Sure, OP, to a degree. Meaning that, as long as other parents are not taking actions that recklessly increase my child's COVID risk, like sending sick kids to school, or trying to get away with their kids not wearing masks, anything people choose for themselves is fine by me.

Anonymous wrote:“A plea for kindness…but only for people on my side, everyone else is fair game”

Yes, it is hilarious.

Anonymous wrote:“A plea for kindness…but only for people on my side, everyone else is fair game”

+1000

“A plea for kindness…but only for people on my side, everyone else is fair game”

a lot of this depends on what you believe---- I understand that if you believe that there are tons of asymptomatic cases that are efficiently spreading covid everywhere, and a fleeting contact can leave you infected, and that infection will leave you and your family sick for a long time, and possibly kill someone, then a surveillance asymptomatic testing program makes sense, and the consequences of false positives and needless quarantine makes sense.

However- I think this is contrary to all the evidence.
1. vaccines really work. If I look at Falls Church City, an area with a high vaccine rate- there has been 1 person hospitalized with COVID since April. 1. Think about that. Contrast that to from Nov-March when there were 7 hospitalization pre-vaccine but with a complaint population who followed mitigation practices. Arlington has had 75 people hospitalized since April. Contrast that to from Nov-March when there were 254 people hospitalized.
2. The vast majority of COVID transmission happens from symptomatic people, and sometimes the 24-36 hours before symptom onset. Nearly every outbreak has an index patient or patients who 'weren't feeling well'.

I would be on board with a 'test to stay' program. e.g. one in which if someone was identified as a close contact, they had daily testing to be allowed to come to school. I just can't get behind a surveillance testing program for a disease that is extremely mild for children and the vaccinated in most cases, and is not likely being spread by the 'asymptomatic' cases that are found as part of surveillance testing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we all try to be kind to fellow parents who are trying to advocate for their childrens' wellbeing, whatever it is?

I have seen attacks in recent days on parents who chose virtual and on parents who are pushing for better safety in schools saying they are fearmongering or irrationally scared. You bullies don't know these families' circumstances. Their children or family members could be high risk or immune deficient or they could have had Covid and be traumatized from it. Or they may have had family members or friends who died. Or some children are becoming very anxious and stressed from being in crowded schools without good mitigation.

Different families have different medical and mental health needs and risk tolerances. If you're fine with where things are then you're set. You don't have to publicly lash out at other families whose needs may be different than your own.

Parents fighting for their childrens' wellbeing are not elected officials and did not sign up for any of this. They are simply parents trying to get what their kids need. The level of obsession by people - anonymous online bullying, trolling and doxxing people - is simply bewildering. Please find another outlet for your frustration.

This is fine, as long as it goes both ways....neither side should be able to force their views/perspectives on others. As you noted, some people have good reason/need for them to be more careful, and they should be able to (without ridicule, etc.). Others, may not have that same perspective, and should be able to as well (again, without name-calling, etc.)

Except, perhaps, when it comes to public health - things like masking, vaccinating, and testing.

I'm all for vaccinating, but testing asymptomatic kids and masking are not scientifically proven. This sounds like someone wanting to shut down any discussion.

If a random-controlled trial of masking kids come out showing its effective, then that's fine. However, there's no study that shows masking kids in school is effective.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-masking-kids-at-school-remains-uncertain.html

In the UK and many Scandinavian countries, kids don't mask in school:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/us/students-masks-classrooms-britain.html

As discussed in the NYMag article, the CDC's own study showed no statistical difference between masking kids and not masking them in school.

So no, you don't get to take those topics off the table.

New mask study that was released today https://www.foxnews.com/health/surgical-masks-reduce-covid-19-spread-study
"A new study that examined the effects of mask-wearing on the spread of COVID-19 found that even partial adoption helps to limit the spread. "

Really. You want to debate.....masks?

GMAFB. Just homeschool your kid if you can't handle very basic public health things like.....vaccines, masks, and testing.

