Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #103

[WichitaFalls]

End the absurdity: My children are suffering from draconian COVID-19 rules at school

View attachment 326933Two young children laying on the grass with their faces covered in a piles of face masks

I went to a concert last weekend with about 6,000 unmasked adults crammed into one of Washington, D.C.’s nicest music venues. Earlier in the week, my wife and I could not attend our oldest daughter’s holiday performance at school because no guests were allowed. This is the absurdity of today’s COVID-19 theater.

We are nearing the end of the second year where adults have imposed rules that hurt our children. But not all children. Most people who read this would be shocked at how Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, where I live, and other large union-influenced districts, are still treating children.

They would be puzzled to hear how my daughter’s cafeteria has rows of TV trays set up next to tables so students all face one direction at lunch. I've seen it myself. Because school administrators apparently know a secret about air circulation.

People in open counties across America would be confused to read the email we received from our elementary school last month acknowledging that if it dips below 45 degrees or snows, they’ll allow my 3rd grader to eat lunch indoors.

Imagine, all those teachers and administrators trying their very best to protect children and their community. The very nerve. How dare they do their best each and every day to the best of their ability to navigate a safe way through a world pandemic.

 

[WichitaFalls]

End the absurdity: My children are suffering from draconian COVID-19 rules at school

View attachment 326933Two young children laying on the grass with their faces covered in a piles of face masks

I went to a concert last weekend with about 6,000 unmasked adults crammed into one of Washington, D.C.’s nicest music venues. Earlier in the week, my wife and I could not attend our oldest daughter’s holiday performance at school because no guests were allowed. This is the absurdity of today’s COVID-19 theater.

We are nearing the end of the second year where adults have imposed rules that hurt our children. But not all children. Most people who read this would be shocked at how Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, where I live, and other large union-influenced districts, are still treating children.

They would be puzzled to hear how my daughter’s cafeteria has rows of TV trays set up next to tables so students all face one direction at lunch. I've seen it myself. Because school administrators apparently know a secret about air circulation.

People in open counties across America would be confused to read the email we received from our elementary school last month acknowledging that if it dips below 45 degrees or snows, they’ll allow my 3rd grader to eat lunch indoors.

Imagine, all those teachers and administrators trying their very best to protect children and their community. The very nerve. How dare they do their best each and every day to the best of their ability to navigate a safe way through a world pandemic.

 

[mickey2942]

Imagine, all those teachers and administrators trying their very best to protect children and their community. The very nerve. How dare they do their best each and every day to the best of their ability to navigate a safe way through a world pandemic.

So many of my dear friends who teach, work in education, have decided to take early retirement. They had planned to work another ten years or so...for higher Social Security benefits, increased pension.

But, this last year, so many have decided that it just isn't worth it. The violence, drama, everything else, on top of Covid. Done.

 

[WichitaFalls]

So many of my dear friends who teach, work in education, have decided to take early retirement. They had planned to work another ten years or so...for higher Social Security benefits, increased pension.

But, this last year, so many have decided that it just isn't worth it. The violence, drama, everything else, on top of Covid. Done.

We live in a very flawed world these days. I for one could not do what teachers do every day. I do however hold grace for those that are trying to do their best with good intentions on the daily.

 

[Satchie]

I’m getting a big anti mask vibe.

Going to a extremely crowded unmasked concert with 6,000 people during a pandemic - vaccinated or not - sounds very risky. But to the author, it’s their life and they want to do whatever they want and who gives a flip if they get Covid, it will be a mild case and won’t spread it to anyone else.

Masking children far extends into other areas, multigenerational families, grandparents that now are the primary after school caregivers due to care centers that closed, if teachers don’t feel safe - they quit and schools have closed here because of not enough teachers or bus drivers.
The district can’t find teachers, bus drivers, resource officers, nurses, counselors.
JMO

Perhaps the author will have a different opinion when Omicron sweeps through after Christmas.

They might not be so comfortable crowding indoors with 6000 unmasked strangers, at that point. Just a guess.

ETA: it occurs to me, there might be a connection between how much hostility a person likes to express verbally, and how much they dislike vaccines and masks. They might both be connected to how disagreeable they are, (a personality feature). It certainly seems those who insist on their right to spread a toxic virus, also insist on their right to express toxic emotions. I'm not sure which is worse: both are good reasons to avoid people.

JMO

 

[ilovewings]

So many of my dear friends who teach, work in education, have decided to take early retirement. They had planned to work another ten years or so...for higher Social Security benefits, increased pension.

But, this last year, so many have decided that it just isn't worth it. The violence, drama, everything else, on top of Covid. Done.

All the lives up-ended due to this pandemic -- what a shame

 

[CrimeAway]

Here's a short Channel 4 report from inside a UK ICU.

