Anonymous wrote:I'll also note that Florida's pediatric COVID mortality rate (17.5 per 100,000) is in the same ballpark as the annual motor vehicle mortality rate (11.18 per 100,000 in 2018).

I'm not trying to say that COVID isn't very serious. I'm just disputing that the pediatric numbers out of Florida are particularly new, surprising, or dire.

But based on your numbers above, the COVID mortality rate is actually more than 1.5 times higher than the motor vehicle mortality rate and that rate is for the entire year of 2018, whereas we are only seven months through 2020, the first three months of which saw hardly any COVID deaths in the US (not sure about Florida).

Am I missing something?

I'll also note that Florida's pediatric COVID mortality rate (17.5 per 100,000) is in the same ballpark as the annual motor vehicle mortality rate (11.18 per 100,000 in 2018).

I'm not trying to say that COVID isn't very serious. I'm just disputing that the pediatric numbers out of Florida are particularly new, surprising, or dire.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

There’s a difference between limiting a potential outbreak to a group of 4 kids and their families and having a classroom outbreak, or spread around on a bus containing kids from many different classrooms.

The big rallying cry in many districts was to protect the teachers. Pods achieve that.

This is a dire situation where parents need to work while kids need to engage in learning. By all means, make suggestions that allow that to happen while avoiding live school AND small private arrangements/ pods. We’ll wait.

Data is now coming out that kids are just as susceptible to this virus than adults. One of the main reasons that kids were spared this spring was...wait for it...they closed schools. Now that camps and schools opened, look at the data. Rising sickness AND deaths. I'm not saying kids are as likely to die as grandparents, but they are seeing more deaths and we don't know the long term effects.

Look, I know this is hard. But saying school closures only protect teachers is outdated data. I get that it's hard to work and oversee school but the stakes are too high with this virus for my family.

Please show the “data” that proves this.

I saw those headlines too, but the “data” behind them are weak at best

It depends on what "data" you are doubting, I can't tell.

If there is something that is going on around that impacts 1% of kids and of that 1%, 0.1 percent have bad outcomes (hospitalization, long term effects, death, whatever), then it's probably pretty low on the list of what parents need to worry about. But if we then find that the something going around actually impacts 10% of kids, then that 0.1 percent all of a sudden becomes more concerning.

Deaths and effects have been low because kids were out of school etc. As things are opening up and kids are congregating, kids are getting the virus at much higher rates. 100K in the last 2 weeks! And schools have even really opened yet! Just a few have plus more camps etc.

So as cases go, adverse effects in kids will go up too.

OK, I see your point now. You're referring to their susceptibility to get infected, not the rate at which they have serious complications. I haven't seen anything suggesting that the mortality or complication rate is substantially higher than previously thought.

The data on transmissibility in children is still up for debate, with recent studies pointing both directions. Looking at the past several months, the general pattern I saw in studies was that laboratory studies that looked at things like viral load suggested kids should transmit just as well as adults, but case studies tended to suggest that they didn't in practice. I do know, however, there are some more recent studies that go against that conclusion (though, I think there's also some recent studies that support it, too).

This is jarring: "COVID-19 hospitalizations among children in Florida rose from 213 to 436 during that same period, a 105% increase. Deaths among children rose from four to seven in Florida during that period."

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-covid-19-child-cases-increase/33573641#

Essentially, we had low adverse outcomes in kids because kids weren't getting exposed and therefore sick. Now, kids are getting exposed, sick, and we are seeing more bad outcomes.

Still fewer than older people, yes. But as a parent this is concerning.

That all sounds rather expected, no? When you double the cases, you double the deaths. Am I missing something? Why would you find that jarring?

Um, it's jarring because if you do the math that some of the experts are doing, it means a lot of kids will die or suffer long term health consequences.

I guess I'm just reacting the the idea that there's any new information here. We've always known children to get and transmit COVID, and the cases observed in Florida (7 out of 40,000 pediatric cases) yields a 0.0175% pediatric mortality rate. That's roughly in-line with what's been estimated for a while now.

You can be disturbed by a 0.0175% mortality rate- I just don't see why there's any particular reason to be more worried now than you should have been a month or two ago.

As a point of reference, though, I do want to point out that the 2019-2020 flu season resulted in 14 pediatric flu-associated deaths in Florida.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

There’s a difference between limiting a potential outbreak to a group of 4 kids and their families and having a classroom outbreak, or spread around on a bus containing kids from many different classrooms.