That Bangladeshi mask study you cite (1) did not apply to children, (2) was pre-vaccine, (3) showed cloth masks made statistically no difference and (4) showed surgical masks only statistically made a difference for those 50 and older (notably, in the US, those people have been vaccinated for 6+ months now). Did you even read the summary or charts?

Links from fcking FoxNews? Are you kidding?

No, I don't want to debate masks. Wear your mask, selfish prick.

The person citing the Bangladeshi RCT mask study as evidence any masks work posted a Fox News link, genius.

Funny - in response to a discussion on science, you resort to "wear your mash, selfish prick". It really has become a religion to some people.

I'm vaccinated and I'm definitely not wearing a mask now. There's not going to be ZeroCOVID ever as it is endemic and masking post-vaccine tells unvaccinated people that vaccines don't work. But this is about kids in school and masks (and the lack of any RCT studies on it).

Stop being a mega prick. Wear a mask and put one on your kids.

OR, even better, just keep your brats at home.

DP. Nope, not doing either of those things. You can just die mad about it.

Well your kids are required to wear a mask at school, tough guy. Suck it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think some of what is going on is in response to the many vile and hateful things said and posted by the pro-DL crowd last year. Not excusing it, but there is history here.

+1000 Never again will I let my guard down from those closed school activists who kept DS out of school almost all last year.

That fake profile SJH said tonight on AEM that APE wanted teachers to die last year. Where was the moderator, letting a fake profile on her page say that type of garbage? The moderator must actually believe it too.

Liar. That is not what she said.

Speaking of garbage...

Hi SJH ! Looks like you are trolling DCUM again

BTtW you are a teacher but seem to have plenty of time to post on AEM during the weekday. I guess you are one those quality teachers in APS we always hear so much about 😂. What would be awesome is if one of your students catches you or a fellow teacher and posts your picture.

So, if I’m SJH, that makes you who…Miranda? Erin?

If we are just randomly calling each other names.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we all try to be kind to fellow parents who are trying to advocate for their childrens' wellbeing, whatever it is?

I have seen attacks in recent days on parents who chose virtual and on parents who are pushing for better safety in schools saying they are fearmongering or irrationally scared. You bullies don't know these families' circumstances. Their children or family members could be high risk or immune deficient or they could have had Covid and be traumatized from it. Or they may have had family members or friends who died. Or some children are becoming very anxious and stressed from being in crowded schools without good mitigation.

Different families have different medical and mental health needs and risk tolerances. If you're fine with where things are then you're set. You don't have to publicly lash out at other families whose needs may be different than your own.

Parents fighting for their childrens' wellbeing are not elected officials and did not sign up for any of this. They are simply parents trying to get what their kids need. The level of obsession by people - anonymous online bullying, trolling and doxxing people - is simply bewildering. Please find another outlet for your frustration.

This is fine, as long as it goes both ways....neither side should be able to force their views/perspectives on others. As you noted, some people have good reason/need for them to be more careful, and they should be able to (without ridicule, etc.). Others, may not have that same perspective, and should be able to as well (again, without name-calling, etc.)

Except, perhaps, when it comes to public health - things like masking, vaccinating, and testing.

I'm all for vaccinating, but testing asymptomatic kids and masking are not scientifically proven. This sounds like someone wanting to shut down any discussion.

If a random-controlled trial of masking kids come out showing its effective, then that's fine. However, there's no study that shows masking kids in school is effective.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-masking-kids-at-school-remains-uncertain.html

In the UK and many Scandinavian countries, kids don't mask in school:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/us/students-masks-classrooms-britain.html

As discussed in the NYMag article, the CDC's own study showed no statistical difference between masking kids and not masking them in school.

So no, you don't get to take those topics off the table.

New mask study that was released today https://www.foxnews.com/health/surgical-masks-reduce-covid-19-spread-study
"A new study that examined the effects of mask-wearing on the spread of COVID-19 found that even partial adoption helps to limit the spread. "

Really. You want to debate.....masks?

GMAFB. Just homeschool your kid if you can't handle very basic public health things like.....vaccines, masks, and testing.

