Allegedly there are several options for the fall none of which include being back full time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If thousands can protest in the streets all over the US and we don’t see a large increase in positive cases the next 2-4 weeks then there is plausible reason why school can not return to normal in the Fall.

People walking outside is not the same as gathering together in a small room for seven hours a day. I want schools to open but please don’t make false equivalencies.

The virus is no less contagious in a group of protesters just because it is outside versus being in a classroom for 7 hours. Plus being in a controlled classroom makes it easier to contact trace.

It actually is less contagious for being outside.

[Anonymous]

Scientist here, with a background in virology. I see there's a lot of misinformation on this thread.

1. Caution is the name of the game in science and medicine.
SARS-Cov-2 is a novel virus that just jumped the species barrier, not a well-known virus that is long adapted to humans. Consequently, we are looking at a high standard of confirmation for any study that shows a portion of the population may not transmit viral particles easily. This is because airborne viruses usually don't discriminate in the transmission department. Why should this virus be different? While children seem to have fewer symptoms than adults, this does not mean, and has never meant, that they transmit less virus. Any study showing that children are not likely carriers of Covid-19 should be looked at suspiciously until we can replicate the study multiple times and confirm the finding. This has not yet happened.

2. Schools are accelerators of viral spread, because children with poor hygiene and lack of physical distancing will expose each other and expose household members and school staff, and their household members, and into the community, a portion of which is in higher-risk categories.

3. There are precious few schools where physical distancing is feasible without at least some remote learning. Most children are 25-30 to a class. Core spaces like cafeterias, gyms, media centers, music rooms, athletic changing rooms, are not designed for physical distancing. Buses pose a particular risk.

4. The great news is that vaccine production seems to be advancing ahead of schedule, and will be ready as early as the beginning of 2021. It's true vaccine specialists have cut corners, there's no denying it. But basic safeguards are not ignored. Clinical studies testing for SAFETY and EFFICACY are happening and will happen.

5. Just because protesters find it important to assemble in person and express their views, with or without elementary precautions against viral transmission, does not mean the pandemic isn't just as dangerous as it was before. We must all wear masks and physically distance as much as we can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sorry MCPS rant inbound.

Well, there is coercive state power (truancy laws) that mandates attendance. You cannot in good conscience as a board member say well CDC says _ is a good idea but we’re just unable to do it and we’re not going to make other accommodations.

And MCPS BoE is once again screwing up basic stuff. We have a pretty good idea what things will look like in 3 months and we’re still at an everything is on the table part of the discussion. Get options on the agenda and debate them so families can plan.

Of course part of the problem is they didn’t even figure out semester 2 grading until 3 weeks ago so they are behind. And there will continue to be brutally difficult decisions about health procedures and equity let alone education and budgeting. I see nobody on the board that can step up and lead and articulate a vision of how to handle this. The superintendent certainly can’t and also won’t.

No, we don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Scientist here, with a background in virology. I see there's a lot of misinformation on this thread.

1. Caution is the name of the game in science and medicine.
SARS-Cov-2 is a novel virus that just jumped the species barrier, not a well-known virus that is long adapted to humans. Consequently, we are looking at a high standard of confirmation for any study that shows a portion of the population may not transmit viral particles easily. This is because airborne viruses usually don't discriminate in the transmission department. Why should this virus be different? While children seem to have fewer symptoms than adults, this does not mean, and has never meant, that they transmit less virus. Any study showing that children are not likely carriers of Covid-19 should be looked at suspiciously until we can replicate the study multiple times and confirm the finding. This has not yet happened.

2. Schools are accelerators of viral spread, because children with poor hygiene and lack of physical distancing will expose each other and expose household members and school staff, and their household members, and into the community, a portion of which is in higher-risk categories.

3. There are precious few schools where physical distancing is feasible without at least some remote learning. Most children are 25-30 to a class. Core spaces like cafeterias, gyms, media centers, music rooms, athletic changing rooms, are not designed for physical distancing. Buses pose a particular risk.

4. The great news is that vaccine production seems to be advancing ahead of schedule, and will be ready as early as the beginning of 2021. It's true vaccine specialists have cut corners, there's no denying it. But basic safeguards are not ignored. Clinical studies testing for SAFETY and EFFICACY are happening and will happen.

5. Just because protesters find it important to assemble in person and express their views, with or without elementary precautions against viral transmission, does not mean the pandemic isn't just as dangerous as it was before. We must all wear masks and physically distance as much as we can.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Scientist here, with a background in virology. I see there's a lot of misinformation on this thread.

