Reply to The prospect of kids not going back to school until 2021

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What an amazing thread! People angry and upset over what the other side is rallying for as if public opinion will influence the decisions. Fortunately,  science doesn't care about your feelings either way.
Shutting down an entire state was an unheard-of,  unprecedented mandate.  It was done because public health and safety is paramount to all else. That hasn't changed.  Phases 1,2,3 and 4 will proceed as outlined by the governor. End of story. [/quote]

It's funny that you think any of these decisions are still based in science. The initial round of closures were not even based on science, but rather fear and the unknown. Now, there is a completely different set of reasons for continuing this unnecessary pain. [/quote]

+1. The continued school closures, and probably even the initial closures, are not based on science. WaPo has an article by an epidemiologist today that says as much:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/29/case-reopening-schools-this-fall/

All the people claiming these decisions are based on science really don't know what they are talking about. We are in a state of mass hysteria, as is evident from all the parents fearful for the safety of their kids if schools reopen, when Covid is significantly less dangerous for kids than the flu. I really hope those people are a minority and the pressure on public officials is going to mount to actually look at the evidence when making decisions about schools, and not basing them on everybody's gut feeling that kids spread germs and it's therefore too dangerous to operate schools.[/quote]

I found the Post article interesting. Thank you for posting the link. There is, however, still reason for caution. As the article noted:

“Some of this data likely underestimates children’s potential to infect others because information was collected after lockdowns and other mitigation measures were implemented. Still, the findings from contact tracing and the significant biological differences between covid-19 and more common respiratory ailments suggest that children are not major sources of infection.”

The crucial question of whether child are or are not major sources of infection is not a settled argument. [/quote]

"While most countries have shuttered schools, others such as Taiwan have achieved effective responses without closures. In Denmark and Norway, where schools began reopening in mid-April, covid-19 cases and deaths have decreased. Normally, gregarious youngsters are efficient spreaders of respiratory pathogens. But this appears not to be the case with covid-19.

There is evidence, however, that as with the earlier SARS outbreak, children who have covid-19 are less contagious than adults. Many children with covid-19 are asymptomatic; in the absence of coughing and sneezing, they emit fewer infectious droplets. Remarkably, contact tracing studies in China, Iceland, Britain and the Netherlands failed to locate a single case of child-to-adult infection out of thousands of transmission events analyzed. A review of studies from several Asian countries identified few cases of children bringing the virus home, and a recent analysis of covid-19 interventions found no evidence that school closures had helped contain the epidemic."

I think this says that children are not major source of infection. Thanks for posting the WaPo article.[/quote]

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