Okay let’s go back farther … how about a dozen years? Averages 145 reported. Indeed though the numbers reported go down more '07-'08 and before. In general though people refer to recent years when they talk about what happens “every year”, not what was more than a dozen years ago.
Yes, though, while not as serious to kids as influenza usually is, at least so far, it, like influenza, can be serious to kids. Should we keep schools closed every year due to those influenza risks for kids?
90 deaths even with significant social isolation in four months isn’t as serious as 145 deaths in 12 months without isolation? Is that what you’re saying?
Are people just worried about kids dying? Or are people worried about kids dying, adults dying, even more being hospitalized from COVID19, and the long-term effects of COVID19 that still aren’t understood since we’re dealing with a novel virus?
I’m not saying that everyone is being rational right now, but I don’t know anyone who is worried just about child mortality.
The average for all 16 years is 124.875 or 125. I’m just guessing, but a doctor like Dr. Sean O’Leary, vice-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, who wanted to be accurate might take the data from the time it was reported and use that average, especially if the numbers were sometimes volatile in certain years like in 2009, it was 288 but in 2011, it was 37.
The numbers for each year hidden below because. . . tedious.
2004 47
2005 46
2006 77
2007 88
2008 137
2009 288
2010 124
2011 37
2012 171
2013 111
2014 148
2015 95
2016 110
2017 188
2018 144
2019 187
What I’m guessing Dr. O’Leary wouldn’t do is take an estimate of influenza deaths based on a model and compare it to reported cases of Covid-19 and compare the two because that wouldn’t be comparing apples to apples.
Dr. O’Leary’s quote with more detail.
If you extrapolate the numbers over the last few months to the entire year, Covid-10 could be more deadly to children than influenza. One of the big issues is that there is a lot that is not known about Covid-19 as versus yearly influenza.
As to your question of whether schools should shut down due to influenza, that’s probably a whole thread in itself. Of course, there’s a vaccine for influenza, so it’s different. And much more is known about influenza. But I’m beginning to wonder if people knew the risks they were taking that they wouldn’t at least try to mitigate in some ways.
I highly doubt Dr O’Leary did any of that. He was more likely misquoted or misspoke. He knows that best estimates are hundreds of children in the U.S. dying from influenza each flu season and that best estimate so far is under a hundred from COVID-19. Will change but no one knows to what. I would be disappointed if he played games to spin it, more than if he was human and just misspoke.
In the context of his point, kids dying from influenza is something to take seriously. COVID-19 is not “completely benign” for kids. Agreed 100% by almost everyone not named Trump. From the perspective of kids health and risks thinking of it as in the ballpark with Influenza is fair. So far worldwide less but again it might change by the 12 month mark. Might.
Agreed monstro that the argument is not about kids health and what is best for them. We accept a bad flu season level of risk for kids as possible every flu season because education is worth that risk. It is more about what sort of sacrifice of their best interest is to be made based on speculations that it is possible that such significant sacrifice could benefit some adults.
What is this based on? You somehow know what Dr. O’Leary knows?
Based on the numbers that are known, there are the CDC reported numbers of influenza deaths of children that more closely match his statement about the average deaths of children.
The estimated hundreds of deaths of children from influenza is based on a mathematical model that doesn’t compare with the reported Covid-19 deaths of children since there is no comparable model for Covid-19 in children.
Dr. O’Leary is not spinning the numbers He is straight up comparing average reported cases of influenza with reported cases of Covid-19 in children.
btw, Fox News did almost the identical analysis that you just did with the same source. They underplayed the Covid-19 reported number of deaths of children by only using reported cases for children under 15 and inflated the estimated cases of influenza with the same CDC source you used which is an estimation of under reported cases.
This year isn’t the chance of a bad flu season. It’s the certainty of one. Bad flu season has already happened: that it happens again, in the fall, is the optimistic, best case scenario. It could be worse. I accept the risk of a car accident every time I get in the car. I would change my calculations if I knew I’d get in an accident and the only question was how bad it would be.
Adults are not the only ones benefiting from this “significant sacrifice”, though. If hospitals are swamped with sick adults, then how do we take care of kids needing hospitalization? If kids are infecting their parents and their parents become ill, who is going to take care of them? Their grandparents, who are at even more risk? Their aunts and uncles, who can’t afford to get sick themselves since they have to work to feed their own families? Is pregnant Aunt Mary supposed to be overjoyed about taking care of her COVID-shedding niblings while her sibling coughs up their lungs for two weeks? When she gets sick and suffers from a COVID-related miscarriage, is she supposed to take consolation in the fact that at least her niblings got to have socially distanced lunch in the school cafeteria? How does it benefit a kid to be self-quarantined for two weeks every time they are exposed to someone at school who is infected?
Closing schools doesn’t just protect kids. It also protects communities.
Georgia:
Dr. Gupta is a commentator at CNN. He’s in Georgia, so not sending his kids to classroom learning is a no-brainer. But he does a good job in this article of outlining a lot of the studies and reasons why he’s not sending his kids back to school. At the end, his decision came down to the high infection rate in his area, but that’s not news in Georgia. The rest of the article is about background for his considerations.
New Jersey
After planning a return to classrooms, New Jersey made a change.
Kansas
Kansas teachers could owe the schools thousands to get out of their contracts if they decided to quit or retire.
Universities and colleges are laying off workers due to decreased tuition and increased costs due to coronavirus. Even tenured people have not been spared.
And yet, in Washington:
No, Dipshit DeVos, they are not.
Yes, this is the high school made famous by the crowded hallway photo. The school was closed Monday and Tuesday for deep cleaning. On the 17th they will switch to a hybrid environment, with the student body broken into two groups that alternate days when they learn from home and days when they come to school. I wonder if the number of infected will continue to climb before then?
Maybe they’ll just follow the Texas model and stop testing.
Reopened Calif. private school ordered to shut:
Fuck your belief. Dumbasses.
We’re never going to get out of this hole.
It seems like the assumption should be that someone will always have CV19 on campus. Whether they know they have it or not, it seems impossible to keep the virus out of the school. And with situations like this, it seems like it’s a deterrent to getting tested. If someone is going to go to campus regardless, they might as well not get tested so they don’t have the liability of not complying with a positive test.
I almost think it would be better if the schoosl said they weren’t doing anything to mitigate the virus and they won’t close down because of it. If staff or students want to be safe, they should take appropriate precautions on their own. Obviously that’s not ideal, but schools and districts are so incompetent at keeping the campus safe that it’s probably better if everyone assumes nothing is being done rather than assuming the school is a safe environment.