and the timeline extends beyond 2 weeks. Relatives are currently on week 3 with covid; they are a family of 4.

As a working mom of 4, I definitely don’t have sufficient leave for multiple weeks of covid.

I am not afraid that any of us will die. We are vaxxed. The adults are boosted. We will survive.

The original question I responded to was what are you afraid of if you are vaxxed. I told you.

Fwiw, people with asthma or who typically need inhalers or nebulizers when they have an upper respiratory infection are struggling with omicron despite being vaxxed.

Everyone is sick right now. It makes no sense to drag everyone back on the heels of the holidays when people are traveling and going to parties. Covid is surging right now, but should peak by the end result f January. Virtual until February would help get things under control.

Your story doesn’t make sense. You don’t have 4 weeks of leave for covid quarantine, but you do have four weeks of leave for virtual school?

?

My kids were virtual for over a year while I worked from home. They quickly learned the technology. I didn’t hover. My office is still working remotely. I’d rather have 4 weeks of virtual learning in January than 4 weeks of covid in my house. I’m also the primary caregiver for my elderly parents. If my family gets sick, there’s nobody local to care for them.

Take your kids out for January then. Trust me nobody will bother you about it. School shouldn’t close because of your personal risk assessment.

This.

If PP wants to homeschool, so be it.

The rest of us want proper public schooling.

You’re not going to be getting it in MCPS in January 2022. Take it to the bank.

We'll see. The 'take it to the bank' posters were out in force in August as well.

Yeah l had a coworker who is convinced that we would be flipping to virtual by October 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no point to requiring a PCR test to return to school when your school community is in the middle of a widespread outbreak of a disease.

Requiring testing makes sense when you area has little community spread, but students might have traveled to areas of spread.

But if COVID is widely circulating in the community, a single test on a single day is pretty meaningless, as they can just pick COVID up from the community that afternoon.

If you don't want COVID in the schools, either switch to virtual until COVID spread in the community is no longer widespread, or acknowledge that COVID is widespread and make KN95 masks mandatory and don't allow kids to eat near each other (this part is very hard). Or just allow spread during the lunch time and hope for the best.

What does it matter if COVID is in school buildings if students and staff have it anyway, whether you let them in the building or not? Is it worse for COVID to be in school buildings vs everywhere else?

What about the kids and staff who don’t have it? What about the staff who get sick enough to need leave? What about those with health issues?

We are talking about mcps not MoCo. MoCo Is a different topic. The issue is keeping staff, students and families safe.

The best way to keep students safe is to keep them in school. You’re obviously not interested in what is best for students here.

So you're saying the best way to keep them safe is to expose them to COVID?

Why are you so worried about your kids getting covid? Are you all not vaccinated?

You aren't concerned about your children getting a deadly virus that has claimed the lives of millions?

No, because they’re vaccinated!
And BEFORE they were vaccinated, they were STILL at less risk of severe outcomes from covid than RSV or flu!
I also have an unvaccinated 3 year old and the risk to him is still EXTREMELY small; again, less than RSV and flu.
This is actually a fact, as hard as it might be for you to hear this!
When have we ever shut down an entire school system for flu? Even though it is literally more dangerous than covid?
I swear, some of y’all covid extremists are just as ignorant and anti-science as the anti vaxxers.

And before you come in here like “but, LONG COVID!!!” the risk of long covid is, contrary to popular belief, also very small.

No person who actually works in public health (as I do) would EVER be as cavalier about the actual societal harms of shutting down essential services like education. Before vaccines, the calculation was different (and yet every other county in the world still managed to provide more school to their kids than Maryland). We are prioritizing the wrong things. A pandemic response that imposes 100% of the burden to respond on individuals and deprives kids of education is not good for society and not good for public health and not effective at mitigating spread of the virus.

But the anti-science, irrational hysteria and crippling re-entry anxiety from people like you is what gives our government cover to continue their half-assed and ineffective pandemic response.

No one who actually works in public health thinks this is what is happening, but nice try blaming your frustration with policy on random cautious individuals.