1. Caution is the name of the game in science and medicine.
SARS-Cov-2 is a novel virus that just jumped the species barrier, not a well-known virus that is long adapted to humans. Consequently, we are looking at a high standard of confirmation for any study that shows a portion of the population may not transmit viral particles easily. This is because airborne viruses usually don't discriminate in the transmission department. Why should this virus be different? While children seem to have fewer symptoms than adults, this does not mean, and has never meant, that they transmit less virus. Any study showing that children are not likely carriers of Covid-19 should be looked at suspiciously until we can replicate the study multiple times and confirm the finding. This has not yet happened.

2. Schools are accelerators of viral spread, because children with poor hygiene and lack of physical distancing will expose each other and expose household members and school staff, and their household members, and into the community, a portion of which is in higher-risk categories.

3. There are precious few schools where physical distancing is feasible without at least some remote learning. Most children are 25-30 to a class. Core spaces like cafeterias, gyms, media centers, music rooms, athletic changing rooms, are not designed for physical distancing. Buses pose a particular risk.

4. The great news is that vaccine production seems to be advancing ahead of schedule, and will be ready as early as the beginning of 2021. It's true vaccine specialists have cut corners, there's no denying it. But basic safeguards are not ignored. Clinical studies testing for SAFETY and EFFICACY are happening and will happen.

5. Just because protesters find it important to assemble in person and express their views, with or without elementary precautions against viral transmission, does not mean the pandemic isn't just as dangerous as it was before. We must all wear masks and physically distance as much as we can.

Wow! Early 2021! So our kids only need to lose 5-6 more months of valuable education???? Fantastic!

The vaccine isn't going to make a bit of difference. And I don't believe your a scientist for a second.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools need to open. Kids aren’t vectors and families who depend on paychecks aren’t going to survive - literally - without kids in schools so parents can work.

The problem with the DCUM crowd is so many have federal jobs that just dial up tax dollars even when the economy is tanking. These posters don’t give a crap about the economy.

And you don’t give a crap other kids and families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Scientist here, with a background in virology. I see there's a lot of misinformation on this thread.

1. Caution is the name of the game in science and medicine.
SARS-Cov-2 is a novel virus that just jumped the species barrier, not a well-known virus that is long adapted to humans. Consequently, we are looking at a high standard of confirmation for any study that shows a portion of the population may not transmit viral particles easily. This is because airborne viruses usually don't discriminate in the transmission department. Why should this virus be different? While children seem to have fewer symptoms than adults, this does not mean, and has never meant, that they transmit less virus. Any study showing that children are not likely carriers of Covid-19 should be looked at suspiciously until we can replicate the study multiple times and confirm the finding. This has not yet happened.

2. Schools are accelerators of viral spread, because children with poor hygiene and lack of physical distancing will expose each other and expose household members and school staff, and their household members, and into the community, a portion of which is in higher-risk categories.

3. There are precious few schools where physical distancing is feasible without at least some remote learning. Most children are 25-30 to a class. Core spaces like cafeterias, gyms, media centers, music rooms, athletic changing rooms, are not designed for physical distancing. Buses pose a particular risk.

4. The great news is that vaccine production seems to be advancing ahead of schedule, and will be ready as early as the beginning of 2021. It's true vaccine specialists have cut corners, there's no denying it. But basic safeguards are not ignored. Clinical studies testing for SAFETY and EFFICACY are happening and will happen.

5. Just because protesters find it important to assemble in person and express their views, with or without elementary precautions against viral transmission, does not mean the pandemic isn't just as dangerous as it was before. We must all wear masks and physically distance as much as we can.

Wow! Early 2021! So our kids only need to lose 5-6 more months of valuable education???? Fantastic!

The vaccine isn't going to make a bit of difference. And I don't believe your a scientist for a second.

I don’t either because studies show schools are NOT accelerators of virus spread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Scientist here, with a background in virology. I see there's a lot of misinformation on this thread.

1. Caution is the name of the game in science and medicine.
SARS-Cov-2 is a novel virus that just jumped the species barrier, not a well-known virus that is long adapted to humans. Consequently, we are looking at a high standard of confirmation for any study that shows a portion of the population may not transmit viral particles easily. This is because airborne viruses usually don't discriminate in the transmission department. Why should this virus be different? While children seem to have fewer symptoms than adults, this does not mean, and has never meant, that they transmit less virus. Any study showing that children are not likely carriers of Covid-19 should be looked at suspiciously until we can replicate the study multiple times and confirm the finding. This has not yet happened.