That Bangladeshi mask study you cite (1) did not apply to children, (2) was pre-vaccine, (3) showed cloth masks made statistically no difference and (4) showed surgical masks only statistically made a difference for those 50 and older (notably, in the US, those people have been vaccinated for 6+ months now). Did you even read the summary or charts?

Links from fcking FoxNews? Are you kidding?

No, I don't want to debate masks. Wear your mask, selfish prick.

The person citing the Bangladeshi RCT mask study as evidence any masks work posted a Fox News link, genius.

Funny - in response to a discussion on science, you resort to "wear your mash, selfish prick". It really has become a religion to some people.

I'm vaccinated and I'm definitely not wearing a mask now. There's not going to be ZeroCOVID ever as it is endemic and masking post-vaccine tells unvaccinated people that vaccines don't work. But this is about kids in school and masks (and the lack of any RCT studies on it).

Stop being a mega prick. Wear a mask and put one on your kids.

OR, even better, just keep your brats at home.

DP. Nope, not doing either of those things. You can just die mad about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we all try to be kind to fellow parents who are trying to advocate for their childrens' wellbeing, whatever it is?

I have seen attacks in recent days on parents who chose virtual and on parents who are pushing for better safety in schools saying they are fearmongering or irrationally scared. You bullies don't know these families' circumstances. Their children or family members could be high risk or immune deficient or they could have had Covid and be traumatized from it. Or they may have had family members or friends who died. Or some children are becoming very anxious and stressed from being in crowded schools without good mitigation.

Different families have different medical and mental health needs and risk tolerances. If you're fine with where things are then you're set. You don't have to publicly lash out at other families whose needs may be different than your own.

Parents fighting for their childrens' wellbeing are not elected officials and did not sign up for any of this. They are simply parents trying to get what their kids need. The level of obsession by people - anonymous online bullying, trolling and doxxing people - is simply bewildering. Please find another outlet for your frustration.

This is fine, as long as it goes both ways....neither side should be able to force their views/perspectives on others. As you noted, some people have good reason/need for them to be more careful, and they should be able to (without ridicule, etc.). Others, may not have that same perspective, and should be able to as well (again, without name-calling, etc.)

Except, perhaps, when it comes to public health - things like masking, vaccinating, and testing.

I'm all for vaccinating, but testing asymptomatic kids and masking are not scientifically proven. This sounds like someone wanting to shut down any discussion.

If a random-controlled trial of masking kids come out showing its effective, then that's fine. However, there's no study that shows masking kids in school is effective.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-masking-kids-at-school-remains-uncertain.html

In the UK and many Scandinavian countries, kids don't mask in school:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/us/students-masks-classrooms-britain.html

As discussed in the NYMag article, the CDC's own study showed no statistical difference between masking kids and not masking them in school.

So no, you don't get to take those topics off the table.

New mask study that was released today https://www.foxnews.com/health/surgical-masks-reduce-covid-19-spread-study
"A new study that examined the effects of mask-wearing on the spread of COVID-19 found that even partial adoption helps to limit the spread. "

It showed a small but noticeable effect ONLY for people over age 50 and ONLY for surgical masks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think some of what is going on is in response to the many vile and hateful things said and posted by the pro-DL crowd last year. Not excusing it, but there is history here.

+1000 Never again will I let my guard down from those closed school activists who kept DS out of school almost all last year.

That fake profile SJH said tonight on AEM that APE wanted teachers to die last year. Where was the moderator, letting a fake profile on her page say that type of garbage? The moderator must actually believe it too.

Liar. That is not what she said.

Speaking of garbage...

Hi SJH ! Looks like you are trolling DCUM again

BTtW you are a teacher but seem to have plenty of time to post on AEM during the weekday. I guess you are one those quality teachers in APS we always hear so much about 😂. What would be awesome is if one of your students catches you or a fellow teacher and posts your picture.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think some of what is going on is in response to the many vile and hateful things said and posted by the pro-DL crowd last year. Not excusing it, but there is history here.

