Chap Petersen mask letter from 2/8 to FCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop with all political phrasing and capitalization like “Forced Masking” and “Forever Maskers.” It’s such political BS and is tearing apart our community. No one wants to mask forever. Some people want science-based end to masking instead of “parent’s rights” political strategy. We also want schools to stay in person and not close due to staffing shortages if there is another highly contagious variant.

There never will be "science based" end to masking because there always will be respiratory viruses dangerous for the vulnerable and they had always been. Covid is endemic at this point, but it will keep coming back every season with flu and colds. If we want to be "science based" and cannot allow any vulnerable person at all to contract these easily communicable diseases then we should mask every single year for about 5 months. I know many of you are ready for this and would approve. But many of us don't want any of this and tired of hypocricy when none of you mask crazies ever cared about sending your sick kids to school all these years before Covid knowing very well that flu and colds and strep and other viruses do kill vulnerable people who could live in the same households.

No it isn't. It's still classified as a pandemic.

Where do people get the idea that it is endemic? Endemic viruses don't cause 10K deaths daily worldwide. When was the last time a COLD caused 2000 daily US deaths and 70 deaths in kids under 18 in one month alone?

Places with high vaccination rates are declaring it endemic. See: Denmark.

Vaccination is and always be the only way to move SARS COV2 to endemic as other COV viruses are. Denmark may be slightly premature in lifting their pandemic precautions. Their vaccine up take is only 80%, though that may be enough.

In the US, and Northern Virginia, we are not at that 80% at all, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted on the non FCPS thread by mistake.

He is playing politics by using the weirdly capitalized phrase “Forced Masking.” Also by calling Dr. Brabrand Mr. Brabrand.

I think his district just changed and I don’t think his new constituents are on board with his political posturing.

Also, state law requires districts comply with CDC guidance to the maximum extent practicable. CDC still recommends I universal masks in schools. Why does he want schools to break the law?

Schools who refuse to comply with Governor Younkin’s lawful executive order are breaking the law.

False. It is not clear that the executive order is lawful and it has actually been temporarily stopped by the court so it’s not in effect now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop with all political phrasing and capitalization like “Forced Masking” and “Forever Maskers.” It’s such political BS and is tearing apart our community. No one wants to mask forever. Some people want science-based end to masking instead of “parent’s rights” political strategy. We also want schools to stay in person and not close due to staffing shortages if there is another highly contagious variant.

There never will be "science based" end to masking because there always will be respiratory viruses dangerous for the vulnerable and they had always been. Covid is endemic at this point, but it will keep coming back every season with flu and colds. If we want to be "science based" and cannot allow any vulnerable person at all to contract these easily communicable diseases then we should mask every single year for about 5 months. I know many of you are ready for this and would approve. But many of us don't want any of this and tired of hypocricy when none of you mask crazies ever cared about sending your sick kids to school all these years before Covid knowing very well that flu and colds and strep and other viruses do kill vulnerable people who could live in the same households.

Nobody ever cared about some classmate's grandma dying from a mild flu your kid was spreading when you send them to school after medicating their low grade fever with some Tylenol. Had anyone quaranteened their kid for at least 5 days from teh onset of mild cold/flu symptoms? Never. The lives of the immune compromised, chronically ill, or elderly or vulnerable kids never mattered so much before for some reason.

Again, when did the flu cause as much death and illness (since 1917 at least?)

It did reach pandemic stages in 1957, 1968, and 2009. Generally Americans pretty cheerfully continued life and got vaxxed against the pandemic strain as soon as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Covid numbers in schools mirrors community spread. If you want your kids to go to school safely, then you have to not eat indoors, travel on holiday, go to sporting events, go to the gym or go to parties. No one I know is willing to stop doing that - even if they strongly support mask mandates. It makes no sense.

Half the country doesn't have kids in schools and doesn't want to stop life to protect kids, so it kind of makes sense. I can't worry about what other people are doing. My kid spends like 70% of his life at school, so that's where he has the most exposure risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a constituent and this is outrageous. He has no right to give covid to my unvaccinated 2 year old, which is what will certainly happen if my elementary schooler is around unmasked children. I will actively support any primary challenger he faces. Masks protect people and are just not a big deal!

