Also, if the test results take a week, that would cut down on the lag time for a corresponding spike in death numbers.
Also, if the test results take a week, that would cut down on the lag time for a corresponding spike in death numbers.
The King of TalkSox has Spoken.
Originally Posted by a700hitter
That might be the right idea, but that would also create a nightmare.
I can see both sides of the argument. Children definitely need to be in school. Making that happen logistically and safely is a whole other story.
Good to hear that you had 100% compliance. The only time that I was out and saw 100% compliance is when I went really early, when I think most, if not all, shoppers are older. The other times, the majority of people were wearing masks, but not 100%. What irks me the most, I think, is seeing employees not wearing masks. And there are still too many people with their masks not covering their noses.
Well, I tend to think that this is good news in a sense. AZ and TX and other hot zones have higher positive test rates because they are only testing people with symptoms.
That's never good news.
We should be testing, testing, testing.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
No one said its going to be easy. Parents will not send their kids to school if they are not sure that everything is being done to guarantee their safety, including a written plan for what happens when someone tests positive. The main problem is that test results are taking way too long to come back. Kids will be in school then out of school for a week while all the test results come back. Yo-yo schooling like that isn't good either. I just can't see a way around closing down until everyone is tested. This virus spreads very very easily. You don't want a whole school carrying it. And to those who say that kids do not spread it, that is factually incorrect. Camps and day care centers have been closed down because they DO spread it-perhaps not as easily, but they DO spread it.
Children do need to be in school. The problem with school openings is the same one we have more broadly. We opened Pandora's Box. The virus is now raging through the country as predicted. We have no earthly idea where we actually are because we started late, have been chasing the virus from the start and have fallen way behind on testing AGAIN with test results taking 4-8 days. As a result, Contact Tracing is virtually impossible at the moment. We could have ramped up more university labs and multiple other lab test facilities but didn't. In fact, Federally we did not provide enough incentive for the big commercial labs where most of the testing is currently being conducted to ramp up early. As such they were on the sidelines for a goodly part of the early "effort" (I use the word effort cautiously here).
Amazing to think that the American people sacrificed mightily to earn us enough time to catch up to the virus. We squandered the time and are pretty much right back where we were in March, worse actually as we now have multiple epicenters for the virus. What we have to show for it is a Medical community that through hard experience is better equipped to treat the virus. IMO we at least need to drive the virus back down to a more manageable level or we will be using school kids, teachers and other school support personnel as guinea pigs in a wild assed petri dish experiment. Kids and teachers are not front line pandemic warriors and should not be treated as such no matter the consequences. If we can't do better than that, I just don't know what to say any more.
This is now become such a moving target. Maybe open schools broadly in areas that are remote, rural and not densely populated that are not fighting an accelerated virus pace. These also happen to be parts of the country with poor broadband access. So those areas might be tailor made for widespread school openings. Then again, that sounds a little like saying we can send four Native American kids in some remote corner of Nevada back to school. There are a couple of NE states that have been pretty hard nosed about masking up and distancing and it shows in their results. Maybe a bit more risk would be in order there as they have already exhibited some sense with regard to their social responsibility to mask up and distance. Maybe kids there have had mask up and distance religion poured into them by their parents. My kids are all past school age. So I have no personal knowledge in this regard. Even there, one could make the case that the idea of packed school buses is pretty scary.
All by way of saying that in opening Pandora's Box wide open, everything we want to consider doing is much more difficult and will remain much more difficult until we get the lid at least closing back down on Pandora's Box in some meaningful way. Hopefully more States will mandate masking up though I am not even sure a mandate will work in some States.
Since I don't see the means to lockdown states entirely AGAIN, it would appear our only hope is continued improvement from the medical community in fighting the virus and full, 100% masking up and distancing in an effort to get back to a point where the time lag for test results comes back down allowing for some reasonable level of Contact Tracing.
The means is there, but I don't see the necessary stomach for it, unfortunately. Sad that within a month we could almost end this plague if we did the right thing. Admittedly it would be a logistical nightmare, but if everyone could sacrifice 30 days to end this.......
I've brought this up before, but how do you expect poor people, who can't even afford one days worth of food, to stop what they're doing and hunker down for a month? Are we closing grocery stores here? Because if so, a vast majority of the population does not have the money nor the space in their homes to stock up a month in advance.
I just have one thing to say, right now.
Online learning is pretty close to a complete waste of time for most students, especially lower grade levels and the ones who need it the most.
I saw it first hand as a teacher, and just about every teacher I know agrees. We're lucky if the kids get 10% of what they would in class, so for those of you who feel public schools weren't worth the money before, you should be hating online learning.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
We'd need a massive meals on wheels program that began being set up in April or May.
I know, I know, we put a man on the moon, and we even brought him back, but this ain't happening, and there is no will to make it happen by those who make the decisions.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
IMO it will require a blended approach regardless of the shortcomings of online learning. That will likely at some point send younger students and certainly all Special Ed students with learning disorders back to physical schools. That said, I am a constant supporter of public schools (unlike Boom-Boom). I am almost a desperate supporter of Public Schools feeling like I have lost ground year after year after year. While I went to private schools (back in the dark ages, just after the Crusades) I put my money where my mouth has been and sent my kids to Public School insisting on being a part of the process and having skin in the game.
Yup...MEANS was a poor choice of words on my part. Will would have been a better choice of words on my part. A little help from leadership could go a long way in that regard. But too many vested interests have invested too much in the opposite argument.
Last edited by jung; 07-12-2020 at 08:33 PM.
You would need many people to implement a nation - wide meals on wheels program. In addition to food , you would run into 101 other things that people could not live without for a month . Basically, you would be back to square one : Lockdown everything except for " essential " people. Didn't we just do that ? The thing to do is to protect the most vulnerable ( that simply was not done before , especially in the worst areas ) , reopen things intelligently, enforce mask wearing and social distancing, etc. And then just ride it out as best we can . And don't compare us to any other country . There really isn't another county on the planet that is comparable to the U.S. in every way . As far as the schools; I would hold off a while on re-opening , but it is a situation with so many pros and cons that I really would hate to have to make the decision.
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