The big rallying cry in many districts was to protect the teachers. Pods achieve that.

This is a dire situation where parents need to work while kids need to engage in learning. By all means, make suggestions that allow that to happen while avoiding live school AND small private arrangements/ pods. We’ll wait.

Data is now coming out that kids are just as susceptible to this virus than adults. One of the main reasons that kids were spared this spring was...wait for it...they closed schools. Now that camps and schools opened, look at the data. Rising sickness AND deaths. I'm not saying kids are as likely to die as grandparents, but they are seeing more deaths and we don't know the long term effects.

Look, I know this is hard. But saying school closures only protect teachers is outdated data. I get that it's hard to work and oversee school but the stakes are too high with this virus for my family.

Please show the “data” that proves this.

I saw those headlines too, but the “data” behind them are weak at best

It depends on what "data" you are doubting, I can't tell.

If there is something that is going on around that impacts 1% of kids and of that 1%, 0.1 percent have bad outcomes (hospitalization, long term effects, death, whatever), then it's probably pretty low on the list of what parents need to worry about. But if we then find that the something going around actually impacts 10% of kids, then that 0.1 percent all of a sudden becomes more concerning.

Deaths and effects have been low because kids were out of school etc. As things are opening up and kids are congregating, kids are getting the virus at much higher rates. 100K in the last 2 weeks! And schools have even really opened yet! Just a few have plus more camps etc.

So as cases go, adverse effects in kids will go up too.

OK, I see your point now. You're referring to their susceptibility to get infected, not the rate at which they have serious complications. I haven't seen anything suggesting that the mortality or complication rate is substantially higher than previously thought.

The data on transmissibility in children is still up for debate, with recent studies pointing both directions. Looking at the past several months, the general pattern I saw in studies was that laboratory studies that looked at things like viral load suggested kids should transmit just as well as adults, but case studies tended to suggest that they didn't in practice. I do know, however, there are some more recent studies that go against that conclusion (though, I think there's also some recent studies that support it, too).

This is jarring: "COVID-19 hospitalizations among children in Florida rose from 213 to 436 during that same period, a 105% increase. Deaths among children rose from four to seven in Florida during that period."

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-covid-19-child-cases-increase/33573641#

Essentially, we had low adverse outcomes in kids because kids weren't getting exposed and therefore sick. Now, kids are getting exposed, sick, and we are seeing more bad outcomes.

Still fewer than older people, yes. But as a parent this is concerning.

That all sounds rather expected, no? When you double the cases, you double the deaths. Am I missing something? Why would you find that jarring?

Um, it's jarring because if you do the math that some of the experts are doing, it means a lot of kids will die or suffer long term health consequences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

There’s a difference between limiting a potential outbreak to a group of 4 kids and their families and having a classroom outbreak, or spread around on a bus containing kids from many different classrooms.

The big rallying cry in many districts was to protect the teachers. Pods achieve that.

This is a dire situation where parents need to work while kids need to engage in learning. By all means, make suggestions that allow that to happen while avoiding live school AND small private arrangements/ pods. We’ll wait.

Data is now coming out that kids are just as susceptible to this virus than adults. One of the main reasons that kids were spared this spring was...wait for it...they closed schools. Now that camps and schools opened, look at the data. Rising sickness AND deaths. I'm not saying kids are as likely to die as grandparents, but they are seeing more deaths and we don't know the long term effects.

Look, I know this is hard. But saying school closures only protect teachers is outdated data. I get that it's hard to work and oversee school but the stakes are too high with this virus for my family.

Please show the “data” that proves this.

I saw those headlines too, but the “data” behind them are weak at best

It depends on what "data" you are doubting, I can't tell.

If there is something that is going on around that impacts 1% of kids and of that 1%, 0.1 percent have bad outcomes (hospitalization, long term effects, death, whatever), then it's probably pretty low on the list of what parents need to worry about. But if we then find that the something going around actually impacts 10% of kids, then that 0.1 percent all of a sudden becomes more concerning.

Deaths and effects have been low because kids were out of school etc. As things are opening up and kids are congregating, kids are getting the virus at much higher rates. 100K in the last 2 weeks! And schools have even really opened yet! Just a few have plus more camps etc.

So as cases go, adverse effects in kids will go up too.

OK, I see your point now. You're referring to their susceptibility to get infected, not the rate at which they have serious complications. I haven't seen anything suggesting that the mortality or complication rate is substantially higher than previously thought.