+1000 Never again will I let my guard down from those closed school activists who kept DS out of school almost all last year.

That fake profile SJH said tonight on AEM that APE wanted teachers to die last year. Where was the moderator, letting a fake profile on her page say that type of garbage? The moderator must actually believe it too.

Liar. That is not what she said.

Speaking of garbage...

"didn't care about their lives" is what she said

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think some of what is going on is in response to the many vile and hateful things said and posted by the pro-DL crowd last year. Not excusing it, but there is history here.

+1000 Never again will I let my guard down from those closed school activists who kept DS out of school almost all last year.

That fake profile SJH said tonight on AEM that APE wanted teachers to die last year. Where was the moderator, letting a fake profile on her page say that type of garbage? The moderator must actually believe it too.

Liar. That is not what she said.

Speaking of garbage...

Anonymous wrote:I think some of what is going on is in response to the many vile and hateful things said and posted by the pro-DL crowd last year. Not excusing it, but there is history here.

+1000 Never again will I let my guard down from those closed school activists who kept DS out of school almost all last year.

That fake profile SJH said tonight on AEM that APE wanted teachers to die last year. Where was the moderator, letting a fake profile on her page say that type of garbage? The moderator must actually believe it too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Asymptomatic testing?!? No thanks - way too much of a chance of false positives, which will mean unnecessarily closing the school to my kids again.

The current prevalence rate for the coronavirus in the United States is roughly 15 cases per 10,000 people per week. (Prevalence in schools tends to be similar to, or lower than, that in the surrounding community.) If you give 10,000 people a test that produces false positives 2 percent of the time, that means you might get 215 positives: 15 true positives and 200 false positives. In other words, more than 90 percent of the positive test results will be incorrect.

No, the rate of false positives is low. Much lower than 2%.

Overall, it's fine to have some false positives if that means we are also able to identify true positives and quickly shut down spread.

Nope. My kid is not unnecessarily missing school for a week when COVID barely transmits in a school setting. They missed way too much last year and during the spring 2020.

You'd rather have a large outbreak that may send whole classrooms home? Or grade level?

Anyway, the chance of false positives is very low.

If you can't uphold the social contract, then keep your kids home.

The chances of a large outbreak are so, so tiny, especially at the ES level. We have a year's worth of evidence that demonstrates that tiny risk. Then add in the tiny risk to children from COVID (less than the daily risk of them riding in our car to go to school), the risk becomes so minute that it's a no brainer to opt out of asymptomatic testing.

Those that have a different risk profile, feel free to get your kids asymptomatically tested as much as you want. We're passing for DS.

Asymptomatic testing is not part of the social contract. If it was, the school system would require it.

Michael Osterholm would like to have a word...

"First of all, we have to understand that the situation we have with school children this year is very different than we had last year,' said Osterholm. "This Delta variant has fundamentally changed the whole situation in terms of transmission a year ago." The former form of COVID, he says, "was not well transmitted between kids. You didn't see them transmitting to others. They were not often infected themselves. That's changed. They are now—the kids are now just as likely to get infected as adults and they're just as likely to transmit it. So from that perspective, much of the work that was done to make recommendations about how to handle schoolchildren were from a pre Delta era. And those recommendations really are no longer effective in terms of what we need to do. So we have to understand we're going to have real problems in our schools."

Dr. Doom himself, Michael Osterholm (although I will give him credit for recently saying cloth masks "are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out"). He just said the other day on a podcast that it's not "safe" for kids to go back to school. There are so few scientists who say that. Plus, England would love to have a word with him.

There are people in this town that would love for schools to close again. It is a fact. Look at the media they follow and people they cite.

I'll leave that to the obsessive nut jobs.

Anonymous wrote:I think some of what is going on is in response to the many vile and hateful things said and posted by the pro-DL crowd last year. Not excusing it, but there is history here.

Who are the pro-DL people?

And what did they say/post that was so vile?

I'm guessing that you are the PP who conflates everyone.