Activities and their risk levels for coronavirus - Printable Version
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RE: Activities and their risk levels for coronavirus - teejers1 - 07-07-2020
(07-07-2020, 11:10 AM)M T Wrote:(07-06-2020, 11:26 PM)teejers1 Wrote: One life - let's say an 88 year old relative living with kids/grandkids - is not automatically "worth" more than the collective damage caused by hundreds of thousands of kids adrift in education for 1+ years.
Is that your sound bite?
Let's memorialize that 88yo that someone who says that sound bite would choose to sacrifice for the education of hundreds of thousands of kids. But I can't identify him/her in the list of 130,000+ (so far.... in 1/3 of a year)
Well how about this: not one grocery store clerk should die so that people can buy their food at grocery stores, in-person. All should be required to place an on-line order and pick up curbside? Is that hypothetical grocery store worker any less valuable than the hypothetical grandma or hypothetical teacher?
The point is that everything we do - when we venture outside in any way, shape, or form - increases the risk and likelihood that somebody will die because of it. So every activity should be judged based on incremental risk versus expected benefit. If you don't engage in that analysis, then the lazy response is everybody stay home and do nothing until further notice. What complicates everything is that both risk and benefit are hard (if not impossible) to quantify, so you end up making gut calls, without certainty that such calls are the right ones. (Though I do think the vast majority of folks can agree that certain things should be required (masks . . . at least indoors) and prohibited (mass gatherings indoors; and any activity that compresses people in confined spaces - indoor bars come to mind).
RE: Activities and their risk levels for coronavirus - Farm93 - 07-07-2020
(07-07-2020, 08:47 AM)BostonCard Wrote: In my suggested scenario, teachers who are concerned for their health can teach from home via zoom, with a large TV set up in the classroom and young, healthy monitors or teachers aids keeping the class under control. Also, as I said before, teachers should be considered essential employees, as we do with doctors and grocery workers.Teachers, unlike many of those other low paid essential workers, have a decent union with reasonable political power.
BC
Those unions will demand safe working conditions for their union workers.
POTUS tweets to the contrary will only strengthen their case and political power, so I am happy to see him tweeting away.
If education in the fall is super critical (and it should be) then re-establish many of the COVID restrictions for July and August, use COVID tests to identify pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers in near real time (understand that might be coming) and provide all teachers with N95 masks daily.
I am confident teachers unions will strike until they get some protections. And I will happily support that because they are too valuable to our society and many are vulnerable enough that they would likely not survive until 2021 with the optional/recommended precautions in most places in the USA today.
Here in CA the department of education's legal counsel advised districts to halt their pre-season sport camps. Less than hours later, many schools halted everything. In my children's school they had to self-test everyday, take temperature at home and then again at school, avoid getting with 10 feet of any other athlete, and wearing a mask whenever not doing an aerobic activity. And apparently that was not enough...
https://www.ocregister.com/2020/07/06/o-c-department-of-education-advises-schools-to-postpone-summer-athletic-programs/
I suspect that same legal counsel will advise schools on worker (teacher) safety for the classroom soon. I suspect cramming 30+ kids into a classroom with just a fever meter will probably not be the plan in that advisory.
Those that don't like our schooling outlook should make sure that the USA acts a bit more like Germany, Canada and South Korea and a bit less like Mexico and Brazil for the next 45 days.
COVID thrives on the excuses. Given the excuses bouncing around at the moment my money is on COVID.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to go get a bunch of at home school supplies before others realize that stores like Wal-Mart and Staples will probably run out of key items in a few weeks. :(
RE: Activities and their risk levels for coronavirus - burger - 07-08-2020
I said upthread somewhere that I didn't think teachers would voluntarily come back to classes in the fall. I stumbled on this article which reported some polling numbers for teachers:
Quote:About 20% of teachers said they aren’t likely to return to teaching if schools reopen in the fall, according to a USA Today/Ipsos poll conducted in late May. EdWeek Research Center surveys conducted around the same time found that more than 10% of teachers are more likely to leave the profession now than they were before the pandemic, and 65% of educators said they want school buildings to remain closed to slow the spread of the virus.
A program where teachers' being present in classrooms is voluntary is doomed to fail if there aren't enough teachers to go around. Class sizes are going to have to be smaller than previously to allow for distancing (and let's not even discuss how unlikely it is that young kids will stay 6' away from their classmates or teachers).
Like I said above, we should be investing money now in doing online education better. Instead, just like with the general covid response, we're doing...nothing.
Meanwhile, even just opening everything up is going to be unaffordable for all the states experiencing massive declines in tax revenue:
Quote:Without a boost in state or federal funding, many school districts might not have the resources they need. An analysis by the American Federation of Teachers estimated that the average school will need an extra $1.2 million, or $2,300 per student, to reopen safely. An analysis by the School Superintendents Association estimated it would cost less, but still nearly $2 million for the average school district to buy enough hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes and masks and to hire more custodial staff and nurses or aides to check temperatures regularly.
RE: Activities and their risk levels for coronavirus - Goose - 07-08-2020
The schools in Taiwan are open. They are having no noticeable problems. Then again, they can track and trace. We can't. End of story.
