Reply to The Urgency of Normal

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[quote=Anonymous]For people with kids in ECE, this conversation gets tiresome because people don't. understand it as a whole. They want to fixate on one issue at a time, and fight you on everything, when really what most of us are looking for is a balanced approach that addresses Covid concerns while also providing a realistic situation for these kids and families.

I am fine with masking in schools when case counts are high, even if imperfect for this age, because I want to avoid quarantines and teacher shortage. So my kid wearing a mask through the omicron surge is NBD to me because it seems to be obviously called for.

But I'd like a commitment to removing the mask requirement if and when cases come down, because my child has been wearing a mask to school for 2 years and I think that's a lot for a child this age to go without regularly seeing teachers and peers faces. Plus we know they are at low risk and their teachers are vaccinated. So I don't understand people who don't want to talk about removing masks when cases come down. And if we do that, we actually do have to talk about it now, when they are high, so it actually happens. Thus the conversation.

The other piece is that we now have tools we didn't have earlier in the pandemic, and I think it's worthwhile to talk about how those might help us get rid of masks, if we can agree that getting rid of masks would be good. We now have much more readily available testing, which should make it much easier to catch both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases before they enter a classroom. But testing is also hard on kids this age. Nasal swabs of ECE kids can be tough and could actually be traumatic for some kids depending on how administered (not being hyperbolic, just acknowledging that it's not typical for 4 and 5 year olds to have swabs up their nose regularly, especially administered by strangers at school).

We also have vaccines for 5 yr olds at least, though they are not mandatory and probably can't be made mandatory until full FDA approval, which may not be forthcoming anytime soon.

A rational conversation about schools and Covid would take all these tools, identify which work best and which don't, which combination works best, etc. And then ALSO discuss the negative impacts of all of these. Which yes, would include possible ill effects of masks, the stress of regular testing, and at the challenges of vaccines when many parents are still unsure about vaccinating kids this young. AND it would also factor in things like the rates of Covid in kids this age, both the general population and more at-risk children, the threat posed to teachers, staff, and families at home, and how the surrounding community is doing.

One thing I like about the Urgency of Normal people is that their analysis actually involves all of these metrics. This is how policy-making is actually supposed to work. You may or may not agree with all their conclusions, but if you aren't willing to engage in a conversation like this (where all options are explored, all benefits and negatives weighed, and choices made based on priorities and YES some degree of compromise because the world is an imperfect place), it just makes it impossible to move forward.

That's why the "Just wear a mask!" and 'What, so you want people to die?" people are frustrating. Because neither of those things is even the point. My kid does just wear a mask and no, none of us wants anyone to die. We are having a grown up conversation, you are just yelling the same 5 things you've been yelling since April 2020. Do you see the difference?

Try reading the document, engaging with this conversation, and actually coming up with a proposed solution that meets your safety goals while also accounting for things like efficacy, negative externalities, and context. Otherwise, just sit it out.[/quote]

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