My kids are in pgcps and this is, in fact, literally what is happening.

PG had to close because they reached a point where they didn’t have enough staff to safely open the schools. I’m not sure what else they could have done. Hogan was an ass to call them out. This could happen in MCPS. MCPS should have central office staff serve as backup so schools don’t have to close but I doubt they will do that

That’s such a cop-out. Do hospitals close when they have a hard time with nurses calling out? No, they contract with other companies to bring in temporary staff that are paid at much higher than usual rates.

Actually many hospitals have empty beds because they cannot get enough staff. That's why you see ER's overcrowded because they cannot quickly shift people to inpatient beds and they have to hold them till a bed is available.

And do short-staffed hospitals close, telling patients to Zoom into a telemedicine visit instead? Do they send ventilators home for family members to use after on patients after watching a youtube video?

No, they do what they have to do to stay open.

Where I go many of the appointments are still virtual or calls.

[Anonymous]

Our private in Los Angeles just went back to remote. Sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no point to requiring a PCR test to return to school when your school community is in the middle of a widespread outbreak of a disease.

Requiring testing makes sense when you area has little community spread, but students might have traveled to areas of spread.

But if COVID is widely circulating in the community, a single test on a single day is pretty meaningless, as they can just pick COVID up from the community that afternoon.

If you don't want COVID in the schools, either switch to virtual until COVID spread in the community is no longer widespread, or acknowledge that COVID is widespread and make KN95 masks mandatory and don't allow kids to eat near each other (this part is very hard). Or just allow spread during the lunch time and hope for the best.

What does it matter if COVID is in school buildings if students and staff have it anyway, whether you let them in the building or not? Is it worse for COVID to be in school buildings vs everywhere else?

What about the kids and staff who don’t have it? What about the staff who get sick enough to need leave? What about those with health issues?

We are talking about mcps not MoCo. MoCo Is a different topic. The issue is keeping staff, students and families safe.

The best way to keep students safe is to keep them in school. You’re obviously not interested in what is best for students here.

So you're saying the best way to keep them safe is to expose them to COVID?

Why are you so worried about your kids getting covid? Are you all not vaccinated?

You aren't concerned about your children getting a deadly virus that has claimed the lives of millions?

No, because they’re vaccinated!
And BEFORE they were vaccinated, they were STILL at less risk of severe outcomes from covid than RSV or flu!
I also have an unvaccinated 3 year old and the risk to him is still EXTREMELY small; again, less than RSV and flu.
This is actually a fact, as hard as it might be for you to hear this!
When have we ever shut down an entire school system for flu? Even though it is literally more dangerous than covid?
I swear, some of y’all covid extremists are just as ignorant and anti-science as the anti vaxxers.

And before you come in here like “but, LONG COVID!!!” the risk of long covid is, contrary to popular belief, also very small.

No person who actually works in public health (as I do) would EVER be as cavalier about the actual societal harms of shutting down essential services like education. Before vaccines, the calculation was different (and yet every other county in the world still managed to provide more school to their kids than Maryland). We are prioritizing the wrong things. A pandemic response that imposes 100% of the burden to respond on individuals and deprives kids of education is not good for society and not good for public health and not effective at mitigating spread of the virus.

But the anti-science, irrational hysteria and crippling re-entry anxiety from people like you is what gives our government cover to continue their half-assed and ineffective pandemic response.

No one who actually works in public health thinks this is what is happening, but nice try blaming your frustration with policy on random cautious individuals.

My kids are in pgcps and this is, in fact, literally what is happening.

PG had to close because they reached a point where they didn’t have enough staff to safely open the schools. I’m not sure what else they could have done. Hogan was an ass to call them out. This could happen in MCPS. MCPS should have central office staff serve as backup so schools don’t have to close but I doubt they will do that

That’s such a cop-out. Do hospitals close when they have a hard time with nurses calling out? No, they contract with other companies to bring in temporary staff that are paid at much higher than usual rates.

