Anonymous wrote:From what I've heard entire counties will not close, it'll be on a school basis. Fairfax could see a handful of schools close if they start to get diagnosis here and there.

Anonymous wrote:Reposting the explanation below, because it bears repeating.

This is a question of life and death because we are looking at hospital incapacitation unless we do something now.
Temporary closures and telework are a very efficient tool, and the only one we have right now, to manage the load of patients needing care at any given time.
In a critical healthcare system overload situation such as the one we are developing right now, we cannot stall to worry about how we're going to give out free meals to kids or who gets fired from which job because of childcare issues. There will be non-lethal collateral damage, but we're trying to reduce preventable deaths right now. Kids and adults will survive closures. Some of them might not survive the ensuing medical breakdown if we do not close right now.

Anonymous wrote:


It's a question of hospital capacity.

The total number of COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization + the expected number of patients needing hospitalization from other causes should be smaller than or equal to the total number of beds, in any given area, at any given time.

We cannot stop the epidemic. We can slow its spread by closures, quarantines and systematic social distancing so that all patients can have the best level of care. Otherwise patients will die from lack of medical supervision (personnel will be stretched thin, exhausted and overwhelmed), and lack of medical equipment and resources. Not just COVID-19 patients, but ALL patients in hospitals. Patients sick from cancer, flu, pneumonia, the labor and delivery ward, the ones with broken bones from car accidents, etc... Viruses spread like wildfire in hospital settings.

Yes, we are buying time. Time that will save lives. It could be your own.

Anonymous wrote:


It's a question of hospital capacity.

The total number of COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization + the expected number of patients needing hospitalization from other causes should be smaller than or equal to the total number of beds, in any given area, at any given time.

We cannot stop the epidemic. We can slow its spread by closures, quarantines and systematic social distancing so that all patients can have the best level of care. Otherwise patients will die from lack of medical supervision (personnel will be stretched thin, exhausted and overwhelmed), and lack of medical equipment and resources. Not just COVID-19 patients, but ALL patients in hospitals. Patients sick from cancer, flu, pneumonia, the labor and delivery ward, the ones with broken bones from car accidents, etc... Viruses spread like wildfire in hospital settings.

Yes, we are buying time. Time that will save lives. It could be your own.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm not opposed to closing schools in a more widespread fashion, but I haven't seen strong scientific evidence that it will work the was people claim it will, and it will come with enormous social costs. The science that there is seems to be based on the flu, but don't it we already know covid-19 doesn't uniformly act like the flu, particularly with respect to transmission through children? What basis is there for assuming the flu models are correct here?

Dude, with all due respect, our kids and our lives are at stake, we can not wait until every hardHead will see the obvious. We are not your Guinea pigs.
If you can’t see, you need glasses. Back off from deciding on peoples lives. You are talking costs? Have you ever plan a funeral? Have you seen the toll that an untimely death of a parent takes on kids?.. if money you value more then life, then there is more purpose for you on finances and political forums because you are too late for ethics train.

Arguing for widespread school closures from your isolated mansions in the suburbs without caring how the vast majority of Americans live is selfish and unethical.

I do care and this just is one thing to solve. Otherwise it is you who is pontificating from your fake moral grounds and propagating the solutions that will kill the very people you clame to care about. Pure hypocrisy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you advocating for immediate widespread school closures, when do you think they should reopen? What would your trigger be? I see a lot of insistence that school closure will stop or slow an epidemic, but little discussion of how we know that has happened and schools can reopen. One PP above stated they should be closed until manufacturing capacity is improved, which could literally be years. What other triggers should be used?

If your answer is years of timr, I cannot see how school closure is prudent.

I’m a NP but I think we should close for around 2-3 weeks to see what the virus is going and go from there. Of course nobody can give a hard end date. Nobody knows exactly what will happen. We can only guess based on what we’ve seen in other countries.

Forgot to add that this time should also be spend actually TESTING people.

