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Comment by wayoutthere | Hacker News Reader

The problem isn’t the kids getting sick, it’s the adults teaching them getting sick and dying. We’ve treated teachers like shit for so long that many are just saying “nope, not dying for a job” because they can go make more money doing literally anything else. We were scraping the bottom of the barrel even before Covid.

If kids education were really a priority, the right time to invest was 20 years ago. The system has been broken for a long time already.

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I couldn't agree with you more. Teachers and other school workers were not even mentioned in this article.

Not mentioned in the article - but definitely already being prioritized for 2 years based on most policy decisions.

I see where you're coming from, but, as a first grade teacher, I can say that remote learning doesn't prioritize teachers' needs either. Rather, it reflects the minimal investment a school or district could possibly make. For these past two years, we could have invested in PPE, filtration, and reducing class sizes. We could have prioritized approving vaccines for children. Instead, we're now expecting adults and children to sacrifice their safety in order to go to schools that are roughly the same as they were in 2019.

"The problem isn’t the kids getting sick, it’s the adults teaching them getting sick and dying"

Isn't this exactly what the article is talking about? I think recognizing that we are doing this trade is a step in the right direction. Only then can we proceed to discuss how we should make that trade, instead of throwing kids whom have no say, and their future, right under the bus.

We can have this discussion until we’re blue in the face, but unless the state is willing to send police to round up teachers and force them to work, teachers will look out for their own health and not go to work when Covid numbers are this high. Most major city school districts had planned to reopen on schedule, but the decision to close was made for them by their staff.

> the right time to invest was 20 years ago

The second best time to plant a tree is today

It’s probably too late, this country is about to fracture. All the indicators point to a coup coming in the next few years which will launch us into an unknown realm of violence. We’re way deep into “the cool zone” now.

I highly disagree. It is never too late. I will continue to roll up my sleeves and work for change and I hope you join me.

As a member of a marginalized community, I don’t have that luxury. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. I’m doing my part in my own way.

Best of luck to you on your journey, friend

This sentiment seems strange in 2022. Vaccines for teachers have been widely available for almost a year now.

> Vaccines for teachers have been widely available for almost a year now.

You appear to have missed the news around the Omicron variant being much better at vaccine evasion than Delta. You can't compare the situation a year ago with the one now, which is unique and unprecedented, just like the pandemic was initially.

I thought it was pretty much understood the vaccines weren't doing much for contraction of Delta already. We've moved on to "prevents serious illness and death" which is still true for Omicron and ought to be enough for teachers to return to work.

In that case, shouldn't it be enough for everyone to return to work? I wonder why top companies in the S&P 500 are delaying return to work then.

Clearly they must be operating under the same mysterious constraints that are keeping schools closed.

Top companies in the S&P 500 are delaying return to work because many tried it and were met with absolute mutiny. The vast majority of people got a taste of the remote life and don't want to return.

> The vast majority of people got a taste of the remote life and don't want to return.

Certainly this couldn't be the case for teachers teaching remotely – they probably enjoy their 10 hour workdays where they are standing most of the time and wearing a mask.

Very true, teachers unions are fighting the return to schools hard. I was referring more to your typical white collar office job, i.e. those employed by the S&P 500.

I have Omicron right now. I’m vaccinated and had my booster in November. I’m young, healthy, I work remotely and I’m struggling to make it through half a day. My symptoms aren’t even that bad, I’m just exhausted all the time. There is no way I could do a job where I had to be on my feet all day. I can barely carry on a conversation.

The problem right now where I live is that everyone is sick. Grocery stores, restaurants, delivery services and even fucking Walmart are closed because they don’t have enough employees to operate. The schools tried to open but it was a disaster with half the teachers out sick so they just postponed opening them a week in hopes it will go away.

This wave will be over, but without lasting immunity in the population the next mutation could be worse. We could very well be dealing with this the rest of our lives and there is no return to “normal”. We’re in the new normal.

> My symptoms aren’t even that bad, I’m just exhausted all the time.

There are 30-40M symptomatic cases of the flu each year in the US, with the same or worse symptoms as what you just described. There is no "new" normal, cold & flu season just got more complex.

I’ve had the flu. Covid is way worse.

We’re already in the new normal; nobody is going back into the office if they don’t have to and that alone will force a realignment of American life. We were slowly headed that way before Covid anyway, the pandemic just made it happen. Companies requiring knowledge workers to be onsite are having huge levels of attrition because the employees have options.

One of my clients who was very eager to get back into the office and tried forcing the issue in Q3 last year has seen 40% of their engineering staff quit over the last 6 months, and are having a hard time finding replacements. They made the decision just before the holidays to switch to a remote-first model and downsize their offices. This is happening, and it’s going to crush commercial real estate.

I've had both. In 2009 my wife and I both got Swine Flu while in University. That was far and above the worst illness I've ever had. Covid was like a bad cold.

I completely agree with you on the new normal regarding in office, but that wasn't what we were talking about. We were discussing a new normal regarding seasonal infectious disease and the social and economic burden it causes. As COVID becomes endemic, there won't be anything "new" about that normal, it'll look almost identical to the burden caused by the cold and flu prior to 2020.

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