Youāve skated over the difficult bits - there are plenty of places where hard choices need to be made. What about compulsory testing of vaccinated individuals (especially if asymptomatic cases are then excluded from campus)? Should college students be forced to wear a mask even in their rooms to avoid risk to roommates? Should we force vaccinations even on the youngest kids mainly to benefit older people? And should social distancing mean lowering occupancy in classrooms so kids donāt get 5 day in-person teaching?
Since the vaccine means so many breakthrough cases, I guess compulsory testing of all would be necessary. Classes should be offered virtually. College roommates? Well, then, single rooms. Vaccinations should be required for kids as long as the vaccine gets full FDA approval (I believe they may be going for that for the youngest ages anyway, bypassing EUA step, but Iām not sure about thatā¦I did read that it was being considered at one point). As for social distancing, as long as masks are being worn inconsistently and improperly, ventilation/filtration is inadequate, then yes, that might mean less than 5 days/week in-person learning to maintain social distancing.
Hard choices? Yes. But we did it last year, and itās even more important for Delta.
But maybe itās all Covid prevention theatre, after all. Let the virus loose, and may the strong survive. I wonder what the vote would be for that bill.
Last year (before vaccines), enough people voted with their actual actions for that, basically preventing any communal behavioral effort to contain the virus from being successful.
Before Delta, vaccination gave people hope that then such people who refused vaccination and refused to do any other COVID-19-mitigation actions were mostly harming themselves instead of imposing unwanted risks on everyone else.
Unfortunately, Deltaās increased rate of breakthrough infections have brought the fear, and hence the political conflict, back. That the breakthrough infections are still less likely than unvaccinated infections, have mainly been mild or asymptomatic, and relatively rarely result in serious cases or hospitalization, does not seem to limit the fear being generated, although one very valid fear is that āring vaccinationā of contacts around the medically vulnerable and children under 12 is no longer reliably effective.
The people who refuse vaccination and refuse to do any other COVID-19-mitigation actions are still mostly harming themselves, but there is somewhat more risk they are imposing on others than before Delta (but still less than before vaccines).
What about we increase federal funding to hire more teachers, reduce teacher to student ratios across the country so that low socioeconomic kids get a complete in person education and safe social distancing and a better quality educational experience than they had pre pandemic? . Win Win.
What youāve presented is for all intents and purposes a repeat of last year, as if vaccines had changed nothing. But I donāt think youāll find many votes for an Australia-like situation of indefinite lockdown in a futile attempt to eliminate the virus. Life is about compromises, not absolutes.
So we have to wait multiple years until weāve trained enough new teachers and built enough new schools, and only then will kids be allowed to go back to school in person? Is that a serious suggestion?
Where are you going to get the necessary space in schools, as well as enough qualified teachers?
School buildings are currently left empty during the weekends, afternoon, evenings and the school holidays. Optimise the resources by opening schools year round and extending the school day, no need to build more schools.
Formal teacher training can be fast tracked especially in an emergency situation like a pandemic. My parents in the medical field didnāt need a teaching qualification to tutor me in science and maths up to college level growing up, itās material that they knew through their job and own education. I remember once calling out my biology teacher who drew a super dumbed down anatomical diagram of the human heart and explaining what he missed out.
We need a realistic short-term solution that can be implemented in the next 8 weeks.
How about renegotiating teacher contracts with increased pay and a full calendar year commitment like other professionals instead of the current academic year schedule?
The fact is many colleges are requiring vaccines this year, some for staff also. The students endured last year before the vaccine was available. With an effective vaccine, this year should be totally different. The fact is the vast majority of vaccinated individuals are not going to get any effect besides a cold. Those that are unable to vaccinate can certainly measure their risk tolerance and act accordingly. The world is marching on. Just ask all the other workers that have and still are on the job daily making sure everyone else still has the essentials they need to live. Unless anyone here is truly off the grid and completely self sufficient we all depend on others that have had to and continue to work through this pandemic.
