Coronavirus Thread

[Deleted member 2897]

Its not just computers and laptops. How many families don't have access to internet? That is a more difficult problem to solve. IMO the major factor against all online learning the anti social ramifications for the kids. Kids don't need to be hugging and sneezing and coughing on each other back in school but they need interaction with other kids. They will not get enough through a computer/phone camera.

If we don’t get back to school, I feel like a few years from now we’re going to look back and have a similar crisis to the kids who drank lead poisoned water in Flint and the associated problems they had years down the road. There were a bunch of kids the last three months of school when it was all online who never logged into the systems or turned in one piece of work or ever showed up again in our local school district. They decided given the circumstances to pass all of these kids along to the next grade. That type of situation cannot go on much longer before the damage is unrecoverable and uncorrectable.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I'm thinking on the one hand that it might make sense for parents to have a choice between online and in-school, but on the other hand it's hard to see under the circumstances why the schools couldn't just do it all online. It may be preferable in normal times to have in-school, personal instruction but is it that necessary? Students without computers could get one loaned to them by the school system, with federal or state assistance if needed although it might save money in other ways to have all the students online.

The only major factor against it would be the fact that some parents need to have some place to park their kids during the day.

It's wreaking havoc on the parents, especially when both parents work outside the house. I know it's wreaking havoc with some parents that are trying to work from home.

 

[RamblinRed]

Unlike those countries (with populations 10-50x higher), Florida ran 150,000 tests today.

I don't disagree with your point bwelbo.

While they don't tell us how many tests they have done, I think the cases in Brazil and India are both way understated. Both likely have more deaths and more cases than the US even though they report lower.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I don't disagree with your point bwelbo.

While they don't tell us how many tests they have done, I think the cases in Brazil and India are both way understated. Both likely have more deaths and more cases than the US even though they report lower.

Exactly. That’s my point - countries like Brazil estimate thousands and thousands of additional deaths that are uncounted, which implies possibly millions of uncounted cases.

Florida is testing almost 1% of its population every day. India would need to test 13 million people a day to match that. They’re not even testing 1.3 million a day. Not even close.

 

[RonJohn]

I'm thinking on the one hand that it might make sense for parents to have a choice between online and in-school, but on the other hand it's hard to see under the circumstances why the schools couldn't just do it all online. It may be preferable in normal times to have in-school, personal instruction but is it that necessary? Students without computers could get one loaned to them by the school system, with federal or state assistance if needed although it might save money in other ways to have all the students online.

The only major factor against it would be the fact that some parents need to have some place to park their kids during the day.

My daughter was in an online only school for the past two years. She has a computer and decent Internet access. That will be a concern with some students. My daughter is a decent student, but it still took a LOT of attention from me and my wife for it to be successful. The online sessions with the teachers were not anywhere near as effective because the teachers appeared to be "virtual" teachers to her. She didn't have the same connection that she has had to in person teachers in the past.

Online only education will probably have terrible results for poor students. They won't have good computer equipment. They won't have good Internet access, if they have any at all. They won't have the teachers dedicated attention when they have issues learning something. And they likely won't have parents who have time to help, understand the material, and in some cases even care if their child learns.

 

[RamblinRed]

Dr. Atlas: Coronavirus surges linked mostly to protests -- and proximity to US-Mexico border
Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at The Hoover Institution, said Saturday night.Spikes in Texas, Florida and Arizona don't line up with reopening but with Mexico's surge and the recent protests that have gripped the U.S., Atlas said.
"When you really look closely at these so-called re-opening policies, whether it's in Georgia or Florida or Texas, you know, we didn't really see a big correlation of cases and hospitalizations from that," Atlas said. "That's really not true. That's sort of some sloppy thinking, I think, again. We really ... have to look closely at why these things are happening."By the way. California didn't really reopen. Yet they have cases coming up.

They correlate mainly to two things -- the big thousands and thousands of people with protesting, sharing megaphones, screaming. That's a setup to spread cases," Atlas said. "And also when you look at the analysis of the border counties, there's a tremendous amount of cases coming over the border and exchanging with families in the northern Mexico states."