2. Schools are accelerators of viral spread, because children with poor hygiene and lack of physical distancing will expose each other and expose household members and school staff, and their household members, and into the community, a portion of which is in higher-risk categories.

3. There are precious few schools where physical distancing is feasible without at least some remote learning. Most children are 25-30 to a class. Core spaces like cafeterias, gyms, media centers, music rooms, athletic changing rooms, are not designed for physical distancing. Buses pose a particular risk.

4. The great news is that vaccine production seems to be advancing ahead of schedule, and will be ready as early as the beginning of 2021. It's true vaccine specialists have cut corners, there's no denying it. But basic safeguards are not ignored. Clinical studies testing for SAFETY and EFFICACY are happening and will happen.

5. Just because protesters find it important to assemble in person and express their views, with or without elementary precautions against viral transmission, does not mean the pandemic isn't just as dangerous as it was before. We must all wear masks and physically distance as much as we can.

Wow! Early 2021! So our kids only need to lose 5-6 more months of valuable education???? Fantastic!

The vaccine isn't going to make a bit of difference. And I don't believe your a scientist for a second.

Not only that, let's say the vaccine is available and 330 million doses are ready on 1/1/2020. It would take a minimum of 6 months to vaccinate everyone. It's a massive undertaking.

Reminds me of some rhetoric by some politician about shipping all illegal immigrants back. Well if a typical bus holds 50 people, and a bus leaves every half hour, it would still take years and years to move that many people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm on a new england school board and we have determined that there is no possible way to return FT under normal conditions with current CDC guidelines. We don't have enough classroom space to distance, we don't have enough bathrooms to allow proper contact tracing, we don't have enough buses to safely transport, etc.
So unless CDC guidelines significantly change in the next 3 months, we have to adopt some sort of hybrid model.
We'll have several different models and contingencies to those models, and hope to have more science-based guidance by mid-August to open in some fashion.

Curious- do you know what the term "guidelines" mean? Because they aren't things you HAVE to do and also they say very specifically that you do what you can. Nobody is going to be able to do all of them.

Sorry MCPS rant inbound.

Well, there is coercive state power (truancy laws) that mandates attendance. You cannot in good conscience as a board member say well CDC says _ is a good idea but we’re just unable to do it and we’re not going to make other accommodations.

And MCPS BoE is once again screwing up basic stuff. We have a pretty good idea what things will look like in 3 months and we’re still at an everything is on the table part of the discussion. Get options on the agenda and debate them so families can plan.

Of course part of the problem is they didn’t even figure out semester 2 grading until 3 weeks ago so they are behind. And there will continue to be brutally difficult decisions about health procedures and equity let alone education and budgeting. I see nobody on the board that can step up and lead and articulate a vision of how to handle this. The superintendent certainly can’t and also won’t.

We're likely to move out of MCPS for the year for this reason. No confidence they'll be able to execute any solution reasonably well. Teachers are great, but administration just isnt' that competent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Scientist here, with a background in virology. I see there's a lot of misinformation on this thread.

1. Caution is the name of the game in science and medicine.
SARS-Cov-2 is a novel virus that just jumped the species barrier, not a well-known virus that is long adapted to humans. Consequently, we are looking at a high standard of confirmation for any study that shows a portion of the population may not transmit viral particles easily. This is because airborne viruses usually don't discriminate in the transmission department. Why should this virus be different? While children seem to have fewer symptoms than adults, this does not mean, and has never meant, that they transmit less virus. Any study showing that children are not likely carriers of Covid-19 should be looked at suspiciously until we can replicate the study multiple times and confirm the finding. This has not yet happened.

2. Schools are accelerators of viral spread, because children with poor hygiene and lack of physical distancing will expose each other and expose household members and school staff, and their household members, and into the community, a portion of which is in higher-risk categories.

3. There are precious few schools where physical distancing is feasible without at least some remote learning. Most children are 25-30 to a class. Core spaces like cafeterias, gyms, media centers, music rooms, athletic changing rooms, are not designed for physical distancing. Buses pose a particular risk.

4. The great news is that vaccine production seems to be advancing ahead of schedule, and will be ready as early as the beginning of 2021. It's true vaccine specialists have cut corners, there's no denying it. But basic safeguards are not ignored. Clinical studies testing for SAFETY and EFFICACY are happening and will happen.

5. Just because protesters find it important to assemble in person and express their views, with or without elementary precautions against viral transmission, does not mean the pandemic isn't just as dangerous as it was before. We must all wear masks and physically distance as much as we can.