Actually many hospitals have empty beds because they cannot get enough staff. That's why you see ER's overcrowded because they cannot quickly shift people to inpatient beds and they have to hold them till a bed is available.

And do short-staffed hospitals close, telling patients to Zoom into a telemedicine visit instead? Do they send ventilators home for family members to use after on patients after watching a youtube video?

No, they do what they have to do to stay open.

Where I go many of the appointments are still virtual or calls.

Virtual hospitals? Great cost savings there. We usually don‘t describe ER visits and hospital admissions as “appointments,” though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Md hospitals already having issues

+1 Elective surgeries already cancelled.

Some are being postponed. Many aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our private in Los Angeles just went back to remote. Sigh.

That's great. Since this is talking about MCPS, not your private in LA, you can fly out to MoCo and see our lovely community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Md hospitals already having issues

+1 Elective surgeries already cancelled.

Some are being postponed. Many aren't.

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021/12/23/md-hospitals-surpass-1500-covid-19-hospitalizations-triggering-changes/

“Our projections now show that in the coming weeks, we could reach record levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Maryland, possibly over 2,000. We have been actively preparing for this scenario in coordination with all of our hospitals, and today’s actions are the latest step in that planning,” said Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R).

"In preparation for the surge, Maryland committed $100 million in emergency funding to address hospital and nursing home staffing needs."

That's certainly $100 million well spent!!!! Great job Hogan!!! You're awesome!!!! (I'd say you should do a Victory Lap, but you're probably in one of those hospital beds yourself?)

Now MCPS is going to accelerate that trend next week!!!! Great job MCPS!!!

[Anonymous]

Teachers should be strongly encouraged to remain COVID free. We should be providing them with rapid testing kits for their families and with KN95 masks all break so they can try to stay healthy and be able to come to work next week. If teachers are healthy, schools can remain open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no point to requiring a PCR test to return to school when your school community is in the middle of a widespread outbreak of a disease.

Requiring testing makes sense when you area has little community spread, but students might have traveled to areas of spread.

But if COVID is widely circulating in the community, a single test on a single day is pretty meaningless, as they can just pick COVID up from the community that afternoon.

If you don't want COVID in the schools, either switch to virtual until COVID spread in the community is no longer widespread, or acknowledge that COVID is widespread and make KN95 masks mandatory and don't allow kids to eat near each other (this part is very hard). Or just allow spread during the lunch time and hope for the best.

What does it matter if COVID is in school buildings if students and staff have it anyway, whether you let them in the building or not? Is it worse for COVID to be in school buildings vs everywhere else?

What about the kids and staff who don’t have it? What about the staff who get sick enough to need leave? What about those with health issues?

We are talking about mcps not MoCo. MoCo Is a different topic. The issue is keeping staff, students and families safe.

The best way to keep students safe is to keep them in school. You’re obviously not interested in what is best for students here.

So you're saying the best way to keep them safe is to expose them to COVID?

Why are you so worried about your kids getting covid? Are you all not vaccinated?

Here’s why:

I know several families who have covid. All were vaccinated. Here’s how it played out:

Older kids who were vaxxed but not boosted got very sick. Think: 2 weeks of symptoms.

Those who were very recently boosted (1-3 weeks) had the mildest symptoms. Everyone who was boosted more than a month out were laid up in bed for nearly two weeks (or on the toilet).

I’m boosted, but I’m convinced the protection wanes much faster than doctors predict.

I don’t have time for my family of six to be sick for weeks on end. Since my kids aren’t boosted, I’m worried they will be sick for a while. My booster is 1+ month out, and dh’s is 2+ months out.

Ok, so you “don’t have time…”
I thought this was about safety?
Is 2 weeks of illness less “inconvenient” than 4 weeks of virtual school + 2 weeks of Illness? If getting a breakthrough case is inevitable, I think 6 weeks of inconvenience is greater than 2, no? Is my math correct here?

Let me clarify: when one person gets covid, your household doesn’t typically get it immediately. The dominoes fall more slowly, and the timeline extends beyond 2 weeks. Relatives are currently on week 3 with covid; they are a family of 4.