RE: Activities and their risk levels for coronavirus - burger - 07-09-2020
Meanwhile, Arizona schools can't even do online education without spreading the virus: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2020/07/08/trump-pushes-reopen-schools-arizona-school-leaders-face-more-uncertainty/5401041002/
Quote:As President Donald Trump's administration pushes for schools to reopen on time, a small community in eastern Arizona is reeling from the death of a teacher who contracted COVID-19 after she taught summer school virtually while in the same room as two other teachers.
The school district's superintendent, Jeff Gregorich, said three teachers went above and beyond in taking precautions against the spread of the virus while teaching in the same room, but all three contracted COVID-19.
How will having kids in these classrooms will be safe?
lex24 - lex24 - 07-12-2020
(07-07-2020, 11:10 AM)M T Wrote:(07-06-2020, 11:26 PM)teejers1 Wrote: One life - let's say an 88 year old relative living with kids/grandkids - is not automatically "worth" more than the collective damage caused by hundreds of thousands of kids adrift in education for 1+ years.
Is that your sound bite?
Let's memorialize that 88yo that someone who says that sound bite would choose to sacrifice for the education of hundreds of thousands of kids. But I can't identify him/her in the list of 130,000+ (so far.... in 1/3 of a year)
I have no doubt that there would be a large number to make that sacrifice. Particularly if their grandchildren were in the at risk group and even more so if they are terminal to begin with. Hell, I know my Dad would have done it. He died at 86. He had Pulmonary Fibrosis. Covid undoubtedly would have hastened his end. His quality of life sucked. He told me he was ready months before he died. (Another gift he gave to me - comfort upon his death) If he would have been told that his death would help underprivileged kids in school (Dad had been tutoring such kids in English for years) he would have been thrilled. And if they said they’d have to advance it a couple months or so, he would have gladly taken that trade off. After all, they didn’t call that generation the Greatest Generation for nothing. Sacrifice was nothing new to them. And to give your death meaning as you are on deaths door is not a bad thing.
In the end, I guess I’m flummoxed by the lack of outcry from the social activists on this. Poor and minority kids will be the ones that suffer. The privileged kids will do just fine.
And excuse me for saying this, but I doubt there is one person that posts on this board whose child or grandchild fits within the large group of children that have little to no educational support at home and are at the lower end of the economic scale.
RE: lex24 - JustAnotherFan - 07-12-2020
(07-12-2020, 12:49 AM)lex24 Wrote: If he would have been told that his death would help underprivileged kids in school (Dad had been tutoring such kids in English for years) he would have been thrilled. And if they said they’d have to advance it a couple months or so, he would have gladly taken that trade off.
Wow, what a leap. Your father's accelerated death wouldn't help underprivileged kids. The current offering is to let a bunch of people die so that parents can have state subsidized childcare so that businesses can have workers. Those people dying wouldn't help kids in any way. The people dying would be the outcome of the premature and without proper preparation reopening of schools, not the contributor to helping underprivileged kids access education.
Also, most underprivileged kids are not even being helped in most school settings. Schools actually harm them.
Additionally, these kids have family members. And while your dad needlessly dying sooner wouldn't help any of these kids, one of their parents dying would be devastating.
Finally, we don't need a tradeoff of free childcare ... I mean school ... or old people dying. We could actually come together as a society and fight the spread of the disease so that far fewer people died and come up with better ways of educating children since the conventional schooling model was already a failure, particularly for the kids you're speaking of, before the pandemic.
lex24 - lex24 - 07-12-2020
(07-12-2020, 08:51 AM)JustAnotherFan Wrote:(07-12-2020, 12:49 AM)lex24 Wrote: If he would have been told that his death would help underprivileged kids in school (Dad had been tutoring such kids in English for years) he would have been thrilled. And if they said they’d have to advance it a couple months or so, he would have gladly taken that trade off.
Wow, what a leap. Your father's accelerated death wouldn't help underprivileged kids. The current offering is to let a bunch of people die so that parents can have state subsidized childcare so that businesses can have workers. Those people dying wouldn't help kids in any way. The people dying would be the outcome of the premature and without proper preparation reopening of schools, not the contributor to helping underprivileged kids access education.
Also, most underprivileged kids are not even being helped in most school settings. Schools actually harm them.
Additionally, these kids have family members. And while your dad needlessly dying sooner wouldn't help any of these kids, one of their parents dying would be devastating.
Finally, we don't need a tradeoff of free childcare ... I mean school ... or old people dying. We could actually come together as a society and fight the spread of the disease so that far fewer people died and come up with better ways of educating children since the conventional schooling model was already a failure, particularly for the kids you're speaking of, before the pandemic.
Of course we can. I’m not suggesting otherwise. I was responding to a specific post that implied that octogenarians wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice for kids. Perhaps I misread the post. As for school, suffice to say we disagree.I also disagree with your framing of “the current offering”. Districts are searching for ways to open schools as safely as possible under the circumstances of this pandemic. I don’t think many (certainly none that I’m aware of in California) are talking about simply opening up school as usual with 30 kids in the classroom five days a week.