The data on transmissibility in children is still up for debate, with recent studies pointing both directions. Looking at the past several months, the general pattern I saw in studies was that laboratory studies that looked at things like viral load suggested kids should transmit just as well as adults, but case studies tended to suggest that they didn't in practice. I do know, however, there are some more recent studies that go against that conclusion (though, I think there's also some recent studies that support it, too).

This is jarring: "COVID-19 hospitalizations among children in Florida rose from 213 to 436 during that same period, a 105% increase. Deaths among children rose from four to seven in Florida during that period."

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-covid-19-child-cases-increase/33573641#

Essentially, we had low adverse outcomes in kids because kids weren't getting exposed and therefore sick. Now, kids are getting exposed, sick, and we are seeing more bad outcomes.

Still fewer than older people, yes. But as a parent this is concerning.

That all sounds rather expected, no? When you double the cases, you double the deaths. Am I missing something? Why would you find that jarring?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

There’s a difference between limiting a potential outbreak to a group of 4 kids and their families and having a classroom outbreak, or spread around on a bus containing kids from many different classrooms.

The big rallying cry in many districts was to protect the teachers. Pods achieve that.

This is a dire situation where parents need to work while kids need to engage in learning. By all means, make suggestions that allow that to happen while avoiding live school AND small private arrangements/ pods. We’ll wait.

Data is now coming out that kids are just as susceptible to this virus than adults. One of the main reasons that kids were spared this spring was...wait for it...they closed schools. Now that camps and schools opened, look at the data. Rising sickness AND deaths. I'm not saying kids are as likely to die as grandparents, but they are seeing more deaths and we don't know the long term effects.

Look, I know this is hard. But saying school closures only protect teachers is outdated data. I get that it's hard to work and oversee school but the stakes are too high with this virus for my family.

Please show the “data” that proves this.

I saw those headlines too, but the “data” behind them are weak at best

It depends on what "data" you are doubting, I can't tell.

If there is something that is going on around that impacts 1% of kids and of that 1%, 0.1 percent have bad outcomes (hospitalization, long term effects, death, whatever), then it's probably pretty low on the list of what parents need to worry about. But if we then find that the something going around actually impacts 10% of kids, then that 0.1 percent all of a sudden becomes more concerning.

Deaths and effects have been low because kids were out of school etc. As things are opening up and kids are congregating, kids are getting the virus at much higher rates. 100K in the last 2 weeks! And schools have even really opened yet! Just a few have plus more camps etc.

So as cases go, adverse effects in kids will go up too.

OK, I see your point now. You're referring to their susceptibility to get infected, not the rate at which they have serious complications. I haven't seen anything suggesting that the mortality or complication rate is substantially higher than previously thought.

The data on transmissibility in children is still up for debate, with recent studies pointing both directions. Looking at the past several months, the general pattern I saw in studies was that laboratory studies that looked at things like viral load suggested kids should transmit just as well as adults, but case studies tended to suggest that they didn't in practice. I do know, however, there are some more recent studies that go against that conclusion (though, I think there's also some recent studies that support it, too).

This is jarring: "COVID-19 hospitalizations among children in Florida rose from 213 to 436 during that same period, a 105% increase. Deaths among children rose from four to seven in Florida during that period."

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-covid-19-child-cases-increase/33573641#

Essentially, we had low adverse outcomes in kids because kids weren't getting exposed and therefore sick. Now, kids are getting exposed, sick, and we are seeing more bad outcomes.

Still fewer than older people, yes. But as a parent this is concerning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

So what are parents with two working parents and young kids supposed to do?

Should it just be expected that one of them quite their jobs, possibly have to sell their house to manager kindergarten?

What do you want me to say? No one has the answers. This sucks. This is the worst crisis that has happened to us. It is upending everything. But burying your head in the sand and somehow thinking you are the exception - that congregating 6 kids together and a tutor together isn't risky - isn't the answer.

What happens if someone in your pod or someone they live with gets sick? You have to work right, just push through?

Look this is horrible but seems like if we just suck it up it will end. The more people who do things like this, this will keep spreading and spreading.

Similarly, you shouldn't bury your head in the sand over the challenges working parents face, either.

You've rather harshly criticized a choice parents are making, yet you've suggested no alternatives that would be practical for working parents. Pods probably are a bad option for a number of reasons, but that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't the best option, too.

I don't mean to bury my head in the sand. I truly sympathize with people. This is awful. But yea, I guess just recreating school doesn't seem like a good idea. I guess if I had to suggest an alternative it would be to keep pods small. 6 families intermingling sounds like a lot.

