S/o More On Back to School

[westwoodmom04]

The original thread has gotten really long and pretty unwieldy. I wanted to share this article by an epidemiologist and parent on why he thinks kids should return to in person school (subject I think to all the usual qualifiers about local conditions). https://www.vox.com/2020/7/9/2131856...ning-questions

As we discussed in the other thread, he notes that rapid testing and relaying results immediately to the school district is critical.

[ang79]

The original thread has gotten really long and pretty unwieldy. I wanted to share this article by an epidemiologist and parent on why he thinks kids should return to in person school (subject I think to all the usual qualifiers about local conditions). https://www.vox.com/2020/7/9/2131856...ning-questions

As we discussed in the other thread, he notes that rapid testing and relaying results immediately to the school district is critical.

Yes, that is the article I read and mentioned in the other thread! Can any schools really do that though? There has to be privacy issues where the doctors can't give info to the schools without parent approval and to trust that the parents will contact the schools immediately is asking a lot (not saying parents shouldn't do that, but like was mentioned in the other thread its common for parents to send sick kids to school - dose them with tylenol to make the fever go away rather than waiting the traditional 24 hrs. fever free, etc.) Talked with a few friends in our district this morning while waiting to pick kids up from cross country practice. They agreed its all a matter of how soon, not if, schools close down due to breakouts and to just assume most learning will be done virtually this year.

[westwoodmom04]

Yes, that is the article I read and mentioned in the other thread! Can any schools really do that though? There has to be privacy issues where the doctors can't give info to the schools without parent approval and to trust that the parents will contact the schools immediately is asking a lot (not saying parents shouldn't do that, but like was mentioned in the other thread its common for parents to send sick kids to school - dose them with tylenol to make the fever go away rather than waiting the traditional 24 hrs. fever free, etc.) Talked with a few friends in our district this morning while waiting to pick kids up from cross country practice. They agreed its all a matter of how soon, not if, schools close down due to breakouts and to just assume most learning will be done virtually this year.

I don’t agree with the last part, over 99 percent of the schools that reopened in person in the rest of the world stayed open.
I would expect similar in the NE given our numbers.

Every state that has contact tracers is already doing the notification part. My understanding is that the student would not be identified by name but by where he/she has been (i.e. classrooms). Sort of similar to lice notifications, parents are just old there are x amount of cases in class.

[niccig]

I don’t agree with the last part, over 99 percent of the schools that reopened in person in the rest of the world stayed open.

.

The rest of the world doesn’t have the numbers the US has. They’re handling the virus in a very different way (testing, contract tracing, compliance with masks and social distancing). It’s an apples to oranges comparison.

If it takes 8 days to get test results, and that person doesn’t quarantine, contract tracing isn’t going to help much as it’s too late.Testing numbers and turn around has to be increased.



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[SnuggleBuggles]

Rapid testing is the current hurdle, imo. Access and turn around time are not ideal in many areas. On NPR the other day there was someone talking about how well equipped they were and they didn’t have enough testing kits. Everyone can tout their ideal plans and they might seem like no brainers in their pocket of the US but the country is diverse.


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[westwoodmom04]

The rest of the world doesn’t have the numbers the US has. They’re handling the virus in a very different way (testing, contract tracing, compliance with masks and social distancing). It’s an apples to oranges comparison.

If it takes 8 days to get test results, and that person doesn’t quarantine, contract tracing isn’t going to help much as it’s too late.Testing numbers and turn around has to be increased.



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Much of Europe actually had more deaths per capita than we do. And in a good number of states there is rapid test turn around and contact tracing systems in place. For example, MD did not enter phase one reopening until they had hired 1000 contact tracers. And we have 24 hour turn around on most tests.

This isn’t a one size fits all situation, but there are in fact many parts of the country with numbers similar to European countries when they reopened schools.

[echoesofspring]

The article is a good read and I esp appreciate his brainstorm of q's to push districts on, as I've been mulling over my letter to the district.

And in a good number of states there is rapid test turn around and contact tracing systems in place

There's a front page nyt article about this today, looking at where states stand on testing (I did not read, only looked at the infographic ) :
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...gtype=Homepage

In CA it seems to be regressing - we're in a relatively small county (<300K) that had had relatively few cases until the last couple of weeks (1 death from March to last week, now we've had 4, our cases quadruped in June/july). They were offering testing to anyone and encouraging people to get tested. When I considered getting tested last weekend I was told the turn around time had just recently grown from 3 to 5 days. And yesterday they announced they were back to a policy of only testing essential workers and those who had symptoms. I don't see how we can reopen until that's resolved, and it's really hard for me to imagine that we have the testing capabilities in place that he's describing in 4 weeks. Maybe by September or October, but it's going to require some serious leadership at the state and federal level.

[westwoodmom04]

The article is a good read and I esp appreciate his brainstorm of q's to push districts on, as I've been mulling over my letter to the district.


There's a front page nyt article about this today, looking at where states stand on testing (I did not read, only looked at the infographic ) :
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...gtype=Homepage

In CA it seems to be regressing - we're in a relatively small county (<300K) that had had relatively few cases until the last couple of weeks (1 death from March to last week, now we've had 4, our cases quadruped in June/july). They were offering testing to anyone and encouraging people to get tested. When I considered getting tested last weekend I was told the turn around time had just recently grown from 3 to 5 days. And yesterday they announced they were back to a policy of only testing essential workers and those who had symptoms. I don't see how we can reopen until that's resolved, and it's really hard for me to imagine that we have the testing capabilities in place that he's describing in 4 weeks. Maybe by September or October, but it's going to require some serious leadership at the state and federal level.

I agree, CA, or at least big chunks of Southern California, won’t be ready to reopen schools without significant progress with both case numbers and testing capacity.

[echoesofspring]

Much of Europe actually had more deaths per capita than we do

My understanding is that our death rate maybe unrealistically low right now, given the recent surge and the time it takes for those cases to take their toil. I don't know where that puts us in comparison to Europe, in say, 6 weeks from now.

Sidebar: Death rate is obv important, but the info I'd love more of is avg number of cases that result in long term complications, take many, many months to resolve, etc. When I think about our own family's risk I don't really think about the possibility of death, except when considering my parents and inlaws, all in their 70's and 80's. But I am concerned about long term health consequences, esp. with the information coming out about clotting. You see anecdotal stories in the news, but I haven't seen numbers/analysis of cases (and maybe it's too early).

[westwoodmom04]

My understanding is that our death rate maybe unrealistically low right now, given the recent surge and the time it takes for those cases to take their toil. I don't know where that puts us in comparison to Europe, in say, 6 weeks from now.

Sidebar: Death rate is obv important, but the info I'd love more of is avg number of cases that result in long term complications, take many, many months to resolve, etc. When I think about our own family's risk I don't really think about the possibility of death, except when considering my parents and inlaws, all in their 70's and 80's. But I am concerned about long term health consequences, esp. with the information coming out about clotting. You see anecdotal stories in the news, but I haven't seen numbers/analysis of cases (and maybe it's too early).

Not clear that we are going to see anything close to death rates from March again, due to improvements in treatment and virus circulating among age groups where it has been much less fatal. That’s the outcome I am hoping for. The fatality rate has been downgraded by CDC to .25 percent, it was around .8 in March/early April. Again, hoping that’s accurate.