Are you saying that your elementary schooler has never been around an unmasked child this whole time? Somehow I doubt that he/she is masked ALL THE TIME. If you had been having unmasked playdates, dining indoors with unmasked people (with or without your kids) you are a hypocrite, because your child is exposed anyway. Now you want this little power trip over other kids to be obliged to protect you when you hadn't lived in a bunker this entire time either.

I don't think you are being entirely fair or logical. There is a huge difference between letting your kids hang unmasked with a few kids and sending your kid to school unmasked with hundreds of kids. The risk goes up as the number of potential exposures go up, and unknowns about who and what risks all those other kids take.

You want to use this black and white thinking that someone is a hypocrite for assessing risk in numbers, but it doesn't work that way. People are all trying to do the best they can to manage and balance their kids' lives and happiness with different levels of risk.

Calling them hypocrites is neither useful nor accurate.

Except that spread in unmasked schools in northern Europe has been about the same as spread in masked schools in the US that reported their numbers - between 1 & 2%. How do you explain that, except that it's not the masks?

In the U.S., Fairfax County, our catholic school has no mask requirement.

We are fine.

Many kids still wear masks. Their choice. This whole legal battle is a circus. Much ado about what should be a nothingburger. Just like closing public schools for a whole year. We were open the entirety of 2020-2021. Was fine. Fearmongers were wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop with all political phrasing and capitalization like “Forced Masking” and “Forever Maskers.” It’s such political BS and is tearing apart our community. No one wants to mask forever. Some people want science-based end to masking instead of “parent’s rights” political strategy. We also want schools to stay in person and not close due to staffing shortages if there is another highly contagious variant.

There never will be "science based" end to masking because there always will be respiratory viruses dangerous for the vulnerable and they had always been. Covid is endemic at this point, but it will keep coming back every season with flu and colds. If we want to be "science based" and cannot allow any vulnerable person at all to contract these easily communicable diseases then we should mask every single year for about 5 months. I know many of you are ready for this and would approve. But many of us don't want any of this and tired of hypocricy when none of you mask crazies ever cared about sending your sick kids to school all these years before Covid knowing very well that flu and colds and strep and other viruses do kill vulnerable people who could live in the same households.

No it isn't. It's still classified as a pandemic.

Where do people get the idea that it is endemic? Endemic viruses don't cause 10K deaths daily worldwide. When was the last time a COLD caused 2000 daily US deaths and 70 deaths in kids under 18 in one month alone?

Places with high vaccination rates are declaring it endemic. See: Denmark.

Vaccination is and always be the only way to move SARS COV2 to endemic as other COV viruses are. Denmark may be slightly premature in lifting their pandemic precautions. Their vaccine up take is only 80%, though that may be enough.

In the US, and Northern Virginia, we are not at that 80% at all, unfortunately.

Immunity, acquired however, is the only way. I'm strongly pro-vax, but if people had the misfortune to get Covid-19, they are well protected. In the US we have pretty high seroprevalence of antibodies, which counts no matter how people go them.

Abu-Raddad and his team have been tracking reinfections in Qatar for more than a year. In one study, the team analyzed about 1,300 reinfections among more than 350,000 people in Qatar. They found that a prior COVID-19 infection reduced the risk of hospitalization upon reinfection by about 90% compared with in people having their first infection....

Last Tuesday, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions also reported that SARS-CoV-2 antibodies can persist up to 20 months. In that study, 293 out of 295 unvaccinated people generated antibodies after a positive COVID test....

So the future of COVID-19 is starting to become clearer: We're going to have a lot more infections but hopefully a lot fewer hospitalizations and deaths.

(https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/02/07/1057245449/the-future-of-the-pandemic-is-looking-clearer-as-we-learn-more-about-infection?origin=NOTIFY)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a constituent and this is outrageous. He has no right to give covid to my unvaccinated 2 year old, which is what will certainly happen if my elementary schooler is around unmasked children. I will actively support any primary challenger he faces. Masks protect people and are just not a big deal!