As a working mom of 4, I definitely don’t have sufficient leave for multiple weeks of covid.

I am not afraid that any of us will die. We are vaxxed. The adults are boosted. We will survive.

The original question I responded to was what are you afraid of if you are vaxxed. I told you.

Fwiw, people with asthma or who typically need inhalers or nebulizers when they have an upper respiratory infection are struggling with omicron despite being vaxxed.

Everyone is sick right now. It makes no sense to drag everyone back on the heels of the holidays when people are traveling and going to parties. Covid is surging right now, but should peak by the end result f January. Virtual until February would help get things under control.

Your story doesn’t make sense. You don’t have 4 weeks of leave for covid quarantine, but you do have four weeks of leave for virtual school?

?

My kids were virtual for over a year while I worked from home. They quickly learned the technology. I didn’t hover. My office is still working remotely. I’d rather have 4 weeks of virtual learning in January than 4 weeks of covid in my house. I’m also the primary caregiver for my elderly parents. If my family gets sick, there’s nobody local to care for them.

Take your kids out for January then. Trust me nobody will bother you about it. School shouldn’t close because of your personal risk assessment.

This.

If PP wants to homeschool, so be it.

The rest of us want proper public schooling.

You’re not going to be getting it in MCPS in January 2022. Take it to the bank.

We'll see. The 'take it to the bank' posters were out in force in August as well.

Yeah l had a coworker who is convinced that we would be flipping to virtual by October 1.

One guy I know was wrong in October! Therefore now, with a 16% positivity rate in a district that has already told us they will “assess” to flip to virtual at 5% positivity, WE SHOULD NOT BE PREPARING FOR VIRTUAL. No no no. Definitely not!

Y’all crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no point to requiring a PCR test to return to school when your school community is in the middle of a widespread outbreak of a disease.

Requiring testing makes sense when you area has little community spread, but students might have traveled to areas of spread.

But if COVID is widely circulating in the community, a single test on a single day is pretty meaningless, as they can just pick COVID up from the community that afternoon.

If you don't want COVID in the schools, either switch to virtual until COVID spread in the community is no longer widespread, or acknowledge that COVID is widespread and make KN95 masks mandatory and don't allow kids to eat near each other (this part is very hard). Or just allow spread during the lunch time and hope for the best.

What does it matter if COVID is in school buildings if students and staff have it anyway, whether you let them in the building or not? Is it worse for COVID to be in school buildings vs everywhere else?

What about the kids and staff who don’t have it? What about the staff who get sick enough to need leave? What about those with health issues?

We are talking about mcps not MoCo. MoCo Is a different topic. The issue is keeping staff, students and families safe.

The best way to keep students safe is to keep them in school. You’re obviously not interested in what is best for students here.

So you're saying the best way to keep them safe is to expose them to COVID?

Why are you so worried about your kids getting covid? Are you all not vaccinated?

Here’s why:

I know several families who have covid. All were vaccinated. Here’s how it played out:

Older kids who were vaxxed but not boosted got very sick. Think: 2 weeks of symptoms.

Those who were very recently boosted (1-3 weeks) had the mildest symptoms. Everyone who was boosted more than a month out were laid up in bed for nearly two weeks (or on the toilet).

I’m boosted, but I’m convinced the protection wanes much faster than doctors predict.

I don’t have time for my family of six to be sick for weeks on end. Since my kids aren’t boosted, I’m worried they will be sick for a while. My booster is 1+ month out, and dh’s is 2+ months out.

Ok, so you “don’t have time…”
I thought this was about safety?
Is 2 weeks of illness less “inconvenient” than 4 weeks of virtual school + 2 weeks of Illness? If getting a breakthrough case is inevitable, I think 6 weeks of inconvenience is greater than 2, no? Is my math correct here?

Let me clarify: when one person gets covid, your household doesn’t typically get it immediately. The dominoes fall more slowly, and the timeline extends beyond 2 weeks. Relatives are currently on week 3 with covid; they are a family of 4.

