Anonymous wrote:I'd like for situations like these to be shared with parents:

I'm so glad that poor child has somewhere to sleep. I wonder what his home life is like that he returned to school even though he was sick -- I bet his parents don't have other options for childcare and may not have had a choice but to go to school today. I also hope he doesn't have Covid -- maybe the school should just give him a test?

I see these anecdotes and the people tweeting them and sharing them all seem to think this is evidence schools should be closed, but to me it's just further evidence that we desperately need support structure in place for families. Imagine seeing a sick child and just feeling angry that schools are open, instead of thinking "what can I do to help this kid?" Presumably the tweeter is vaccinated so the threat to him, personally posed by this child is small. And he is in an isolation room where presumably only other vaccinated adults in masks are interacting with him. Sound like a tough situation but it does not make me think the Covid protections at the school have failed (to the contrary, many of them are working, though the child should not have returned to school). It makes me think we as a society are failing children, starting with an educator who'd rather tweet about a sick child than do something to help him.

Anonymous wrote:I'd like for situations like these to be shared with parents:

That’s not a DCPS problem. It’s a parent problem. And one that CPS should and probably will address.

Anonymous wrote:I'd like for situations like these to be shared with parents:

Individually identifying information? Rumors? How does that do any good?

I'd like for situations like these to be shared with parents:

The entire 6th grade at Johnson Middle School is quarantined.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know people are paranoid about the idea that the person could infect others before they leave school, and then those people will infect others, etc. I get it. But that's why everyone is wearing a mask, schools invested in HEPA filters, and kids are social distanced and outdoors as much as possible. We do have to rely on those measures to some extent, and trust that they will prevent rampant spread if a Covid-positive person is in the building for some length of time.

Paranoid? No. we are rightfully concerned. The need to quarantine is real, therefore the concern that the quarantine has been started several days after its need has become obvious is a real problem.
"everyone is wearing a mask" : sure, sort of, but kids and staff walk into school buildings when their mask resting on their upper lip; kids and staff lower their mask to cough, sneeze, talk; kids and staff wear masks that have gaps all around, or that are not made of material designed to stop aerosols.
"social distanced and outdoors as much as possible": as much as possible turns out to not be very much, and not be enough at all.

Other things to keep in mind is that asymptomatic people cannot be as infectious as others, especially if wearing a mask, because symptoms are a big part of how viruses proliferate. They make you cough and sneeze, thus sending the virus to others. So if someone is not showing symptoms, or has just begun to show symptoms, they aren't at peak infectiousness.

This statement is not true for covid. It is woefully uninformed (willfully blind?).

Scott Gottlieb, today:

50% transmission occur from asymptomatic persons. Testing is key

https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1435575706075938825?s=20

Dr. Gottlieb also talked about Test to Stay strategies as a way to avoid large quarantines.

Anonymous wrote:Janney is up to 6.

At least five of which were acquired outside of school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know people are paranoid about the idea that the person could infect others before they leave school, and then those people will infect others, etc. I get it. But that's why everyone is wearing a mask, schools invested in HEPA filters, and kids are social distanced and outdoors as much as possible. We do have to rely on those measures to some extent, and trust that they will prevent rampant spread if a Covid-positive person is in the building for some length of time.

Paranoid? No. we are rightfully concerned. The need to quarantine is real, therefore the concern that the quarantine has been started several days after its need has become obvious is a real problem.
"everyone is wearing a mask" : sure, sort of, but kids and staff walk into school buildings when their mask resting on their upper lip; kids and staff lower their mask to cough, sneeze, talk; kids and staff wear masks that have gaps all around, or that are not made of material designed to stop aerosols.
"social distanced and outdoors as much as possible": as much as possible turns out to not be very much, and not be enough at all.

Other things to keep in mind is that asymptomatic people cannot be as infectious as others, especially if wearing a mask, because symptoms are a big part of how viruses proliferate. They make you cough and sneeze, thus sending the virus to others. So if someone is not showing symptoms, or has just begun to show symptoms, they aren't at peak infectiousness.

This statement is not true for covid. It is woefully uninformed (willfully blind?).