PP here. I would be fine with closures of 2-4 weeks, but my guess is that in 2-4 weeks we will be in the same situation as we are today, and then what? I'd even be okay with going to end of school year (though I think that would have severe impact on availability of healthcare workers and also people would take their kids to their jobs). But what happens when they close for a period and nothing changes?

Look, I am not trying to be argumentative, but I don't see a lot of clear-headed thinking in this thread. I unfortunately think that we need to prepare for a world where COVID-19 is a widely circulating virus. Do we permanently close schools? What do we do?

Agree. We could close schools for 2-4 weeks and the first day back a teacher or student could show up sick. Then we are back to square one. Especially if they are not going to ground air and cruise travel (looking like they aren't) closing school does nothing. You could still be infected by Karen who just got back from Italy.

+1 to you both. Glad to see there are a few folks with common sense on this thread.

You fail to see the benefit of mitigation of spread. Slowing down the spread will ensure adequate access to healthcare. No pile up on the hospitals all cases at once.

You are welcome.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm not opposed to closing schools in a more widespread fashion, but I haven't seen strong scientific evidence that it will work the was people claim it will, and it will come with enormous social costs. The science that there is seems to be based on the flu, but don't it we already know covid-19 doesn't uniformly act like the flu, particularly with respect to transmission through children? What basis is there for assuming the flu models are correct here?

Dude, with all due respect, our kids and our lives are at stake, we can not wait until every hardHead will see the obvious. We are not your Guinea pigs.
If you can’t see, you need glasses. Back off from deciding on peoples lives. You are talking costs? Have you ever plan a funeral? Have you seen the toll that an untimely death of a parent takes on kids?.. if money you value more then life, then there is more purpose for you on finances and political forums because you are too late for ethics train.

Arguing for widespread school closures from your isolated mansions in the suburbs without caring how the vast majority of Americans live is selfish and unethical.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you advocating for immediate widespread school closures, when do you think they should reopen? What would your trigger be? I see a lot of insistence that school closure will stop or slow an epidemic, but little discussion of how we know that has happened and schools can reopen. One PP above stated they should be closed until manufacturing capacity is improved, which could literally be years. What other triggers should be used?

If your answer is years of timr, I cannot see how school closure is prudent.

I’m a NP but I think we should close for around 2-3 weeks to see what the virus is going and go from there. Of course nobody can give a hard end date. Nobody knows exactly what will happen. We can only guess based on what we’ve seen in other countries.

Forgot to add that this time should also be spend actually TESTING people.

PP here. I would be fine with closures of 2-4 weeks, but my guess is that in 2-4 weeks we will be in the same situation as we are today, and then what? I'd even be okay with going to end of school year (though I think that would have severe impact on availability of healthcare workers and also people would take their kids to their jobs). But what happens when they close for a period and nothing changes?

Look, I am not trying to be argumentative, but I don't see a lot of clear-headed thinking in this thread. I unfortunately think that we need to prepare for a world where COVID-19 is a widely circulating virus. Do we permanently close schools? What do we do?

Agree. We could close schools for 2-4 weeks and the first day back a teacher or student could show up sick. Then we are back to square one. Especially if they are not going to ground air and cruise travel (looking like they aren't) closing school does nothing. You could still be infected by Karen who just got back from Italy.

+1 to you both. Glad to see there are a few folks with common sense on this thread.

Anonymous wrote:

I'm not opposed to closing schools in a more widespread fashion, but I haven't seen strong scientific evidence that it will work the was people claim it will, and it will come with enormous social costs. The science that there is seems to be based on the flu, but don't it we already know covid-19 doesn't uniformly act like the flu, particularly with respect to transmission through children? What basis is there for assuming the flu models are correct here?

Dude, with all due respect, our kids and our lives are at stake, we can not wait until every hardHead will see the obvious. We are not your Guinea pigs.
If you can’t see, you need glasses. Back off from deciding on peoples lives. You are talking costs? Have you ever plan a funeral? Have you seen the toll that an untimely death of a parent takes on kids?.. if money you value more then life, then there is more purpose for you on finances and political forums because you are too late for ethics train.