"Without mitigation, they predict that 80% of elementary students will be infected within 2 months"

[Anonymous]

https://twitter.com/denise_dewald/status/1426318478861013001?s=19

I'm not really comforted by "the kids will probably be ok" arguments. Why is that being accepted??

[Anonymous]

Because most parents think they and their kids are invincible and it will not happen to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because most parents think they and their kids are invincible and it will not happen to them.

I feel like if I take that posture then my kid will be the one with debilitating impacts. No thank you.

[Anonymous]

I support vaccination mandates. I would be thrilled if that happened. But I don't think we're getting those for kids this year. And given the low numbers for 12-18 year olds, we should expect that just approval for younger kids isn't going to have much of an impact. So 'virtual until all children get vaccinated' is the same as 'no school for the indefinite future, and probably not all year.' The idea that we should just wait a bit longer or catastrophe will happen is what we've been told for the last year and a half, and the track record has been so-so, with the reality usually being that the connection between policy and outcomes is harder to predict.

If dcps said 'vaccination mandates for older kids' now, and they could actually make that happen, I'd trust them a lot more if they also said 'and we need to delay fully opening for younger kids, because we'll mandate for them as soon as it's available' I'd think they were wrong, but I'd at least think they were credible. But just waiting, with no real plan -- you might as well just say "let's all miss 2.5 years of school."

[Anonymous]

Obviously you all, if COVID gets bad at schools, the health department or mayor or governor wherever you live reading this is gonna shut that S down.

[Anonymous]

because we have mitigation

and because this model does not correspond to actual evidence from UK, where school rates fell during Delta.

https://fortune.com/2021/08/12/as-delta-infections-spiked-covid-cases-in-schools-actually-fell-a-lesson-from-england/

[Anonymous]

delta is only 50% more transmissible than the variant circulating last year when vaccination rates were low and our school was back at around 2/3 the total student body, with normal class sizes. There were 2 cases and zero spread in school afaik. I don’t think this model is correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:delta is only 50% more transmissible than the variant circulating last year when vaccination rates were low and our school was back at around 2/3 the total student body, with normal class sizes. There were 2 cases and zero spread in school afaik. I don’t think this model is correct.

Covid had started to slow down. Its now picking up and people are not being careful anymore. How many kids were at your school? How many in class? Public or private? We can see from schools open now its an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:delta is only 50% more transmissible than the variant circulating last year when vaccination rates were low and our school was back at around 2/3 the total student body, with normal class sizes. There were 2 cases and zero spread in school afaik. I don’t think this model is correct.

I don’t think you understand 50% more means.

What schools had normal class sizes during the 2020-3021 school year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I support vaccination mandates. I would be thrilled if that happened. But I don't think we're getting those for kids this year. And given the low numbers for 12-18 year olds, we should expect that just approval for younger kids isn't going to have much of an impact. So 'virtual until all children get vaccinated' is the same as 'no school for the indefinite future, and probably not all year.' The idea that we should just wait a bit longer or catastrophe will happen is what we've been told for the last year and a half, and the track record has been so-so, with the reality usually being that the connection between policy and outcomes is harder to predict.

If dcps said 'vaccination mandates for older kids' now, and they could actually make that happen, I'd trust them a lot more if they also said 'and we need to delay fully opening for younger kids, because we'll mandate for them as soon as it's available' I'd think they were wrong, but I'd at least think they were credible. But just waiting, with no real plan -- you might as well just say "let's all miss 2.5 years of school."

What if DCPS mandated vaccines or else they have to stay virtual. Only medically necessary exceptions.

[Anonymous]

Um... We have mitigation.
masks all around.
Teachers who aren't vaccinated being tested weekly.
Take your hysteria to the exurbs.

[Anonymous]

OP, I read the thread earlier before you posted it, and I don’t think you lead with the most salient point:

https://twitter.com/denise_dewald/status/1423983807259189257?s=21

In other words, yes, there are some mitigation strategies. They will reduce transmission rate SOME. But what’s clear with Delta is that it is more transmissible and mitigation strategies are less effective at stopping it.

If people want kids to stay in school, it’s WILD we’re even considering 3 ft social distancing, 100% classroom size etc. Kids are like sitting ducks if we’re sending them back with fewer mitigation measures in a more highly contagious environment.

The topline of the thread is that we need current data and pilot studies stat instead of making assumptions based off of data collected before Delta was here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:because we have mitigation

and because this model does not correspond to actual evidence from UK, where school rates fell during Delta.

https://fortune.com/2021/08/12/as-delta-infections-spiked-covid-cases-in-schools-actually-fell-a-lesson-from-england/

We don’t have real mitigation. Cloth and surgical masks are useless Kleenex against the transmissibility of Delta and “distancing when possible” is a copout and a joke.

P.S, We’re not the UK, no matter how many times you reference them, and other countries ahead of us on the Delta curve have not had the same results the UK did. Oh, and the UK’s cases are climbing again, after a brief dip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:delta is only 50% more transmissible than the variant circulating last year when vaccination rates were low and our school was back at around 2/3 the total student body, with normal class sizes. There were 2 cases and zero spread in school afaik. I don’t think this model is correct.

I don’t think you understand 50% more means.

What schools had normal class sizes during the 2020-3021 school year?

plenty of schools had normal class sizes.

this models does not correspond to what we know about transmission in school (including Delta).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:because we have mitigation

and because this model does not correspond to actual evidence from UK, where school rates fell during Delta.

https://fortune.com/2021/08/12/as-delta-infections-spiked-covid-cases-in-schools-actually-fell-a-lesson-from-england/

We don’t have real mitigation. Cloth and surgical masks are useless Kleenex against the transmissibility of Delta and “distancing when possible” is a copout and a joke.

P.S, We’re not the UK, no matter how many times you reference them, and other countries ahead of us on the Delta curve have not had the same results the UK did. Oh, and the UK’s cases are climbing again, after a brief dip.

is Delta different in the UK? What US-only criteria did this model take into account?