"So the real concern that that I see right now is that there are hospitals getting crowded in their ICUs and this is clearly a concern," Atlas said. "The crowding is from the reinstatement of regular medical care, which is actually very important. We have locked that down before and that policy kills people. So we don't want to go back to that.""The solution to this is really protect the high risk in a more diligent way than we are. We have been very, very clear about that to people," Atlas said. "The second part is increase the hospital capacity." https://www.foxnews.com/media/dr-at...to-protests-and-proximity-to-us-mexico-border

I read the article and there are a number of mistatements or falsehoods in it.
First, the increase in hospitalizations are flat out not caused by regular care. Both AZ and TX have stopped elective surgeries in the majority of their states due to all the COVID cases.
Second, there is a number of factors causing the increase but he is making a causal association that may actually be reversed. The cases in northern Mexico may be being caused by Americans going there, not Mexicans coming to the US. Mexico is one of the few countries that US citizens are allowed to visit. Note how small the number of cases in Canada are and the fact the border is closed to non-essential traffic on that side.
Third, I agree with him that the BLM protests contributed to the case rise. Just like I didn't condone the Liberty protests in April, I didn't condone the BLM protests in May/June as both were taking place during a pandemic. But that is still one of the secondary causes, not a primary cause. A number of states had huge protests but no increases in cases.

The re-openings themselves did not cause the issues. It was the behavior of people after the re-openings that were the primary cause of the issues. if you look at the mobility data, there was very little increase in mobility until Memorial Day. Before that movement was still very limited even in places that had already re-opened. Once we got to Memorial Day the mobility reports showed greatly increased movement among Americans. That is the primary cause of our current surge. I don't think there were many protests in Idaho - a place where cases are running high. We are now seeing increases in cases in over 35 states. Deaths are increasing in 21 states in every part of the country except the NE. That lends support to the idea that the main driver is Americans simply moving around more and not using masks or keeping distance from each other.

if Dr. Atlas's conclusions were correct then the outbreak would largely be contained to 3-4 states, but that is not what happened.

 

[WreckinGT]

NBC News messes up last night and interviewed a bunch of doctors asking if they’d send their kids back to school right now. It was unanimous with all of them that they would.

Some people are way overthinking this. Not 1 out of dozens of European countries has had an outbreak since sending kids back to school. That implies that using good hygiene, staying apart, and so on...and the nature of kids with COVID-19 is they don’t spread the disease. I don’t know where some of you all live, but where I do and a bunch of other places I’ve read about have all these things set into plans. We’ll likely start online due to the numbers, but as the numbers drop, they’ll move back to a hybrid and regular model. If your school district hasn’t made these sorts of plans, you might think about moving - what the hell have they been doing all spring and summer?

This isn't 100% true. France had outbreaks in their initial phase 1 openings and had to shut down some schools. Israel, while not in Europe, also had outbreaks. The others have done well but it still begs the question, do you personally expect schools in the US to follow the same protocols that have lead to success in Europe? Because it doesn't look like we are going to. For some school districts in Georgia, it doesn't look like we are doing much of anything other than having additional hand sanitizer available.

 

[RamblinRed]

My youngest will be a senior this year, he has been homeschooled since 3rd grade. He is also an Asperger's kid.
Homeschooling is not easy, but it can be done.

As I mentioned yesterday and i think bwelbo is saying similar things, there is going to have to be a variety of teaching methods throughout the year and it will have to change in either direction on the continuim (from fully online to fully in school) based on changes in the community spread in an area.
WreckinGT also has really good points about learning from other countries and what they did and implementing best practices. Social distancing, using pods, potentially starting with just the youngest kids first.

There are going to be places in this country that can have all kids in school and if they can then they should. There are places that will have to have some sort of modified format with a mix of in person and online and there will be places where students will have to be 100% online or school will have to be delayed altogether (which a couple of states have already announced - AZ and WV among them). The key as bwelbo said is having well thought out plans with good metrics to figure out where you are in a community.
One source from the Coronavirus Task Force said today that a school should not be in person until certain measures are met
"While there are no hard and fast rules, if a particular community has had a five day sustained increase in community spread, they probably should not be opening schools until they pass through the basic gating criteria of a 14 day downward trajectory. That guidance has not changed.”

