This sentence also implied that there had been consensus about what the trade-off is which I don't think everyone would agree with. I definitely know some parents who are afraid if their children returning to badly ventilated classrooms
Some districts simply weren't able to do virtual learning, and almost every parent their was an essential worker. They did a ton of outreach over the summer distributing Chromebooks getting people internet access etc but it still had a dismal turnout and had to go to modified in person in fall of 2020 for a couple weeks and then just full time regular school after a month or so. Even then they had a record number of non-returning students, and we are talking elementary school, first and 3rd grade. They can't find these kids, the official line is that they left the district, but there's no reason so many low income families would move in a single year.
They did masks, plexiglass, spacing and all the other stuff to start with, but it made instruction nearly impossible and they had so many problems with students bringing contraband including guns to school that they basically removed anything COVID related and had to ban book bags and made lunch free for everyone and no outside food without written persmission for allergies. They sent letters pleading for parents to please remind children not to bring guns or drugs to school. Delta 8 gummies have been a major problem. Again this is a school of about 1200 students that only goes to 3rd grade.
I think those on the outside of low income communities are really under estimating how a certain segment of the population is being drastically negatively impacted. Despite my families commitment to public education by nieces were sent to private school. There are still issues in their public schools and if you go to Walmart or just ride around their are school age children everywhere all day long even though full time in person instruction has been going on since Fall of 2020.
Like I'm not even sure how some communities will recover. This is an area that already had around 70% graduation rate now the pace of instruction is significantly reduced and 2nd grade is basically a repeat of 1st grade.
covid measures caused... kids to bring guns to school? wtf?
people don’t realize the level of support an elementary school provides to many children.
This writer may not have children, im terrified to leave my toddler behind, am I selfish? What is this fake dichotomy...
Do yourself a favor and look up the mortality rate for vaccinated people in their 30s. It’s exceedingly low.
You are likely damaging your kid because of an irrational fear.
Of course, there’s the huge asterisk. This is all because most of those children had at least one parent who could and did actively take part in the virtual learning. Very lucky.
What it tells me though, is that the issue of virtual learning is not one of pedagogy or whatever, but simply one of money. It’s expensive to keep one person at home to teach kids on an ad-hoc basis.
We don’t want to really invest in education, so the other unavoidable choice is to “let er rip” through schools.
Let's not pretend people are avoiding covid for multiple years here, because statistically they aren't.
Outcomes are dramatically better if your local healthcare system isn't overloaded.
Then there's vaccines which _are_ game changing.
There's also new drug(s) coming in already, Pfizer's pill for instance.
Sacrificing months of life for the unlikely possibility of a therapeutic from a disease that's unlikely to do lasting harm isn't something I would do and I certainly would never sacrifice anyone else's months of life or demand that they do in order to give me that "off-chance". We have vaccines, that's what we planned on having, they are here now. Time to stop pretending we've not spent the past year and change screwing over poor people and move on with life.
oh yeah, not to mention monoclonal antibodies are being denied by the federal government now, looks like even therapeutics might be dwindling in numbers.
sounds crazy right? Yeah, yeah it does.
Many places that people think would spread the virus don’t. For example anything outside is very safe, as are swimming pools. Outside it takes rock concert like crowd densities before clusters form. Viruses cannot deal, even for milliseconds, with uv light or rapid temperature changes and many places are already hardened against infection, and therefore quite safe, even with many people without face masks. Again, there’s a density limit, but it’s pretty high.
One study did point out that risks in school and hospital settings are closely related to the quality of the ventilation system. And yet, I haven’t read even once about attempts to identify substandard facilities for kids/patients or money for improving them being allocated. And obviously, all data suggests smaller classes drastically reduce risk.
Can’t find the list but here’s a study. Schools are not mentioned. Restaurants and any setting with on-site eating or drinking are the big vectors of infection it seems.