I do not know and I am very worried. Both of my kids were on IEPs for social anxiety and had to be homeschooled and online schooled for large chunks of time. My daughter is going to be in 8th grade (which was the worst time of my life, when I was most depressed and closest to suicidal) and just recently became OK even going to school in general. The past 2 years were a great struggle in a good way. Just as soon as she got comfortable and compliant with expected attendance requirements, everything shut down. She always has problems going back to school after any break at all. Add the whole pandemic scenario (where “normal people” are hysterical to the point of making anxiety ridden people wondering WTF is wrong with them) and I am worried. The last time she was homeschooled it was because we were forced to by the school district. And she pretty much did nothing for 2 years. Having a high IQ pretty much made up for it, but it’s not ideal. I imagine there will be a lot more 504 and IEP requests and kids being homeschooled. Kids without attentive parents or with 1 parent who does everything and a mom who sits on the couch all day will suffer. Anyone trying to arrest my kid for having a panic attack in an environment where grown adult men in the top 99% of health are “opting out” of work while kids are expected to go to school will have something to answer for.
Our school district sent out an e-mail today that included this:
“It’s understood that while some desire students to return to school in-person full time, there are others who would prefer distance learning. School planning will allow for parent/guardian choice on distance learning regardless of the format chosen by the state. Please understand, state leaders, not the School Board, superintendent or principal, will make that decision on the learning format. It’s also likely that the district will be moving between learning formats as the school year advances, depending on conditions.”
Educators are not essential workers if you ask me. Nobody is going to starve to death, or freeze, or lose their home (apart from the teachers I guess) if she and her colleagues don’t show up. Teachers are essential for the continued well-being of the country, though. And needlessly sending a good number of them to their death is the antithesis to that. The rest of your drivel about “hiding” isn’t worthy of a response, you clearly have no clue what a virus is and how it works.
I’m curious what happens if the hypothetical goes a little further. The kid raises a fuss. Everyone knows it. Then the kid gets Covid-19 from going to school. Is there any responsibility on the part of the parents? Or the school? Is that abuse?
If the kid dies, does that make a difference?
I know that there are waiver forms going around for Covid-19 from schools. I don’t know how binding they are.
We will be opening schools here in Louisiana in a few weeks. At least that is the plan. Our school system conducted an online poll. 77% of parents said they would send their kids to school. I think it was 67%, certainly >50%, of the staff wants to return. That said, the school system has rolled out an online school where kids will receive a full education. In the works for over a year, it is being brought online early. The quality is TBD, but all significant classes will be offered by qualified local teachers. So if the kid doesn’t want to go to school, the school will give him/her a laptop (and if necessary provide an internet connection) and registration at the online school. We had some forward thinking staffers and in early March they ordered enough laptops for every child and staffer. They will arrive by the end of August. We are told that the Chromebooks we are using are made at the rate of 1 million/month. Current demand is 12-15 million/month. That is, an order placed today won’t get filled until next year. For the Chromebooks we ordered. I don’t know about the global demand or supply of all types of computers.
Is your wife afraid of getting sick enough to die from work normally? If not, why not? Per CDC, more people in the US have died of only pneumonia since 2/1 than have died only of Covid-19. And this includes that pneumonia has therapies and medicines to help fight it. Even the combination of both is only about half of each. Influenza season was over mostly by then. Personally I’d like to be able to start the clock for this chart in April but I’m not taking the time to see if it is possible.
Mask up, grab the hand sanitizer and gloves and get to work. Just like tens of millions have been doing all along.
I’m more of a visual learner. Does this CDC graph say anything to you? Seems to match what you’re saying–more pneumonia than COVID. See anything interesting about that chart? Anything at all maybe jumpin’ out at ya that feels a little like headlights bearing down on you? I’d offer to chat you up about it next month but someone doesn’t want the COVID numbers being reported to CDC anymore so it’s tough to predict whether the graph will mirror anything like reality.
But you’re absolutely right, baseline illness fatalities totally eclipse COVID. That’s why major metro ERs always have refrigerated trailers on hand to handle corpses, and nursing homes routinely lose humongous chunks of their residents to virulent disease. Spent any time in an ER recently? My missus has (the teacher is the ex, a minor detail I bring up just to avoid confusion). For the 3 hours she was in there in April she hear a number of patients come in, unable to speak and unable to stop coughing until they had a tube in their throat. That happens all the time too, doesn’t it. Nothing to be concerned about. And those doctors, all faking that shell-shock look and crying about how they’ve never seen anything like this–just a bunch of histrionic pussies, ya? ER staff are so fragile, aren’t they?
Look, I’m too tired to say mean shit to you, although I really think you need to hear some, maybe slap you out of your denial stupor. I’m all about letting people have their own thoughts and form their own opinions. Just please…stop talking to people about this ok?
Our district plans 5 days a week PreK-5 and blended learning (2-3 days a week + remote learning) for 6-12. Parents may choose to do remote learning only for all grades. All students will be provided appropriate devices. I don’t know what the district will do about bandwidth, as that problem became obvious in March.
I am looking forward to going back to work. I am not afraid of the disease. We’re relatively healthy, so don’t have the vulnerability that makes the virus scary.
My big concern is not the disease. It’s that all students must wear masks. I’m afraid of the disciplinary battles that will come from defiant (and unwise) children refusing to wear them. “Go to time out because you won’t put your mask on” is a fight I do NOT want to have. I believe kids will be allowed to take them off at recess. I’ll be happy to do more recess duty in that case.
I don’t think your link says what you think it says.
Pneumonia is not a specific disease, let alone a contagious one. Pneumonia is a general term for any infection inflaming the lungs. It’s often the immediate cause of death for people in precarious health due to all sorts of different things.
Two things that jump out. (Fun with numbers to distort them to make any point)
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Covid is the cure for what ails you. As Covid spread and deaths increased, overall deaths went down. If Covid didn’t kill ya, it made you stronger to everything else.(Yes I know the lockdowns dropped the total death numbers.)
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Covid cases were misdiagnosed as pneumonia. Except for week 13, Covid + pneumonia numbers stayed relatively flat.
The point I was trying for was if the media reported every new case of pneumonia with a daily hospitalization total update, the populace would demand antibiotic slushies and penicillin infused protein bars.
And my point is that if those cases were broken down by individual causes of the pneumonia, all those individual numbers would be a lot smaller. If you’re going to compare the numbers of all pneumona cases, it would be closer to an equivalent to compare them not to covid but to all infectious diseases.
Admittedly, if we reported every new case of infectious disease with a daily hospitalization and death total update, the populace might get a whole lot more careful about preventing disease transmission; and I suppose many more people might demand antibiotics, though that would almost certainly backfire as many infectious diseases aren’t susceptible to them and the rest are susceptible to antibiotic resistance problems.
You obviously know nothing about teaching or teachers, and your other posts in this thread indicate you don’t really understand the COVID situation. How sad that you view people who are understandably concerned about the COVID threat–possibly because they’ve done more and better research than you have–as “hiding from the world.” However, maybe you came here not to fight ignorance but to vent animosity. In that case, I hope you feel better.