 

[Arkay]

We live in a very flawed world these days. I for one could not do what teachers do every day. I do however hold grace for those that are trying to do their best with good intentions on the daily.

Thank you from me and I'm sure all the other teachers. Fortunately for me, I retired just before Covid.

I feel this way about nurses. I could NEVER do what they do.

All the lives up-ended due to this pandemic -- what a shame

All the lives up-ended, and all the lives just ended, period.

 

[Arkay]

U.S. could see 1 million cases per day, warns departing NIH director Francis Collins

Oy. As the departing NIH director says, we may be tired of the virus, but it isn't tired of us.

A possible million cases a day? God forbid.

 

[jjenny]

If un-vaxxed think they are going to get antibody treatments for omicron and be fine, they should think again.

"As strained U.S. hospitals brace for a new surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the fast-spreading omicron variant, doctors are warning of yet another challenge: the two standard drugs they’ve used to fight infections are unlikely to work against the new strain."
Omicron may sideline two leading drugs against COVID-19 | AP News

 

[jjenny]

As if omicron wasn't enough, looks like flu season will be bad too.

"The current flu vaccines appear to be a bad match for the dominant strain so far this influenza season, new research suggests, leading experts to warn that the United States could be in for a bad flu season, on top of what’s already shaping up to be another devastating surge of Covid cases. "

A poorly matched flu shot could mean a bad flu season on top of a Covid surge (nbcnews.com)

 

[CharlestonGal]

If un-vaxxed think they are going to get antibody treatments for omicron and be fine, they should think again.

"As strained U.S. hospitals brace for a new surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the fast-spreading omicron variant, doctors are warning of yet another challenge: the two standard drugs they’ve used to fight infections are unlikely to work against the new strain."
Omicron may sideline two leading drugs against COVID-19 | AP News

I don't understand how anyone can be afraid of a vaccine but comfortable with mab's. It's bizarre. Do people even know how these are made???

They infect a mouse and let it produce B-cells that make antibodies. They then take these B-cells and fuse them with myeloma (cancer) cells so they are immortal. Then they make billions of these clones in huge vats and collect up all the generated antibodies and infuse them into you.

Don't get me wrong - mab's are safe if purified properly, but how can one actually prefer a treatment derived from mouse and cancer cells over a simple mRNA vaccine?

It boggles the mind, truly. jmo

 

[CharlestonGal]

End the absurdity: My children are suffering from draconian COVID-19 rules at school

View attachment 326933Two young children laying on the grass with their faces covered in a piles of face masks

I went to a concert last weekend with about 6,000 unmasked adults crammed into one of Washington, D.C.’s nicest music venues. Earlier in the week, my wife and I could not attend our oldest daughter’s holiday performance at school because no guests were allowed. This is the absurdity of today’s COVID-19 theater.

We are nearing the end of the second year where adults have imposed rules that hurt our children. But not all children. Most people who read this would be shocked at how Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, where I live, and other large union-influenced districts, are still treating children.

They would be puzzled to hear how my daughter’s cafeteria has rows of TV trays set up next to tables so students all face one direction at lunch. I've seen it myself. Because school administrators apparently know a secret about air circulation.

People in open counties across America would be confused to read the email we received from our elementary school last month acknowledging that if it dips below 45 degrees or snows, they’ll allow my 3rd grader to eat lunch indoors.

The kids will be fine. My mother was a little German kid during WWII, with bombs dropping onto the city, fleeing into bomb shelters, starving, seeing blown apart and burned bodies every day (including children). The stories she has are incredible.

I highly doubt she would have been phased by a mask in the grand scheme of things. jmo

 

[MrX]

Here's a further quote from the article cited by @Cool Cats


"But I also love our community and neighborhood that actually got us through the pandemic, with our support system and pods and friends. I don’t want to leave. And I do love our school, and my kids' teachers. I want them to succeed."

So, if I read this right, this author in Virginia has gotten "through the pandemic."

How courteous of Covid to leave Virginia alone!

I don't disagree that pandemic rules have been devastating for children. The anxiety, the impact on their mental health and their education has been atrocious in more ways than I can enumerate here.

I have three school-aged grandchildren and my heart breaks for them all day, every day. My youngest has a speech delay, needed the speech therapy she was provided in kindergarten, and lost that when schools were closed for months. And now that she has in-person school, being masked and her teacher being masked has rendered speech therapy useless, because the teacher cannot enunciate properly with a mask on.

I am miserable that my two youngest don't know much about school before masks and before this fear. My eldest in high school was an honors student who has lost her love for school due to closures and remote learning and restrictions and the lack of after-school activities.

Yet what should be done? There IS a pandemic which keeps swerving every time we think things are improving. I know several children whose mother or father or grandparent has died from Covid. I have friends who have died, some only in their 40s.

