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Comment by koop123 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe all nurses should quit, too.

Maybe we should take better measures to protect both incredibly valuable professions instead of making snarky comments that imply they should just go get sick and die because someone else decided making bad calls is good.

Nurses get about double the salary and literally signed up for this type of work. School teachers often buy their own supplies and aren't remotely prepared for this.

I'm OK with giving teachers the choice not to return - but they should absolutely NOT be getting paid. And those who want to work can do so.

This doesn't make any sense - it's possible to teach children remotely. It is not possible to be a nurse remotely. The two situations are not remotely (pun intended) similar.

idk if it's a tongue in cheek comment or what but when you sign up to work in the medical system it's kind of implied (and probably explicitly written in your work contract) that you'll encounter dangerous and unpleasant situations, much less for teachers, especially when the whole thing is unnecessary and preventable in the first place.

Except the danger is overblown, there is risk ? yes of course, like everything else in life there is risk. Thats being said If they feel uncomfortable to work then they should quit, give opportunity for other teacher to take their job.

They're literally not being given the supplies to do their job. That kind of negates presumed responsibility.

No. The danger is not overblown.

New teachers just don’t appear out of the woodworks, it takes time to be trained. Plus, since in the US it’s such a poorly paid and poorly respected profession (at least not respected by society; Id imagine parents appreciate teachers), where will these new teachers come from?

>No. The danger is not overblown.

Ok not for you but at least for me and whole lot other people consider the risk be overblown.

>New teachers just don’t appear out of the woodworks, it takes time to be trained

This assume there are more teacher who are afraid than not. If there is truly lack of teacher then there are plenty of ways to urge them to work, such as giving more benefit.

> Ok not for you but at least for me and whole lot other people consider the risk be overblown.

Funny to think that this is exactly the mental state that put the US at the top of the worsts countries in term of coronavirus response.

Six months in and "it's just the flu bro" is still going strong, humans are weird.

I agree the US government response is really disappointing, they should have just reopen everything now.

I'm not saying that there nothing should be done regarding this virus. The vaccine research still have to continue, treatment research still have to continue, increase medical capacity(if needed) still have to be done.

What I'm against is this lockdown/restriction and this fear mongering because the damage it cause is more than the virus.

>Six months in and "it's just the flu bro" is still going strong, humans are weird

I'm not saying its just flu, I'm saying the risk of this virus is very low. The data clearly shown that for majority of cases it either asymptotic or only mild symptom.

Would there be risk of death due or long term damage to his virus ? of course, any diseases could cause that but the risk is low.

> I'm saying the risk is very low. The data clearly shown that for majority of cases it either asymptotic or only mild symptom.

The data also shows that 140k Americans died (probably many more if you take into account the excess deaths that have been recorded but haven't been linked to covid yet) and many more will suffer long term side effects. The data also shows that Europeans countries almost completely curbed the epidemic and can _safely_ and _slowly_ reopen because they went through a real lock down. If anything the data clearly shows that reopening anything in the US right now is suicide for thousands of people.

This situation will be a literal text book example of how to completely fail at handling an epidemic for the centuries to come, it would be comical if it wasn't for all the preventable deaths and suffering.

So only 140k died (0.04%) and with now with the death rate that is going down, its a good news, even more reason to reopen as soon as possible.

Amazing for someone to write off 140k deaths. Only 58,000 died in Vietnam. Thats literally in and out of "theaters of war". 1900 died in the Gulf war and those are ppl who "signed up for it".

So, only 140k died. Callous AF.

Because its not worth it to make millions other people suffer due to lockdown.

I’m sorry, but of all the things I’ve read on HN regarding this pandemic, your lack of empathy truly stands out. Of the “millions other people” you mentioned, there are two types: those who feel a sense of duty to bear their share of burden to stop this virus from taking (complete strangers’) lives, and those who reject that notion, eagerly treating those lives, and the lives of people who would grieve their losses, as statistics to be put on scale with profit and growth for a quick decision. I’m not saying that people in the latter invented that scale; that scale is indeed a fact of life. But when I think of my own experience of loss, I cannot imagine that those who tout the balance of this scale as the sole reason for policy decisions understand the weight of a lost life.

Of course i understand it can be tragic for some people to loss life due to this virus but I also understand to achieve near 0 death will also incur high cost.

>your lack of empathy truly stands out.

I disagree, I sympathize those millions who suffer due to the lockdown. Their suffering is real as well.

I hope your grandmother doesn't live in your ideal society. Forgive the strong language but my point is it's precisely the most vulnerable / neglected / oppressed of our fellow citizens and members of our society who are / have been the most at risk to coronavirus.

And that's an important consideration when we think about why a lockdown is important as well.

My grandmother will always have high risk of death given of her age, any small diseases could kill her, not just covid.

To lock her down, to not let her out the house, to deprive her with activity that she want to do will cause more damage to her physical health and mental health.

Look at other countries, the US wants to reopen during the peak of the virus... There are always risks, but there are more risks if you knowingly reopen everything during the worse time possible.

This is 100% false, nurses and doctors did not opt-in for working under pandemic like conditions. Also they never agreed to do so while understaffed or without appropriate levels of PPE

It's also kidn of implied that teachers signed up to work with snivelling children who spread germs. That being said, there's evidence this particular virus doesn't even spread easily among children.

> this particular virus doesn't even spread easily among children.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...

There's some conflicting results here. There's a study showing it generally doesn't transmit among children: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-commentary-pediatrics...

The study acknowledges children having been infected, but that they generally aren't a major vector for transmission. In particular, the study concludes that rise in cases among the young seem to occur from adults infecting the children.

It's also kind of implied that teachers signed up to work with sniveling children who spread germs. That being said, there's evidence this particular virus doesn't even spread easily among children.

Nurses also make significantly more than teachers do, as well.

North Carolina where my wife is a teacher:

Registered Nurse RN Salary $62,560

North Carolina Avg Teacher $37,631

And some other numbers:

2017-18 National Average Starting Teacher Salary: $39,249

U.S. Registered Nurse RN Salary $73,550

U.S. National Average Salary $50,620

Did you intend to compare starting salary to average salary?

Yes! Just wanted the other numbers to compare -- NC is paying less than the national starting salary on average for teachers and less than the national average for nurses. In both cases starting pay and average NC pay are less than the US average salary.

My wife could match her salary working at the local Sheetz gas station which does not require a masters degree AFAIK.

No salary would be worth my life. Not everyone cares about money as much as people on HackerNews. And nurses definitely have more exposure to covid-19 than teachers.

If they don't receive proper PPE, which they've been quoted that they still aren't, how could you blame them?

I've heard medical professionals opine that they're safer at work than they are at the grocery store now that they have adequate PPE along with well designed and properly followed procedures.

software engineers too

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