Also, Keep in mind what the American Academy of Pediatrics actually said in their statement on getting kids back to school as it is not exactly what has been reported. Here is the letter they released on Friday. it's all about getting kids back to school in a way that is safe for the kids, teachers and staff.

"Educators and pediatricians share the goal of children returning safely to school this fall. Our organizations are committed to doing everything we can so that all students have the opportunity to safely resume in-person learning.

We recognize that children learn best when physically present in the classroom. But children get much more than academics at school. They also learn social and emotional skills at school, get healthy meals and exercise, mental health support and other services that cannot be easily replicated online. Schools also play a critical role in addressing racial and social inequity. Our nation’s response to COVID-19 has laid bare inequities and consequences for children that must be addressed. This pandemic is especially hard on families who rely on school lunches, have children with disabilities, or lack access to Internet or health care.

Returning to school is important for the healthy development and well-being of children, but we must pursue re-opening in a way that is safe for all students, teachers and staff. Science should drive decision-making on safely reopening schools. Public health agencies must make recommendations based on evidence, not politics. We should leave it to health experts to tell us when the time is best to open up school buildings, and listen to educators and administrators to shape how we do it.

Local school leaders, public health experts, educators and parents must be at the center of decisions about how and when to reopen schools, taking into account the spread of COVID-19 in their communities and the capacities of school districts to adapt safety protocols to make in-person learning safe and feasible. For instance, schools in areas with high levels of COVID-19 community spread should not be compelled to reopen against the judgment of local experts. A one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate for return to school decisions.

Reopening schools in a way that maximizes safety, learning, and the well-being of children, teachers, and staff will clearly require substantial new investments in our schools and campuses. We call on Congress and the administration to provide the federal resources needed to ensure that inadequate funding does not stand in the way of safely educating and caring for children in our schools. Withholding funding from schools that do not open in person fulltime would be a misguided approach, putting already financially strapped schools in an impossible position that would threaten the health of students and teachers.

The pandemic has reminded so many what we have long understood: that educators are invaluable in children’s lives and that attending school in person offers children a wide array of health and educational benefits. For our country to truly value children, elected leaders must come together to appropriately support schools in safely returning students to the classroom and reopening schools."

 

[Techster]

This isn't 100% true. France had outbreaks in their initial phase 1 openings and had to shut down some schools. Israel, while not in Europe, also had outbreaks. The others have done well but it still begs the question, do you personally expect schools in the US to follow the same protocols that have lead to success in Europe? Because it doesn't look like we are going to. For some school districts in Georgia, it doesn't look like we are doing much of anything other than having additional hand sanitizer available.

Sh!t show all around. My Canadian cousins are in horror when I talk to them. They seemed more concerned for us than most Americans.

My friend in Tennessee and I were talking on the phone this weekend. We were discussing how the ring of infection is starting to close in for most people. A few months ago it was a friend of a friend, or a co-worker's relative. Now it's a friend/coworker/relative that is getting infected...the ring is starting to close in. I fear the next ring where it's more cases where it's someone in a person's immediate household. Personally, one of the subs that does work for my company caught it, and he's out of commission for the next 2 weeks until doctors have cleared him.

Unfortunately, Covid has become political. LOTS of political undertones even when all of us on GTSwarm discuss this. Pandemics and infectious diseases need to be strictly about science and medicine...but America has politicized it to our own detriment. What makes it worse is the United States is a very divided country right now so it's the perfect storm for losing control during a pandemic situation. I know we're supposed to leave politics out of this thread, but unfortunately it's very hard to...so I'll leave it at that.

Hopefully Americans will start seeing the rings all close in, and start doing what we need to. Unfortunately, driving around this weekend seeing restaurants and bars full of people doesn't give me much hope for us right now.