As a working mom of 4, I definitely don’t have sufficient leave for multiple weeks of covid.

I am not afraid that any of us will die. We are vaxxed. The adults are boosted. We will survive.

The original question I responded to was what are you afraid of if you are vaxxed. I told you.

Fwiw, people with asthma or who typically need inhalers or nebulizers when they have an upper respiratory infection are struggling with omicron despite being vaxxed.

Everyone is sick right now. It makes no sense to drag everyone back on the heels of the holidays when people are traveling and going to parties. Covid is surging right now, but should peak by the end result f January. Virtual until February would help get things under control.

Your story doesn’t make sense. You don’t have 4 weeks of leave for covid quarantine, but you do have four weeks of leave for virtual school?

?

My kids were virtual for over a year while I worked from home. They quickly learned the technology. I didn’t hover. My office is still working remotely. I’d rather have 4 weeks of virtual learning in January than 4 weeks of covid in my house. I’m also the primary caregiver for my elderly parents. If my family gets sick, there’s nobody local to care for them.

Take your kids out for January then. Trust me nobody will bother you about it. School shouldn’t close because of your personal risk assessment.

This.

If PP wants to homeschool, so be it.

The rest of us want proper public schooling.

You’re not going to be getting it in MCPS in January 2022. Take it to the bank.

We'll see. The 'take it to the bank' posters were out in force in August as well.

Yeah l had a coworker who is convinced that we would be flipping to virtual by October 1.

One guy I know was wrong in October! Therefore now, with a 16% positivity rate in a district that has already told us they will “assess” to flip to virtual at 5% positivity, WE SHOULD NOT BE PREPARING FOR VIRTUAL. No no no. Definitely not!

Y’all crazy.

Thank you, PP. I'm a NP and this is maddening.

"People said something bad would happen a different time and it wasn't as bad as (I thought) they said it would be! Therefore, in the face of hard evidence that things are already even worse, I'm going to guess they're not going to get as bad as they already are. A person made a negative prediction before, and was 'wrong.' Now other people are making a negative prediction, so they must also be wrong. QED."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no point to requiring a PCR test to return to school when your school community is in the middle of a widespread outbreak of a disease.

Requiring testing makes sense when you area has little community spread, but students might have traveled to areas of spread.

But if COVID is widely circulating in the community, a single test on a single day is pretty meaningless, as they can just pick COVID up from the community that afternoon.

If you don't want COVID in the schools, either switch to virtual until COVID spread in the community is no longer widespread, or acknowledge that COVID is widespread and make KN95 masks mandatory and don't allow kids to eat near each other (this part is very hard). Or just allow spread during the lunch time and hope for the best.

What does it matter if COVID is in school buildings if students and staff have it anyway, whether you let them in the building or not? Is it worse for COVID to be in school buildings vs everywhere else?

What about the kids and staff who don’t have it? What about the staff who get sick enough to need leave? What about those with health issues?

We are talking about mcps not MoCo. MoCo Is a different topic. The issue is keeping staff, students and families safe.

The best way to keep students safe is to keep them in school. You’re obviously not interested in what is best for students here.

So you're saying the best way to keep them safe is to expose them to COVID?

Why are you so worried about your kids getting covid? Are you all not vaccinated?

Here’s why:

I know several families who have covid. All were vaccinated. Here’s how it played out:

Older kids who were vaxxed but not boosted got very sick. Think: 2 weeks of symptoms.

Those who were very recently boosted (1-3 weeks) had the mildest symptoms. Everyone who was boosted more than a month out were laid up in bed for nearly two weeks (or on the toilet).

I’m boosted, but I’m convinced the protection wanes much faster than doctors predict.

I don’t have time for my family of six to be sick for weeks on end. Since my kids aren’t boosted, I’m worried they will be sick for a while. My booster is 1+ month out, and dh’s is 2+ months out.

