Reply to So realistically, when do you think somewhat normal full time f2f education will resume?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]January or February - it would be insane to open schools without a vaccine since it will vastly increase the spread of the virus.[/quote]

If there are no deaths of kids attending school (even if lots of them get sick) in the fall, then schools will reopen in January. If kids are dying (even a small number), or if illness rates and deaths among adults get so bad that they have to completely close schools then they will likely not reopen until a vaccine is found.[/quote]

At least 100 grocery store workers have died from covid, but the grocery stores are still open.[/quote]

As a society we tend to prioritize children's lives over adults. The older the person, the less value we put on their lives. It's unfortunate, but it's just how America tends to be. The death of kids attributed to their attending school will keep enough parents from sending their kids in the spring which will cause all schools to go to disctance learning until a vaccine is created.[/quote]

We're keeping schools closed because we prioritize children over adults?!

I apologize for being rude, but that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard today.[/quote]

You are reading much more into what I am saying than what I said.

I said we prioritize children's lives over adults (lives). Meaning, if something kills 100 adults (going to work at a grocery store) our reaction is very different than if that thing (or in this case something similar) kills 100 kids (going to school). If there are even 10 dead kids in this country because they went to school, parents are going to be too scared to send their kids to school. This is largely because we view kids as being helpless and we view adults of having a choice to work or not work (even though that is often not true). [/quote]

[b]Every year, kids die from the flu, which they likely acquired at school[/b]. Per CDC: "Since 2004-2005, flu-related deaths in children reported to CDC during regular flu seasons have ranged from 37 to 187 deaths. Even though the reported number of deaths during the 2017-2018 flu season was 187, CDC’s mathematical models that account for the underreporting of flu-related deaths in children estimate the actual number was closer to 600." (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/highrisk/children.htm). Given that Covid appears to be much less deadly to kids than the flu, we'd be crazy to keep kids out of school if even just 10 kids die from Covid after returning to school, as you suggest. I'm not saying it won't happen as the level of hysteria about Covid is high, but it would not be a rational response considering that those pediatric flu deaths every year don't even make the news in most cases.

And no, I'm not saying Covid is no worse than the flu in general. That is only true for children, for whom the flu is more dangerous.

Also, there is nothing wrong with considering a child's death a bigger tragedy than the death of especially elderly adults. A child has their whole life ahead of them with all its potential, whereas a 70 or 80 year old has already lived most of theirs. It has nothing to do with the value of the person per se, or with whether we view children as helpless.[/quote]

You're right about the flu, of course. You know what else is true about the flu? There is a reasonably effective vaccine for it. Not perfect, but worth getting. So I'm with you. When there is a reasonably effective vaccine for COVID-19, we should think about it, and going back to school f2f, in similar terms as we think about the school and flu. The lengths people will go to to compare COVID-19 to the flu are just incredible to me. People, this is not the flu. This is much worse than the flu. Just look at the death toll nationally. Even if kids generally fare better than adults, do you think they are only going to encounter other kids (and no adults) at school, or when they come home having been infected with the virus?[/quote]

You are missing my point, which wasn't to compare the general risks of the flu to Covid. For the point I was making, i.e. comparing your hypothetical 10 pediatric Covid fatalities in case of school reopening to the actual hundred+ (or, according to CDC, likely 600) annual pediatric deaths from the flu, it is irrelevant whether we have a vaccine or not. These flu deaths happen despite the partially effective flu vaccine. Therefore, it is not logical to say we cannot have kids in school until a vaccine because a small number might die of Covid (which is what you said), while we apparently have no problem sending them despite the actual, not hypothetical flu deaths that happen every year despite a vaccine.[/quote]

Comparing flu deaths among kids to (prospective) COVID deaths among kids is too narrow a focus. You do distance learning not just to keep kids healthy, but to keep the adults in their lives from getting sick, too. A better comparison is overall deaths from the flu and overall deaths from COVID.

The CDC says the flu is responsible for 12,000 to 60,000 deaths in the U.S. annually. The COVID death toll is 133,000 in only six months -- with kids out of school for much of that time. And there is a vaccine for the flu! Kids in school are not hermetically sealed there. The infections they get in school can be transmitted to adults in school and at home. You have to include those prospective illnesses and deaths among adults in the calculus, too. [/quote]

I am aware of all of this and do not dispute it. As I said in another follow up post, that is a separate question. [b]I was responding only to the PP's (your?) claim that even 10 pediatric Covid deaths would legitimately prompt parents to keep their kids out of school, and explained that this doesn't make logical sense given the annual pediatric flu deaths.[/b] Why is that so hard to understand? It's like you guys can't follow an argument. Or as if just mentioning the flu triggers some of you to go off on a lecture about how the two are not the same. I never said they were, nor do I think they are.[/quote]

Maybe this explains why we're talking past each other a little bit. I didn't make that claim. I am the PP who argued that you need to take the interests of the larger society into account when deciding about whether to have f2f instruction, and how much. I don't think it's a separate question at all; it's the whole question -- at least for the people who ultimately make the decision. (I understand that individual parents who advocate for schools reopening may not be factoring the interests of, say, the elderly empty-nesters who live down the street into their belief about what the right course is.)

Also, I'm glad you agree that COVID is worse than the flu and that comparisons to the flu and its impacts are rarely germane to any discussion about whether it makes sense to re-open schools in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. [/quote]

Well, yeah, when you respond to a back and forth between two other posters without paying attention to what the specific question being debated actually was, chances are your input ends up being beside the point. When I said your post raised a "separate question", I meant separate from what I and the other PP were discussing, which was Covid's risk to kids themselves. I'm sure if you went back and read the exchange, that would become clear.

And yes, absolutely, you need to take the interests of the larger society into account, which includes both the interests of the elderly and the interests of millions of kids. I don't think most of the posters here who are arguing for a reopening of schools fail to consider the larger picture, they just weigh the risk-benefit calculation differently.

And finally, when it comes to the risks of Covid TO KIDS (not an irrelevant question either when thinking about the reopening of schools), which is what I was discussing with the PP, comparisons to the flu are absolutely germane, because the it remains a fact that the flu is more deadly for kids. Pointing that out when someone tries to use the specter of pediatric Covid fatalities to argue against opening schools shouldn't prompt any reasonable reader to assume that whoever is making the comparison is ignorant about the differences between the two viruses. I know it vexes you because Trump has often ignorantly dismissed Covid as no worse than the flu, but his idiocy shouldn't lead us try to silence any further comparative discussion of the two viruses.

The bottom line is, don't use the risk of Covid TO KIDS as a reason to argue that schools need to remain closed.[b] Be honest and say it is about vulnerable adults inside and outside the school, and we can have a reasonable discussion about the risks and benefit of prolonged school closures[/b].[/quote]

We agree on this much. Sorry if I intruded into your private exchange of views with another poster on a public forum.
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