Right now the only person I believe as far as this virus is concerned…is Dr. Fauci. Everybody else either changes their tune, speaks between the lines, or gets silenced.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta just indicated that the WHO needs to clarify what they are saying…what do they mean, exactly? They need to clarify asymptomatic (rare) versus pre-symptomatic versus very mild symptoms (loss of smell for a few days).
If Dr. Fauci says that asymptomatic people will not transmit this virus, then I will believe it.
Florida has 1000 new cases per day. That should be interesting as we approach August and back to campus.
The most telling post has been the article in post 6126-many public k12 schools just cant afford the additional $500 per student it will cost to open under the new guidelines, and thus wont return in person. This also avoids potential issues with teachers, unions, and complaints from parents. It is certainly easier for them to stay online. I predict many parents will seek private or charter schools this fall, as those may open.
I have posted a number of times that I am less optimistic about the ability of public K-12 schools opening than colleges this Fall, and this article underscores some of the headwinds.
Hopefully the Fed Govt comes thru with more funding…the possibility of kids losing a year or more of in-person instruction time, having limited socialization opportunities, parents needing to find alternative childcare so they can go to work, and the impact on everyone’s mental health, are serious issues that could cause undesirable social, health, and economic consequences for years.
Some K-12 schools not opening would also further increase the divide between affluent and other school districts, as the affluent school districts will likely be more able to make in-person instruction happen.
@roycroftmom It also seems that this will be very problematic for parents wanting to go back to work. Also, with the exception of maybe top boarding schools, private schools are screwed if they don’t reopen.
Agreed, private and charter k12 schools have strong financial incentives to reopen so will make it work. Public school districts do not, and will face criticism regardless of what they do, so may just take the path of least resistance and remain closed, ostensibly in the name of safety. Very unfortunate for the kids and working parents.
No, that’s not what they said - but they really should be more clear. They said that truly asymptotic covid positives (that never get symptoms) rarely spread the virus. 16% of positives have NO symptoms at all. However, the people that are asymptomatic in the beginning of their illness - and later acquire symptoms - can and do spread the virus.
I do think this changes in that there should be WAY more focus on checking symptoms now (even mild), to catch possible positives, but you may be truly asymptomatic for a day or 2, and then get really sick. How would you know who’s who? You don’t.
Same with the cleaning and wiping… the focus at schools should be more on social distancing and finding people with any/all symptoms and keeping them separated, not on crazy sanitizing after every single touch on campus.
The claim is only that the asymptomatic (not including presymptomatic) spread is uncommon. Those who eventually become symptomatic are likely to be most contagious a few days before showing symptoms.
There’s a Reuter’s article from Friday that said that in the US in April alone 469,000 K-12 teachers were laid off. I don’t know what you can make of that, but it does seem important. At the least it’s telling me that a lot of schools aren’t hiring more teachers to provide smaller classes for social distancing purposes.
Sounds like these school districts either aren’t planning on f2f classes in the fall, or if open to some f2f instruction, kids won’t attend every day, which would keep class sizes down. Either way not good for parents being able to go back to work, instruction time/quality for students, or of course for the laid off teachers.
Nope. It said that that many district personnel were laid off. In other words, that includes school bus drivers, gardeners, painters, crossing guards, maintenance folks, food service, and the like. Since schools were still open – and teachers were working virtually – it is highly unlikely that many were certificated teachers, particularly in union states.
@bluebayou is correct that the article said personnel when it quoted that figure. But all of the article went on to talk about teachers, with the exception of mentioning once about librarians. So it definitely led one to think just about the teachers. Good catch. I wonder what the real figure for teachers is? I hate that we can’t just take reporting at it’s face.
Also unfortunate from a pedagogical standpoint, as, let’s face it, most parents are not well-equipped to home-school their children. Even the effects of this spring’s debacle are likely to ripple for a long time.
Unfortunately many of the poorer kids suffering from online schooling will simply drop out and not return when school meets F2F. I wonder how we account for those wasted lives in our calculations.
WHO never said that. Dr. Marina Kerkhove said yesterday that asymptomatic spread (spread from people who never developed symptoms) is very rare. She didn’t say pre-symptomatic spread is rare. The June 5 Interim Guidance from WHO said the same.
Today Kerkhove sort of walked this back. It’s so confusing.