Ok, so you “don’t have time…”
I thought this was about safety?
Is 2 weeks of illness less “inconvenient” than 4 weeks of virtual school + 2 weeks of Illness? If getting a breakthrough case is inevitable, I think 6 weeks of inconvenience is greater than 2, no? Is my math correct here?

Let me clarify: when one person gets covid, your household doesn’t typically get it immediately. The dominoes fall more slowly, and the timeline extends beyond 2 weeks. Relatives are currently on week 3 with covid; they are a family of 4.

As a working mom of 4, I definitely don’t have sufficient leave for multiple weeks of covid.

I am not afraid that any of us will die. We are vaxxed. The adults are boosted. We will survive.

The original question I responded to was what are you afraid of if you are vaxxed. I told you.

Fwiw, people with asthma or who typically need inhalers or nebulizers when they have an upper respiratory infection are struggling with omicron despite being vaxxed.

Everyone is sick right now. It makes no sense to drag everyone back on the heels of the holidays when people are traveling and going to parties. Covid is surging right now, but should peak by the end result f January. Virtual until February would help get things under control.

Your story doesn’t make sense. You don’t have 4 weeks of leave for covid quarantine, but you do have four weeks of leave for virtual school?

?

My kids were virtual for over a year while I worked from home. They quickly learned the technology. I didn’t hover. My office is still working remotely. I’d rather have 4 weeks of virtual learning in January than 4 weeks of covid in my house. I’m also the primary caregiver for my elderly parents. If my family gets sick, there’s nobody local to care for them.

Take your kids out for January then. Trust me nobody will bother you about it. School shouldn’t close because of your personal risk assessment.

This.

If PP wants to homeschool, so be it.

The rest of us want proper public schooling.

You’re not going to be getting it in MCPS in January 2022. Take it to the bank.

We'll see. The 'take it to the bank' posters were out in force in August as well.

Yeah l had a coworker who is convinced that we would be flipping to virtual by October 1.

One guy I know was wrong in October! Therefore now, with a 16% positivity rate in a district that has already told us they will “assess” to flip to virtual at 5% positivity, WE SHOULD NOT BE PREPARING FOR VIRTUAL. No no no. Definitely not!

Y’all crazy.

Thank you, PP. I'm a NP and this is maddening.

"People said something bad would happen a different time and it wasn't as bad as (I thought) they said it would be! Therefore, in the face of hard evidence that things are already even worse, I'm going to guess they're not going to get as bad as they already are. A person made a negative prediction before, and was 'wrong.' Now other people are making a negative prediction, so they must also be wrong. QED."

Some posters on this board are really invested in Covid taking over as a vehicle for district-wide virtual. They're the ones that made the predictions in October, and they're the ones rooting for higher Covid numbers right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers should be strongly encouraged to remain COVID free. We should be providing them with rapid testing kits for their families and with KN95 masks all break so they can try to stay healthy and be able to come to work next week. If teachers are healthy, schools can remain open.

+1

And they should also be taking precautions in their personal lives, in the same ways healthcare workers do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Md hospitals already having issues

+1 Elective surgeries already cancelled.

Some are being postponed. Many aren't.

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021/12/23/md-hospitals-surpass-1500-covid-19-hospitalizations-triggering-changes/

“Our projections now show that in the coming weeks, we could reach record levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Maryland, possibly over 2,000. We have been actively preparing for this scenario in coordination with all of our hospitals, and today’s actions are the latest step in that planning,” said Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R).

"In preparation for the surge, Maryland committed $100 million in emergency funding to address hospital and nursing home staffing needs."

That's certainly $100 million well spent!!!! Great job Hogan!!! You're awesome!!!! (I'd say you should do a Victory Lap, but you're probably in one of those hospital beds yourself?)

Now MCPS is going to accelerate that trend next week!!!! Great job MCPS!!!

Yet no extra frimHogan to fund Testing pods at schools to test staff and kids prior to spreading the variant at schools where kids do not wear masks properly, many are not vaccinated (K-5) and staff are overburdened. I wonder how many won’t show Jan 3? I hear coworkers discussing leave of absence. Mass chaos