Scott Gottlieb, today:

50% transmission occur from asymptomatic persons. Testing is key

https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1435575706075938825?s=20

I'm the PP you are quoting. I think you and I are just coming at this from two different perspectives and there may not be a way to meet in the middle, unfortunately. While I understand your concerns, I think it is irresponsible to write off everything I'm saying here as "willfully blind" or "woefully uninformed".

I do not think it is possible to keep children 100% safe from Covid. However, I also do not believe Covid poses a greater threat to my child than the flu (even with a flu vaccine), traffic accidents, and other issues that I also worry about.

I feel like you are looking for a foolproof way of preventing kids from getting Covid. The only one I know of is keeping your child at home and not allowing them to interact with any person who isn't both vaccinated and also not interacting with anyone who isn't vaccinated. And making them wear a mask 100% of the time. And also staying home yourself and restricting yourself in this way. I think that's the only way to achieve what you are looking for.

School is going to carry some inherent risk. I think my specific school is doing a good job of mitigating that risk, and I know our family is taking all the steps we reasonably can to mitigate that risk. That is enough for me. Last year was not an acceptable solution for our family and I think did cause real and lasting damage on us. We are very invested in making this year work. I don't feel like your response reflects that same ordering of priorities, but I do wish you the best and I hope your family stays safe and healthy.

Janney is up to 6.

Anonymous wrote:Since DCPS is not reporting district-wide cases, I thought we could gather some data with crowdsourcing.


Marie Reed

Isn’t that what they are doing here?

https://dcpsreopenstrong.com/updates/

Anonymous wrote:I know people are paranoid about the idea that the person could infect others before they leave school, and then those people will infect others, etc. I get it. But that's why everyone is wearing a mask, schools invested in HEPA filters, and kids are social distanced and outdoors as much as possible. We do have to rely on those measures to some extent, and trust that they will prevent rampant spread if a Covid-positive person is in the building for some length of time.

Paranoid? No. we are rightfully concerned. The need to quarantine is real, therefore the concern that the quarantine has been started several days after its need has become obvious is a real problem.
"everyone is wearing a mask" : sure, sort of, but kids and staff walk into school buildings when their mask resting on their upper lip; kids and staff lower their mask to cough, sneeze, talk; kids and staff wear masks that have gaps all around, or that are not made of material designed to stop aerosols.
"social distanced and outdoors as much as possible": as much as possible turns out to not be very much, and not be enough at all.

Other things to keep in mind is that asymptomatic people cannot be as infectious as others, especially if wearing a mask, because symptoms are a big part of how viruses proliferate. They make you cough and sneeze, thus sending the virus to others. So if someone is not showing symptoms, or has just begun to show symptoms, they aren't at peak infectiousness.

This statement is not true for covid. It is woefully uninformed (willfully blind?).

Scott Gottlieb, today:

50% transmission occur from asymptomatic persons. Testing is key

https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1435575706075938825?s=20

Anonymous wrote:Even with all the denier effort to highjack this thread, I think it'll be very useful, considering the days-long lag between when teachers and parents of the positives find out, and when the notifications go out.
I hope we help each other's families stay healthy and safe.

The reason for the lag is usually waiting for an official positive test. The system is working as it should:

- Person shows symptoms or becomes aware of a close contact necessitating quarantine.
- Person leaves school and quarantines, takes Covid test.
- Test comes back positive, anyone in close contact with the person in the days before they left school is notified and quarantined.
- Test comes back negative, person returns to school.

I know people are paranoid about the idea that the person could infect others before they leave school, and then those people will infect others, etc. I get it. But that's why everyone is wearing a mask, schools invested in HEPA filters, and kids are social distanced and outdoors as much as possible. We do have to rely on those measures to some extent, and trust that they will prevent rampant spread if a Covid-positive person is in the building for some length of time.