Are you saying that your elementary schooler has never been around an unmasked child this whole time? Somehow I doubt that he/she is masked ALL THE TIME. If you had been having unmasked playdates, dining indoors with unmasked people (with or without your kids) you are a hypocrite, because your child is exposed anyway. Now you want this little power trip over other kids to be obliged to protect you when you hadn't lived in a bunker this entire time either.

I don't think you are being entirely fair or logical. There is a huge difference between letting your kids hang unmasked with a few kids and sending your kid to school unmasked with hundreds of kids. The risk goes up as the number of potential exposures go up, and unknowns about who and what risks all those other kids take.

You want to use this black and white thinking that someone is a hypocrite for assessing risk in numbers, but it doesn't work that way. People are all trying to do the best they can to manage and balance their kids' lives and happiness with different levels of risk.

Calling them hypocrites is neither useful nor accurate.

Except that spread in unmasked schools in northern Europe has been about the same as spread in masked schools in the US that reported their numbers - between 1 & 2%. How do you explain that, except that it's not the masks?

In the U.S., Fairfax County, our catholic school has no mask requirement.

We are fine.

Many kids still wear masks. Their choice. This whole legal battle is a circus. Much ado about what should be a nothingburger. Just like closing public schools for a whole year. We were open the entirety of 2020-2021. Was fine. Fearmongers were wrong.

You can look at even closer comparisons - the biggest public school in VA that went mask optional after the EO probably shows what it'd do here too:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Covid numbers in schools mirrors community spread. If you want your kids to go to school safely, then you have to not eat indoors, travel on holiday, go to sporting events, go to the gym or go to parties. No one I know is willing to stop doing that - even if they strongly support mask mandates. It makes no sense.

Half the country doesn't have kids in schools and doesn't want to stop life to protect kids, so it kind of makes sense. I can't worry about what other people are doing. My kid spends like 70% of his life at school, so that's where he has the most exposure risk.

It also doesn't matter, because Covid spread in schools stays constant despite community spread. More cases happen sure, but no more spread. And if people are willing to accept Covid risks outside of school, they can be willing to accept the risk of my kid existing.

[Anonymous]

The drop in cases didn’t come from mask remova it came from a drastic drop in Omicron. Why do people post tweets as authoritative sources?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop with all political phrasing and capitalization like “Forced Masking” and “Forever Maskers.” It’s such political BS and is tearing apart our community. No one wants to mask forever. Some people want science-based end to masking instead of “parent’s rights” political strategy. We also want schools to stay in person and not close due to staffing shortages if there is another highly contagious variant.

There never will be "science based" end to masking because there always will be respiratory viruses dangerous for the vulnerable and they had always been. Covid is endemic at this point, but it will keep coming back every season with flu and colds. If we want to be "science based" and cannot allow any vulnerable person at all to contract these easily communicable diseases then we should mask every single year for about 5 months. I know many of you are ready for this and would approve. But many of us don't want any of this and tired of hypocricy when none of you mask crazies ever cared about sending your sick kids to school all these years before Covid knowing very well that flu and colds and strep and other viruses do kill vulnerable people who could live in the same households.

Nobody ever cared about some classmate's grandma dying from a mild flu your kid was spreading when you send them to school after medicating their low grade fever with some Tylenol. Had anyone quaranteened their kid for at least 5 days from teh onset of mild cold/flu symptoms? Never. The lives of the immune compromised, chronically ill, or elderly or vulnerable kids never mattered so much before for some reason.

Again, when did the flu cause as much death and illness (since 1917 at least?)

It did reach pandemic stages in 1957, 1968, and 2009. Generally Americans pretty cheerfully continued life and got vaxxed against the pandemic strain as soon as possible.

We could because 1. we had a vaccine and existing anti-virals. They were not novel viruses.

And in the end, let's take H1N1, 2009 as an example. Only 12, 500 americans died from it. Worldwide, the number is thought to be between 100,000-.500,000. Even if we take the highest estimate, the American deaths from Covid have nearly doubled the WORLDWIDE deaths of h191.

Why is it 2022 and we are still making this ridiculous analogy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chap speaks for many liberal parents who are reaching their breaking point.

+1 He's speaking for me. Vaccinated staff/students should be able to opt-out of the mask mandate right now. I do not want to set metrics like "if less than 20 new cases per 100,000" because that just means FCPS will bring back the mask mandate in future cold/flu/etc seasons once Covid is endemic.