Frankly, sympathy isn't worth much if you're putting them in an impossible situation. I honestly don't understand what you expect. Most families can't afford losing the income from a working parent, so telling people to quit their jobs to take for their kids isn't reasonable. Lower-income jobs are less likely to allow for working-from-home, and even if they did, a lot of jobs can't be done while acting as a teacher/caregiver for lower-elementary kids. And sure, smaller pods are generally going be safer than larger pods, but that's going to get expensive rather quickly. This is a major expense that families wouldn't have had any reason to plan for, and you're talking about making it even *more* expensive.

And, I'll note, six families doesn't seem crazy. That's probably roughly on par with what you'd see in a daycare. A room in a larger daycare center probably has kids from more than six families right now, actually.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

So what are parents with two working parents and young kids supposed to do?

Should it just be expected that one of them quite their jobs, possibly have to sell their house to manager kindergarten?

What do you want me to say? No one has the answers. This sucks. This is the worst crisis that has happened to us. It is upending everything. But burying your head in the sand and somehow thinking you are the exception - that congregating 6 kids together and a tutor together isn't risky - isn't the answer.

What happens if someone in your pod or someone they live with gets sick? You have to work right, just push through?

Look this is horrible but seems like if we just suck it up it will end. The more people who do things like this, this will keep spreading and spreading.

Similarly, you shouldn't bury your head in the sand over the challenges working parents face, either.

You've rather harshly criticized a choice parents are making, yet you've suggested no alternatives that would be practical for working parents. Pods probably are a bad option for a number of reasons, but that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't the best option, too.

I don't mean to bury my head in the sand. I truly sympathize with people. This is awful. But yea, I guess just recreating school doesn't seem like a good idea. I guess if I had to suggest an alternative it would be to keep pods small. 6 families intermingling sounds like a lot.

Anonymous wrote:Look, everyone knows that continuing to quarantine is the lowest risk choice. But that didnt work for our 6 yo last spring. She was miserable and moody and anxious. We formed a bubble with another family this summer and our sweet kid is back. We cannot go back to a full quarantine.

This fall we've opted to lower our childcare risk with a live in nanny and hope to form a pod with 1-2 other families. We're waiting to see who is in the same class as my daughter, and then hoping to find a family with a younger child to match with younger daughter. We all know this isn't zero risk. Yes, it's possible that someone could infect the pod and we could all get sick. But it's safer than in person school. And it meets social emotional needs that are necessary for our family's sanity. It's a calculated risk.

I'm one of the posters who is against podding, but this at least sounds more sensible. The emails I've seen going around and on this thread, is about 6 kids + an outside tutor. That's a lot of families coming together. And my thinking is that if you are cool with this kind of mixing, what else are you okay with? So seems a lot of people with loose restrictions coming together.

At least what you describe sounds lower risk.

Look, everyone knows that continuing to quarantine is the lowest risk choice. But that didnt work for our 6 yo last spring. She was miserable and moody and anxious. We formed a bubble with another family this summer and our sweet kid is back. We cannot go back to a full quarantine.

This fall we've opted to lower our childcare risk with a live in nanny and hope to form a pod with 1-2 other families. We're waiting to see who is in the same class as my daughter, and then hoping to find a family with a younger child to match with younger daughter. We all know this isn't zero risk. Yes, it's possible that someone could infect the pod and we could all get sick. But it's safer than in person school. And it meets social emotional needs that are necessary for our family's sanity. It's a calculated risk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

There’s a difference between limiting a potential outbreak to a group of 4 kids and their families and having a classroom outbreak, or spread around on a bus containing kids from many different classrooms.

The big rallying cry in many districts was to protect the teachers. Pods achieve that.

This is a dire situation where parents need to work while kids need to engage in learning. By all means, make suggestions that allow that to happen while avoiding live school AND small private arrangements/ pods. We’ll wait.

Data is now coming out that kids are just as susceptible to this virus than adults. One of the main reasons that kids were spared this spring was...wait for it...they closed schools. Now that camps and schools opened, look at the data. Rising sickness AND deaths. I'm not saying kids are as likely to die as grandparents, but they are seeing more deaths and we don't know the long term effects.

Look, I know this is hard. But saying school closures only protect teachers is outdated data. I get that it's hard to work and oversee school but the stakes are too high with this virus for my family.

Please show the “data” that proves this.

I saw those headlines too, but the “data” behind them are weak at best

It depends on what "data" you are doubting, I can't tell.