 

[armeck]

This isn't 100% true. France had outbreaks in their initial phase 1 openings and had to shut down some schools. Israel, while not in Europe, also had outbreaks. The others have done well but it still begs the question, do you personally expect schools in the US to follow the same protocols that have lead to success in Europe? Because it doesn't look like we are going to. For some school districts in Georgia, it doesn't look like we are doing much of anything other than having additional hand sanitizer available.

Correct. South Korea had to re-close their schools at one point as well.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world-r...south-korean-schools-to-close-after-reopening

 

[Deleted member 2897]

This isn't 100% true. France had outbreaks in their initial phase 1 openings and had to shut down some schools. Israel, while not in Europe, also had outbreaks. The others have done well but it still begs the question, do you personally expect schools in the US to follow the same protocols that have lead to success in Europe? Because it doesn't look like we are going to. For some school districts in Georgia, it doesn't look like we are doing much of anything other than having additional hand sanitizer available.

Well first of all, 70 cases linked to schools in the entirety of France I wouldn't call a flare up or break out. They shut the schools down temporarily, cleaned and what-not, and then restarted IIRC. We would be so lucky to only see 70 cases linked to schools in a single state. We can't be scared of numbers like those. You clean, alert people, move to online for a week or two, try and correct what may have caused it, and then try again.

If that's true about Georgia, that's really embarrassing and unnecessary. We have all known the main things to do to limit the spread. To not even cover those basics is just sad.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Correct. South Korea had to re-close their schools at one point as well.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world-r...south-korean-schools-to-close-after-reopening

Did you read the article? The school closure had nothing to do with an outbreak related to schools.

 

[armeck]

Did you read the article? The school closure had nothing to do with an outbreak related to schools.

They closed because when the community spikes, close quartered activities are risky.
As someone just posted:
One source from the Coronavirus Task Force said today that a school should not be in person until certain measures are met
"While there are no hard and fast rules, if a particular community has had a five day sustained increase in community spread, they probably should not be opening schools until they pass through the basic gating criteria of a 14 day downward trajectory. That guidance has not changed.”

It's no different than the Phased reopening guidelines, where there are gates that must be passed before next steps are taken.

 

[armeck]

First cases of coronavirus-related inflammatory syndrome identified in children in South Carolina

Two children in South Carolina have been diagnosed with the coronavirus-related pediatric inflammatory syndrome, according to the state's Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The children are both under the age of 10, DHEC said in a news release Sunday. One is located in the Midlands region in central South Carolina. The other is in the Pee Dee region in the northeastern part of the state.
Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, is a potential complication seen in some children and teenagers following Covid-19 infections or exposure to those with Covid-19.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health advisory to doctors across the country in May, warning them to be on the lookout for the syndrome. Symptoms include fever, stomach pain, vomiting, a rash and fatigue, according to the CDC.

"We continue to see more and more young people, especially those under 20, contracting and spreading COVID-19, and we know MIS-C is a threat to our youngest South Carolinians," State Epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell said in a news release. "MIS-C is a serious health complication linked to COVID-19 and is all the more reason why we must stop the spread of this virus."

 

[Techster]

While they don't tell us how many tests they have done, I think the cases in Brazil and India are both way understated. Both likely have more deaths and more cases than the US even though they report lower.

I think the fact that we point to Brazil and India when defending how badly America has done should be pretty eye opening in itself. How did we get to the point that when talking about how high our Covid rates are, we point to Brazil and India as possibly being worse? There's a lot of dissonance there.

America has the best scientists, doctors, and the best resources to defend against pandemics. America literally has the best overall resources in the world. The world is using the pandemic booklet developed by our scientist and it's effectively given the countries that followed it a way to resume normality. Yet here America is...with major cities having to roll back openings, children's schooling in question, and most of America still working from home.

