[M T]

61,000 children (actually probably a lot more because kids are frequently asymptomatic) is not a problem.  There have been 80 total deaths from COVID-19 in kids under 14, compared to 19,000+ deaths from all causes in that age group, and something like 600 pediatric deaths from influenza each year:



https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid.../index.htm

It's not about how many kids die. It's about how they infect other students, teachers, and staff, who then take the disease home and spread it to the community.

A bit later in his post, BC wrote "The concern about kids getting COVID-19 is that they transmit it to vulnerable parents and teachers." so the two of you are in agreement there.

I'll point out that how the spread among the kids affect the R value is significant.  It adds an entirely orthogonal mechanism for spread of the disease, which I believe is perhaps larger than all the spread in all the businesses.   In support of opening schools, people argued that "Kids don't get sick (or get sick less often)" and then that "Kids don't spread the disease", but I believe those have been shown to be false.

Very young children simply don't understand the risks.  Even when they do understand, they are easily distracted and forget that they shouldn't be interacting closely.  When maybe they've figured that out, many are individualizing themselves by rebelling against rules & authorities.

If one had the value of R with everyone at work but kids not in school, then I'd think R would double with everyone at work AND kids in school.   How many of you sit in a room with 25 (or, worse, 6 sets of 25) during your day?

The average classroom size in the US is about 25 (plus teacher(s)).  That's a lot of chances for one of them to be infectious (asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic, or symptomatic), and then its off to the races.    Want to keep them 6' apart?  That's a minimum of 2940 sq ft (more than a 54'x54' room).

I see schools that are having classes have done alternating groups (one I saw had to use 4 disjoint groups) in order to spread the kids out in the room available.  Subdividing into groups reduces the size of each bubble but the bubbles are intricately linked.  Adam is going to take it home to brother Bill who is in a different group.   Sending each kid to school every other day or every third day pretty much makes sure that someone who gets sick was at school after being infectious but before symptoms showed.  Alternating weeks would reduce those chances somewhat.  

I can see how people from California might think schools can move outside, but I doubt you'd find much agreement from those in Minnesota, or Texas.   Even in California, are you going to call for school holidays when it rains, or just threatens to rain, or do you plan on huddling everyone indoors and think COVID won't spread on those days?

Can we find a reasonable way to have few enough people at work and all kids in brick&mortar schools and still get R<1?  Personally I doubt it.  We didn't get everyone back to work before R got above 1.

[M T]

61,000 children (actually probably a lot more because kids are frequently asymptomatic) is not a problem.  There have been 80 total deaths from COVID-19 in kids under 14, compared to 19,000+ deaths from all causes in that age group, and something like 600 pediatric deaths from influenza each year:



https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid.../index.htm

It's not about how many kids die. It's about how they infect other students, teachers, and staff, who then take the disease home and spread it to the community.

A bit later in his post, BC wrote "The concern about kids getting COVID-19 is that they transmit it to vulnerable parents and teachers." so the two of you are in agreement there.

I'll point out that how the spread among the kids affect the R value is significant.  It adds an entirely orthogonal mechanism for spread of the disease, which I believe is perhaps larger than all the spread in all the businesses.   In support of opening schools, people argued that "Kids don't get sick (or get sick less often)" and then that "Kids don't spread the disease", but I believe those have been shown to be false.

Very young children simply don't understand the risks.  Even when they do understand, they are easily distracted and forget that they shouldn't be interacting closely.  When maybe they've figured that out, many are individualizing themselves by rebelling against rules & authorities.

If one had the value of R with everyone at work but kids not in school, then I'd think R would double with everyone at work AND kids in school.   How many of you sit in a room with 25 (or, worse, 6 sets of 25) during your day?

The average classroom size in the US is about 25 (plus teacher(s)).  That's a lot of chances for one of them to be infectious (asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic, or symptomatic), and then its off to the races.    Want to keep them 6' apart?  That's a minimum of 2940 sq ft (more than a 54'x54' room).

I see schools that are having classes have done alternating groups (one I saw had to use 4 disjoint groups) in order to spread the kids out in the room available.  Subdividing into groups reduces the size of each bubble but the bubbles are intricately linked.  Adam is going to take it home to brother Bill who is in a different group.   Sending each kid to school every other day or every third day pretty much makes sure that someone who gets sick was at school after being infectious but before symptoms showed.  Alternating weeks would reduce those chances somewhat.  

I can see how people from California might think schools can move outside, but I doubt you'd find much agreement from those in Minnesota, or Texas.   Even in California, are you going to call for school holidays when it rains, or just threatens to rain, or do you plan on huddling everyone indoors and think COVID won't spread on those days?

Can we find a reasonable way to have few enough people at work and all kids in brick&mortar schools and still get R<1?  Personally I doubt it.  We didn't get everyone back to work before R got above 1.