If there is something that is going on around that impacts 1% of kids and of that 1%, 0.1 percent have bad outcomes (hospitalization, long term effects, death, whatever), then it's probably pretty low on the list of what parents need to worry about. But if we then find that the something going around actually impacts 10% of kids, then that 0.1 percent all of a sudden becomes more concerning.

Deaths and effects have been low because kids were out of school etc. As things are opening up and kids are congregating, kids are getting the virus at much higher rates. 100K in the last 2 weeks! And schools have even really opened yet! Just a few have plus more camps etc.

So as cases go, adverse effects in kids will go up too.

OK, I see your point now. You're referring to their susceptibility to get infected, not the rate at which they have serious complications. I haven't seen anything suggesting that the mortality or complication rate is substantially higher than previously thought.

The data on transmissibility in children is still up for debate, with recent studies pointing both directions. Looking at the past several months, the general pattern I saw in studies was that laboratory studies that looked at things like viral load suggested kids should transmit just as well as adults, but case studies tended to suggest that they didn't in practice. I do know, however, there are some more recent studies that go against that conclusion (though, I think there's also some recent studies that support it, too).

Anonymous wrote:Time to back out, OP. The others didn't prepare anything because they were expecting you to do all the work...

By that reasoning, OP didn’t prepare anything either, so is she expecting the other families to do all the work? They’re all moochers! Seems like a great fit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

So what are parents with two working parents and young kids supposed to do?

Should it just be expected that one of them quite their jobs, possibly have to sell their house to manager kindergarten?

What do you want me to say? No one has the answers. This sucks. This is the worst crisis that has happened to us. It is upending everything. But burying your head in the sand and somehow thinking you are the exception - that congregating 6 kids together and a tutor together isn't risky - isn't the answer.

What happens if someone in your pod or someone they live with gets sick? You have to work right, just push through?

Look this is horrible but seems like if we just suck it up it will end. The more people who do things like this, this will keep spreading and spreading.

Similarly, you shouldn't bury your head in the sand over the challenges working parents face, either.

You've rather harshly criticized a choice parents are making, yet you've suggested no alternatives that would be practical for working parents. Pods probably are a bad option for a number of reasons, but that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't the best option, too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

So what are parents with two working parents and young kids supposed to do?

Should it just be expected that one of them quite their jobs, possibly have to sell their house to manager kindergarten?

What do you want me to say? No one has the answers. This sucks. This is the worst crisis that has happened to us. It is upending everything. But burying your head in the sand and somehow thinking you are the exception - that congregating 6 kids together and a tutor together isn't risky - isn't the answer.

What happens if someone in your pod or someone they live with gets sick? You have to work right, just push through?

Look this is horrible but seems like if we just suck it up it will end. The more people who do things like this, this will keep spreading and spreading.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like these pods are going to just increase community spread like crazy. They closed schools for a reason folks.

There’s a difference between limiting a potential outbreak to a group of 4 kids and their families and having a classroom outbreak, or spread around on a bus containing kids from many different classrooms.

The big rallying cry in many districts was to protect the teachers. Pods achieve that.

This is a dire situation where parents need to work while kids need to engage in learning. By all means, make suggestions that allow that to happen while avoiding live school AND small private arrangements/ pods. We’ll wait.

Data is now coming out that kids are just as susceptible to this virus than adults. One of the main reasons that kids were spared this spring was...wait for it...they closed schools. Now that camps and schools opened, look at the data. Rising sickness AND deaths. I'm not saying kids are as likely to die as grandparents, but they are seeing more deaths and we don't know the long term effects.

Look, I know this is hard. But saying school closures only protect teachers is outdated data. I get that it's hard to work and oversee school but the stakes are too high with this virus for my family.

Please show the “data” that proves this.

I saw those headlines too, but the “data” behind them are weak at best

It depends on what "data" you are doubting, I can't tell.

If there is something that is going on around that impacts 1% of kids and of that 1%, 0.1 percent have bad outcomes (hospitalization, long term effects, death, whatever), then it's probably pretty low on the list of what parents need to worry about. But if we then find that the something going around actually impacts 10% of kids, then that 0.1 percent all of a sudden becomes more concerning.

Deaths and effects have been low because kids were out of school etc. As things are opening up and kids are congregating, kids are getting the virus at much higher rates. 100K in the last 2 weeks! And schools have even really opened yet! Just a few have plus more camps etc.

So as cases go, adverse effects in kids will go up too.