Other things to keep in mind is that asymptomatic people cannot be as infectious as others, especially if wearing a mask, because symptoms are a big part of how viruses proliferate. They make you cough and sneeze, thus sending the virus to others. So if someone is not showing symptoms, or has just begun to show symptoms, they aren't at peak infectiousness. And wearing masks, even cloth ones, will help because it's going to block at least some of the Covid particles that an infected person might expel via talking or laughing. Then the Hepa filters and outdoor time help to dilute even those.

It's not perfect and people will still get infected. But it's actually pretty effective system based on what we know about Covid and how it spreads, and it's worked fairly well in schools around the world for the last year. Yes, we have Delta now, but we also have tons of vaccinated adults and many vaccinated teens.

Information is power. But "positive cases" is not the only piece of information we have. We know a lot. Trust what we know.

Our charter mentioned that they’re not testing vaccinated staff, only unvaccinated. So any breakthrough transmissions won’t be caught. *I also recognize that the chances of breakthrough asymptomatic cases are very unlikely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of y’all here and on Twitter appear almost gleeful at every reported case. It’s gross.

+100. Between the pumpkin mom and the Covid notifications person, you have this relatively very tiny cohort of overly anxious sensationalizing panickers who are completely unhinged from reality and seem to obtain some odd gratification in their self-induced and baseless panic.

This. The Covid notifications person is particularly depressing to me because they clearly thought they'd be posting 100s of cases as school started and be heralded as some kind of whistleblower for this great public health disaster. Instead there have been a few dozen cases, overwhelmingly among adult faculty and staff, and people have tested and quarantined appropriately. Zero evidence of Covid spread in any schools. Kids are wearing their masks. Most schools are finding ways to do lunch outside or in small cohorts. We're only a week and a half in so I'm not declaring victory over anything, but it's gone better than I expected and as a parent who was pretty stressed about it, I have started to feel myself having a bit more faith that this is going to work, at least in the immediate term.

I can't imagine looking at the current situation and thinking it's some great disaster. These people have been predicting widespread Covid through the whole system and multiple child deaths. I've seen them say it, multiple times! I just don't know how anyone can take them seriously at this point.

Just curious, where do you find this information? All of the notifications and reports I've seen don't identify whether the case is a student or staff. Thanks.

The city reports it here:

https://coronavirus.dc.gov/node/1506966

On Aug 26, for example, there were 278 adults testing positive and 202 students testing positive.

There are more than 50,000 students and about 7500 adults in DCPS, so, thus far, far more adults are testing positive than kids, which is not unexpected. All the evidence thus far suggests adults are more likely to spread coronavirus than children.

The city hasn't even started testing teachers yet so the adult numbers are going to be more underreported.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of y’all here and on Twitter appear almost gleeful at every reported case. It’s gross.

+100. Between the pumpkin mom and the Covid notifications person, you have this relatively very tiny cohort of overly anxious sensationalizing panickers who are completely unhinged from reality and seem to obtain some odd gratification in their self-induced and baseless panic.

This. The Covid notifications person is particularly depressing to me because they clearly thought they'd be posting 100s of cases as school started and be heralded as some kind of whistleblower for this great public health disaster. Instead there have been a few dozen cases, overwhelmingly among adult faculty and staff, and people have tested and quarantined appropriately. Zero evidence of Covid spread in any schools. Kids are wearing their masks. Most schools are finding ways to do lunch outside or in small cohorts. We're only a week and a half in so I'm not declaring victory over anything, but it's gone better than I expected and as a parent who was pretty stressed about it, I have started to feel myself having a bit more faith that this is going to work, at least in the immediate term.

I can't imagine looking at the current situation and thinking it's some great disaster. These people have been predicting widespread Covid through the whole system and multiple child deaths. I've seen them say it, multiple times! I just don't know how anyone can take them seriously at this point.

Just curious, where do you find this information? All of the notifications and reports I've seen don't identify whether the case is a student or staff. Thanks.

The city reports it here:

https://coronavirus.dc.gov/node/1506966

On Aug 26, for example, there were 278 adults testing positive and 202 students testing positive.

There are more than 50,000 students and about 7500 adults in DCPS, so, thus far, far more adults are testing positive than kids, which is not unexpected. All the evidence thus far suggests adults are more likely to spread coronavirus than children.