Run for the hills, folks. Another EXPERT has spoken.

Last thing we need is another public health EXPERT opinionating about distancing (a made up scheme by a high schooler, totally untested and unproven) and masks (totally unhealthy and will make you way sicker from wearing them long term than COVID ever will).

"Caution" is exactly right. Public Health EXPERTS are the single most hysterical professional group in the world. It's their job and their training. If we've learned anything from all this it's that public health EXPERTS cannot be put in charge of deciding anything.

I'll take common sense over EXPERTS any day of the flu season from now on, thanks very much.

[Anonymous]

Please stop the hysteria already. In an environment where our hospitals are not overwhelmed, the mortality rate from Covid19 consistently dropping (fast approaching flu mortality rate), testing/contact tracing capability increasing there is absolutely no reason to keep schools closed. The risk to students is way lower than flu. I never heard of school closure because of flu even though thousands and thousands of kids die every year because of flu. Even to healthy adults the risk is low. Only elderly teachers need to be careful. Maybe they can be transferred to less contact positions.

[Anonymous]

The year with the highest pediatric flu mortality in the US was 09-10 (H1N1) and there were still only 282 deaths. No idea where parents on here got the idea fact the flu kills “thousands of children every year”. It does not. Usually somewhere around 100, total.

COVID has killed over 100,000 people with the strictest mitigation policies in place that we have seen in our lifetimes. You are very dense if you don’t see how the two are different. Closing schools is about preventing community spread, not about saving Sebastian and Avery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please stop the hysteria already. In an environment where our hospitals are not overwhelmed, the mortality rate from Covid19 consistently dropping (fast approaching flu mortality rate), testing/contact tracing capability increasing there is absolutely no reason to keep schools closed. The risk to students is way lower than flu. I never heard of school closure because of flu even though thousands and thousands of kids die every year because of flu. Even to healthy adults the risk is low. Only elderly teachers need to be careful. Maybe they can be transferred to less contact positions.

Not true. Please cite source.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The year with the highest pediatric flu mortality in the US was 09-10 (H1N1) and there were still only 282 deaths. No idea where parents on here got the idea fact the flu kills “thousands of children every year”. It does not. Usually somewhere around 100, total.

COVID has killed over 100,000 people with the strictest mitigation policies in place that we have seen in our lifetimes. You are very dense if you don’t see how the two are different. Closing schools is about preventing community spread, not about saving Sebastian and Avery.

NP. You are correct that the flu does not kill "thousands", but even the true numbers are still multiple times higher than Covid.

And all the available evidence so far indicates that schools have a minimal impact on community spread, and so the benefits of opening schools will outweigh their enormous harms to children and working families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Scientist here, with a background in virology. I see there's a lot of misinformation on this thread.

1. Caution is the name of the game in science and medicine.
SARS-Cov-2 is a novel virus that just jumped the species barrier, not a well-known virus that is long adapted to humans. Consequently, we are looking at a high standard of confirmation for any study that shows a portion of the population may not transmit viral particles easily. This is because airborne viruses usually don't discriminate in the transmission department. Why should this virus be different? While children seem to have fewer symptoms than adults, this does not mean, and has never meant, that they transmit less virus. Any study showing that children are not likely carriers of Covid-19 should be looked at suspiciously until we can replicate the study multiple times and confirm the finding. This has not yet happened.

2. Schools are accelerators of viral spread, because children with poor hygiene and lack of physical distancing will expose each other and expose household members and school staff, and their household members, and into the community, a portion of which is in higher-risk categories.

3. There are precious few schools where physical distancing is feasible without at least some remote learning. Most children are 25-30 to a class. Core spaces like cafeterias, gyms, media centers, music rooms, athletic changing rooms, are not designed for physical distancing. Buses pose a particular risk.

4. The great news is that vaccine production seems to be advancing ahead of schedule, and will be ready as early as the beginning of 2021. It's true vaccine specialists have cut corners, there's no denying it. But basic safeguards are not ignored. Clinical studies testing for SAFETY and EFFICACY are happening and will happen.

5. Just because protesters find it important to assemble in person and express their views, with or without elementary precautions against viral transmission, does not mean the pandemic isn't just as dangerous as it was before. We must all wear masks and physically distance as much as we can.

Wow! Early 2021! So our kids only need to lose 5-6 more months of valuable education???? Fantastic!

The vaccine isn't going to make a bit of difference. And I don't believe your a scientist for a second.

I don’t either because studies show schools are NOT accelerators of virus spread.

Please post links to these studies showing the virus doesn’t spread in schools.