And just to add, itās not at all proven that the same rules should apply to kids as adults. The benefits and costs are very different. This is a good summary of the lack of evidence on that front for kids:
āA year ago, I said, āMasks are not the end of the world; why not just wear a mask?āā Elissa Schechter-Perkins, the director of Emergency Medicine Infectious Disease Management at Boston Medical Center, told me. āBut the world has changed, there are real downsides to masking children for this long, with no known end date, and without any clear upside.ā She continued, āIām not aware of any studies that show conclusively that kids wearing masks in schools has any effect on their own morbidity or mortality or on the hospitalization or death rate in the community around them.ā
Rice University moving temporarily to online instruction:
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/568707-rice-university-announces-switch-to-online-classes-for-beginning-of
Regarding kids and COVID-19, while it does appear that kids are less likely to suffer severe consequences from COVID-19 than adults, kidsā risk of suffering severe consequences is non-zero, and appears significantly greater than with things like influenza. However, there seem to be few studies and little data on the subject to narrow down the level of risk within that fairly wide range.
So it is perhaps not surprising that people may be filling in the gap with worst or best case guesses and forming political opinions based on such worst or best case guesses.
A related issue is that the fear of breakthrough infections that has come with the Delta variant means that, if kids go back to ānormalā* in-person school (where kids tend to share lots of various kinds of viruses with each other), they are likely to bring home SARS-CoV-2 which the adults in the household now fear that their vaccinations will not protect them from (and similarly for school staff).
*As opposed to COVID-19-restricted school with spaced-out lower capacity classrooms, partial in-person with partial remote, no free recess or lunch periods, etcā¦
Yes. I consider myself part of the older crowd, over 50, and without a doubt Iām willing to take on some risks so that younger people can benefit from the type of joy I had when I was their age. And every single one of the 80+ year olds I know personally feel that way times 10. I personally would think it was exceptionally selfish for a 90 year old person to think that all the fabulous young people should thwart their lives for multiple years in order to protect them (ā¦from what?). And donāt get me started on nursing home patientsā¦I dread being in a nursing home and hope that if I end up there, it can be as short a time as possible. 
. I believe the median life span of nursing home patients is approximately 5 months, before covid existed. However, my point of view may be tainted by the fact that Iāve faced mortality up close with a truly high risk of death with a dreadful cancer (only 20% odds of 5 year survival), and I came to be comfortable with death itself, with my greatest worries really only revolved around the people left behind, and specifically the young people left behind. As an older person, Iām totally willing to withdraw myself more, take more precautions, huddle home, wear N95s, whatever is needed, in order to allow young people to enjoy life the way we did. I understand not everyone feels that way, but I wanted to make sure you understand that some of us old folks in fact DO feel that way. So I hope everyone is as responsible as is reasonable, particularly by getting vaccinated (I see NO excuse for not doing that), and I think itās ok to expect people to limit their craziness (we donāt really need Lollapalooza type events, in my humble opinion), but I sure am ok with the students resuming a pretty normal on-campus experience, even if it means a little extra covid passes around amongst them. When I think about the people I care about, which includes my parents and parents in law, my own generation, and the generation below me, ALL of whom I love and adore, without a doubt itās the generation below that I have the most concern for. Sue me!!
Amen, amen, amenā¦
Slightly different situation, but my almost 80 year old mother is not going to let the risk of Covid stop her attending her grandsonās wedding next month. As she points out, it might be the last family celebration she is able to attend anyway (any other family weddings are most certainly 5+ years away). Sheās spent the last 16 months on her own (my father died at the start of the pandemic) and like many of her generation is prepared to take some modest risk to finally have some enjoyment in life. That seems entirely reasonable to me.
I donāt fault any elderly person for living their life as they see fit. I donāt blame her one bit. My elderly neighbors are not totally isolating. They take precautions but still want to be social.
My mother, at 86, is the same. She got the vaccine in Jan as soon as possible. She wears a mask (not always covering her nose), tries to follow the rules, but isnāt willing to isolate for the rest of her life. She likes going to restaurants but is willing to sit outside. She shops entirely too often.
My friendās MIL is 98 and is the opposite. I donāt think sheās left her house except to go to the doctor for 18 months. I donāt think Iāve seen her since March 2020 when I took care of her for a week.