Chap speaks for me and I canvassed for Biden! I supported Biden because I want a return to normalcy particularly in schools and, besides the fact that Trump is insane, I trusted Biden to lead on that. Chap is no Republican - he calls it like he sees it and has always stood up for kids when no one else would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a constituent and this is outrageous. He has no right to give covid to my unvaccinated 2 year old, which is what will certainly happen if my elementary schooler is around unmasked children. I will actively support any primary challenger he faces. Masks protect people and are just not a big deal!

Vax and mask your kids if you want to. No one is trying to stop you.

Unfortunately, I cannot vaccinate my two year old. That is the issue. Until everyone who wants a vaccine can have one, we must wear masks. Once there is a vaccine for those under 5, we may be able to reevaluate.

The science says that your unvaccinated two year-old does not face any material risk from Covid. You can also still have him/her wear a mask (and there are plenty of recent studies confirming the protective effect of one-way masking). Presumably, he/she also goes many places where masks aren't required already -- grocery store, mall, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a constituent and this is outrageous. He has no right to give covid to my unvaccinated 2 year old, which is what will certainly happen if my elementary schooler is around unmasked children. I will actively support any primary challenger he faces. Masks protect people and are just not a big deal!

Are you saying that your elementary schooler has never been around an unmasked child this whole time? Somehow I doubt that he/she is masked ALL THE TIME. If you had been having unmasked playdates, dining indoors with unmasked people (with or without your kids) you are a hypocrite, because your child is exposed anyway. Now you want this little power trip over other kids to be obliged to protect you when you hadn't lived in a bunker this entire time either.

I don't think you are being entirely fair or logical. There is a huge difference between letting your kids hang unmasked with a few kids and sending your kid to school unmasked with hundreds of kids. The risk goes up as the number of potential exposures go up, and unknowns about who and what risks all those other kids take.

You want to use this black and white thinking that someone is a hypocrite for assessing risk in numbers, but it doesn't work that way. People are all trying to do the best they can to manage and balance their kids' lives and happiness with different levels of risk.

Calling them hypocrites is neither useful nor accurate.

Except that spread in unmasked schools in northern Europe has been about the same as spread in masked schools in the US that reported their numbers - between 1 & 2%. How do you explain that, except that it's not the masks?

In the U.S., Fairfax County, our catholic school has no mask requirement.

We are fine.

Many kids still wear masks. Their choice. This whole legal battle is a circus. Much ado about what should be a nothingburger. Just like closing public schools for a whole year. We were open the entirety of 2020-2021. Was fine. Fearmongers were wrong.

Everyone knows that democrats were wrong, even democrats.

In this very blue area many of the families who had children in those open private schools while fcps was closed, were Democrats. Many more were Democrats at home trying to make forced virtual work, watching their neighbors leave to take children to the open private schools, and seeing that month after month, it was going well.

We’ve all known for awhile that children didn’t have to be so burdened but you weren’t a good democrat if you didn’t act terrified and LOUDLY insist that everyone be forced to do so.

Gradually even dems are being forced to acknowledge that Covid panic is over

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chap should just switch parties and get it over with. I'm so tired of him masquerading as a D. His anti-mask, anti-vax, pro-gun position is wearing thin. Is there no D in FFX that can run against him?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a constituent and this is outrageous. He has no right to give covid to my unvaccinated 2 year old, which is what will certainly happen if my elementary schooler is around unmasked children. I will actively support any primary challenger he faces. Masks protect people and are just not a big deal!

Vax and mask your kids if you want to. No one is trying to stop you.

Unfortunately, I cannot vaccinate my two year old. That is the issue. Until everyone who wants a vaccine can have one, we must wear masks. Once there is a vaccine for those under 5, we may be able to reevaluate.

The science says that your unvaccinated two year-old does not face any material risk from Covid. You can also still have him/her wear a mask (and there are plenty of recent studies confirming the protective effect of one-way masking). Presumably, he/she also goes many places where masks aren't required already -- grocery store, mall, etc.

Actually, no. We don't take our children shopping with us. Why take the risk?