When I was a schoolchild we had to practice bomb fallout shelter drills and hide under our desks, which was a leftover from WWII. But in my parents' generation they had to do these things for real. And the rationing and all the sacrifices their generation had to make.

The author also alludes to some who "thankfully ignored the CDC's recommendations."

Covid is awful for all of us in all ways. But IMO that author, while justifiably concerned for his children, is not preparing them for the reality of what is STILL A PANDEMIC.

Yes, there are measures taken that have proved faulty. That's what happens when a NOVEL pandemic takes over the world. We learn as we go. But doctors and scientists are giving the best advice they know as this disease bobs and weaves.

All JMO.

Last year, when public schools were closing and people were arguing about masks, I knew people who sent their kids to Charter schools. They stayed open, with in person learning, throughout, and didn't mandate masks. The kids are thriving. Sometimes I wish that people on both sides of the Covid debate could admit they were wrong, even about something small. Unfortunately it's become a religion for many.

 

[CharlestonGal]

Last year, when public schools were closing and people were arguing about masks, I knew people who sent their kids to Charter schools. They stayed open, with in person learning, throughout, and didn't mandate masks. The kids are thriving. Sometimes I wish that people on both sides of the Covid debate could admit they were wrong, even about something small. Unfortunately it's become a religion for many.

Some people take a shorter view and some a longer one.

In the short view, the kids are fine with no virus controls at school, no harm done. In the long view, you have a huge reservoir of hosts circulating and infecting large swaths of the population and keeping the pandemic going even if they don't get sick themselves. jmo

 

[mickey2942]

My daughter, in college, had her college year upended last year, this year it is just as messed up.

I talked to her, and some of her friends last week. Dating is more complicated, work, school, family issues. It seems like most of them just feel confused, depressed. My daughter is taking anti-depressants, going to counseling.

As messed up as some people's lives are, it seems like teens, and early 20's are more affected by Covid.

"Depression rates more than three times higher due to COVID-19 pandemic" Depression rates more than three times higher due to COVID-19 pandemic

 

[SouthAussie]

Last year, when public schools were closing and people were arguing about masks, I knew people who sent their kids to Charter schools. They stayed open, with in person learning, throughout, and didn't mandate masks. The kids are thriving. Sometimes I wish that people on both sides of the Covid debate could admit they were wrong, even about something small. Unfortunately it's become a religion for many.

I wonder how all the adults are ... the mums, dads, grandparents, strangers ... who then might have been infected by the kids?

We have a young man in my state who received a text message from the health dept at 10pm, to say he is covid positive and he must isolate, and who then proceeded to enter a nightclub 45 mins later. The nightclub has now closed for the week (during their busiest time of the year) and the other patrons are now isolating through Christmas Day. Merry Christmas!

**********

"Christmas is supposed to be a time to celebrate with family and loved ones, however, because of the actions of one selfish person, that wont be the case for many," Loverboy (the club) said in a statement.

After being criticised online, the young man wrote: "I reckon we just drop it. I've admitted to my mistakes and am truly apologetic."
Hundreds face Christmas in quarantine after teen with COVID-19 parties at club

 

[CharlestonGal]

The science is clear: the case for more Covid restrictions is overwhelming

For a variant that came to light less than a month ago, the evidence for Omicron’s potential to wreak havoc has mounted at breakneck speed. What studies have emerged are rapid first takes, but the message they convey is now loud and clear: the scientific case for more restrictions is overwhelming. Without hard and swift action to curb transmission, the NHS faces a battering.

As the infection spread, the UKHSA crunched early numbers to show that two doses of Covid vaccine did little to prevent symptomatic infection, though a booster kicked protection up to about 70%. On Friday, two reports from Prof Neil Ferguson’s group at Imperial College rounded out the picture. Their findings are tentative, but suggest a booster provides 80-86% protection against hospitalisation from Omicron. That is good from an individual perspective, but compares with 95% for Delta. The upshot is that hospitalisation rates for boosted people could be four times higher with Omicron.

 

[ilovewings]

I don't understand how anyone can be afraid of a vaccine but comfortable with mab's. It's bizarre. Do people even know how these are made???

They infect a mouse and let it produce B-cells that make antibodies. They then take these B-cells and fuse them with myeloma (cancer) cells so they are immortal. Then they make billions of these clones in huge vats and collect up all the generated antibodies and infuse them into you.

Don't get me wrong - mab's are safe if purified properly, but how can one actually prefer a treatment derived from mouse and cancer cells over a simple mRNA vaccine?

It boggles the mind, truly. jmo

Their fear isnt rational---

 

[CharlestonGal]

Their fear isnt rational---

I don't understand it. They're okay with mab's, Remdesivir, steroids, blood thinners, horse paste and ventilators but won't take a simple shot or put on a mask. It's beyond weird. jmo