 

[RamblinRed]

A couple of updates this morning.
First, from a study currently headed to the peer review process that was posted to medrxiv on Saturday from England. It's another small group study that is showing most of the antibodies from getting COVID disappear rapidly, potentially as soon as 20-30 days after first symptoms. It also shows that how many antibodies you have depends upon how severe a case you have. (The more severe of a case, the more antibodies and the longer they stay in the system). This is the 3rd small scale study I know about that has come up with similar results. We'll see what happens with it as it goes through peer review. But it is another sign of caution about immunity.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.09.20148429v1

New study from UC San Francisco using CDC data estimates that 33% of young adults (age 18-25) are at risk for a severe case from COVID.
Note that it estimates that smoking was the biggest co-founding factor with smokers being twice as likely as non-smmokers to get a severe case.
The study also shows that the gap of hospitalization of younger adults is starting to close somewhat with older adults 65+ (the number of young adults being hospitalized per 100,000 has risen more than 299% from April 18 to June 27, though still much less overall than 65+, about 1/9 as likely).
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/07/418081/1-3-young-adults-may-face-severe-covid-19-ucsf-study-shows

 

[RonJohn]

Unfortunately, Covid has become political. LOTS of political undertones even when all of us on GTSwarm discuss this. Pandemics and infectious diseases need to be strictly about science and medicine...but America has politicized it to our own detriment. What makes it worse is the United States is a very divided country right now so it's the perfect storm for losing control during a pandemic situation. I know we're supposed to leave politics out of this thread, but unfortunately it's very hard to...so I'll leave it at that.

I do agree that it has become too politicized. I disagree that the response can be strictly limited to science and medicine. The science and medicine purely of an epidemic would say that everyone should be isolated for a period of time to ensure that the infection cannot spread, including food producers, food retailers, medicine producers, medicine retailers, health care workers, police officers, fire fighters, etc. If everyone stays isolated for two months, then the virus will die. Unfortunately that would also cause the deaths of many from other health issues, starvation, fires, etc. It would also cause severe disruptions to the entire food chain. If it had happened in Feb/March it would have caused the deaths of many in the North when electricity and gas supplies stopped working.

Many have said that the US didn't shut down hard enough. That might be true. However, there were some activities that were stopped that had zero impact on the virus. What science is the basis for not allowing a person to walk to a lake and fish by himself? What science is the basis for refusing to wear a mask? Both of the main political ideologies in the US, liberal and conservative, have taken hard stands on issues with no science to back them up. The division is so bad at this point that if a magic bullet, like a good vaccine, did arise for the virus, the support/derision of the magic bullet would depend on who announces it first.

 

[armeck]

The division is so bad at this point that if a magic bullet, like a good vaccine, did arise for the virus, the support/derision of the magic bullet would depend on who announces it first.

There already is a debate over getting the virus, but most of those folks think it is because the antichrist Bill Gates is trying to chip us for some nefarious reason.

 

[Lee]

At least those choices don't put anyone else at risk. Maybe we should use dunk driving as a better example. Does anyone think people should be allowed to choose for themselves whether they are safe to drive?

Let’s ban serving alcohol at bars, stadiums and restaurants. That will solve the drunk driving problem.

If me wearing a mask is to protect others from me possibly having the virus and potentially giving it to them, then banning alcohol will protect innocent drivers from being exposed to the potential of you possibly getting drunk and driving. Right?

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I think the fact that we point to Brazil and India when defending how badly America has done should be pretty eye opening in itself. How did we get to the point that when talking about how high our Covid rates are, we point to Brazil and India as possibly being worse? There's a lot of dissonance there.

America has the best scientists, doctors, and the best resources to defend against pandemics. America literally has the best overall resources in the world. The world is using the pandemic booklet developed by our scientist and it's effectively given the countries that followed it a way to resume normality. Yet here America is...with major cities having to roll back openings, children's schooling in question, and most of America still working from home.

Nobody was pointing to those countries to defend the US. Some pointed to those to criticize the US, and then others tried to put it into context. I saw a similar argument this morning on the news, comparing Florida’s peak to New York’s peak. Florida tested 150,000 people yesterday. At New York’s peak, they tested a tiny fraction that many. New York got absolutely overrun. New York has 8x as many deaths as Florida does, despite having a smaller population and a significantly smaller population of elderly people. New York got hit like Europe, where the rest of the country largely did not. By comparison, Excluding New York We have 100,000 deaths. On a per capita basis, the U.K. has 200,000 deaths. Spain, France, Italy, etc all have significantly more deaths per capita than we do.