Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #76

[Tillicum]

Having been a single parent to a young child, I cant begin to imagine the strain this will put on parents. Dependants leave here in the UK does not legally have to be paid leave either.

There is no easy answer IMO.

 

[HongKongPhooey]

There is no easy answer IMO.

Ironically, I'm the other side of the coin now and will need to advise managers how to handle this.

Maybe it will be better than we fear. Let's hope

 

[Leve]

Isn't it illegal to leave a 7 year old home alone? I think here we can't legally leave a child alone until they are 12 years old ... due to the dangers of leaving them alone at a young age.

Here to. Just an example of how only virtual doesn't work for all students. Also we have a large segment of kids that really need the school lunch.

 

[nightowl1975]

I don't know about "known exposure". Our kids are quarantined for having symptoms. None of the kids in our school have tested positive.

3 days is how long it generally takes to get the test back. They are sent home until they test negative.

One of the kids that got sent home had a headache and fever, one kid puked on the bus. Neither child had Covid-19.

When should I be tested? | MIT Medical

Accurate test results depend on a lot of factors, but timing of the test itself is critical. If tested on day one of symptoms with a PCR test, the false negative rate is nearly 40%. To me, it seems useless to run out and test someone on day one of symptoms and think that a negative result should make anyone feel safer.

In the case of testing known close contacts, the wait is even longer before a test would have a decent chance of being accurate.

In healthcare where I work, you’re not considered a true negative until a PCR says so on day 5+ of symptoms OR day 10+ post-exposure if you have no symptoms. Anything less is a waste of testing IMO.

 

[Tillicum]

Virginia Health Commissioner says he’ll mandate a COVID-19 vaccine | 8News

 

[Leve]

When should I be tested? | MIT Medical

Accurate test results depend on a lot of factors, but timing of the test itself is critical. If tested on day one of symptoms with a PCR test, the false negative rate is nearly 40%. To me, it seems useless to run out and test someone on day one of symptoms and think that a negative result should make anyone feel safer.

In the case of testing known close contacts, the wait is even longer before a test would have a decent chance of being accurate.

In healthcare where I work, you’re not considered a true negative until a PCR says so on day 5+ of symptoms OR day 10+ post-exposure if you have no symptoms. Anything less is a waste of testing IMO.

In an freakishly healthy world maybe. Right this minute I have a headache. Does that mean I should quatantine for 10+ days? I don't think the boss man would buy it.

 

[Leve]

Virginia Health Commissioner says he’ll mandate a COVID-19 vaccine | 8News

That is truly scary.

 

[Tillicum]

When should I be tested? | MIT Medical

Accurate test results depend on a lot of factors, but timing of the test itself is critical. If tested on day one of symptoms with a PCR test, the false negative rate is nearly 40%. To me, it seems useless to run out and test someone on day one of symptoms and think that a negative result should make anyone feel safer.

In the case of testing known close contacts, the wait is even longer before a test would have a decent chance of being accurate.

In healthcare where I work, you’re not considered a true negative until a PCR says so on day 5+ of symptoms OR day 10+ post-exposure if you have no symptoms. Anything less is a waste of testing IMO.

How do they deal with an inconclusive test? I have a friend who was positive, his wife was negative and son tested inconclusive twice.

 

[Leve]

In other news, they had a blood drive at work, if you give blood now they will do an antibody test and you'll get the results 2 weeks later.

 

[Yvettea]

Texas

Total Tests
5,033,894

Antibody Tests
342,277
as of 8/21/2020
-——————————————-
573,139 Cases Reported
11,266 Fatalities
115,843 Estimated* Active Cases
446,030 Estimated* Recoveries

Counties Reporting Cases
251 of 254​

 

[10ofRods]

By August 15, the US had 700 incidents in which CoVid showed up in schools. Teacher tracks closures, cases, deaths in own database.

Same article is in the Washington Post, but the one above has no paywall. I think.

700 different schools, and it was only August 15 when that was published - one week in.

 

[KALI]

We are doing takeout. However we are located in a bedroom community where most people live in houses on acreage, very spread out. We moved here to bring our three horses home to our own land. That was 20 years ago.
We have a lot of agriculture here, and are known as the avocado capital of the world.
You wouldn't think of any part of San Diego being like that, but it's true.
All Mom and pop businesses, except for the regular drive throughs like McDonald's and Burger King.
My point is.... We do not have density housing, so to get to our restaurant, most people have to take winding country roads.
It's not a quick 5 minute drive.
We are hanging in there because we have good food, reasonable prices and great ratings and reputation. Without our large patio, we would have had to close.
We also hosted a ton of wedding rehearsal dinners for the wedding venues out here and lots of life celebrations. Also, strong catering sales for parties at the big houses.
All of that has stopped.

Sorry to hear of your difficulties. I'm supporting my local owned restaurants, and my neighbor did a pickup/takeout for me yesterday as I still don't venture out (exception is Kroger order online/put in my trunk no contact for free)

I've been following the tv show "Restaurant Impossible" and the last 5 or 6 shows he is revisiting folks from the past who have been affected from COVID rules. He stresses to consider outdoor patio seating options (many locales are easing old rules to allow), asking the mayor of the town to visit and get local publicity, using downtime to create long term web based ordering/payment/takeout, focus on dishes that can travel well if pickup etc etc. This may go on until mid 2021 and mindsets are changing overall from consumers.

IIRC, you to were attempting to refocus on takeout? How has that worked for you?

I wish you the best, and my heart breaks for your suffering during these times.

 

[10ofRods]

When should I be tested? | MIT Medical

Accurate test results depend on a lot of factors, but timing of the test itself is critical. If tested on day one of symptoms with a PCR test, the false negative rate is nearly 40%. To me, it seems useless to run out and test someone on day one of symptoms and think that a negative result should make anyone feel safer.

In the case of testing known close contacts, the wait is even longer before a test would have a decent chance of being accurate.

In healthcare where I work, you’re not considered a true negative until a PCR says so on day 5+ of symptoms OR day 10+ post-exposure if you have no symptoms. Anything less is a waste of testing IMO.

You're on the right track. However, you missed the part where symptoms don't show up even in the sickest people until well after they have been transmitting.

No one should wait for symptoms and then "run out" for testing. It's too late.

 

[Trino]

Our grocery stores (and hardware stores, and any other store that has self checkout) have shut down every other self checkout, so that we can social distance while self checking our groceries ..... lack of social distancing being the complaint of 'risk' spoken of by the person in your linked article.

There is always one staff member hovering at our self checkout areas ... directing people to the next available spot, and assisting when needed.

Kinda amusing about self-check. When it first appeared, i.e. think Walmart, there were those who were very opposed, said they would insist on a personal checker. Well, since the pandemic, most have changed their tune.

 

[Sunny123]

I think you missed my point. Surely, all schools will have sick children stay home? And notify parents if the children in their kid's class have CoVid? And as teachers go out with CoVid, there's a stop/start while a long term sub or a regular sub is found.

I did not say that was the model. I said that fully in-person school necessarily has those risks. So, both the districts and the parents want that model and think it will work (as opposed to consistency in teachers and daily activities, as happens with online education).

My entire point (and remember, I've been a teacher for more than 40 years) is that even exceptionally good adult students have trouble with constant pivoting. School starts, Classrooms 1-50 are all great the first day. Next day, classroom 27 is home on quarantine. Those kids now have to pivot to online - which on average takes a week. Really, most college and university profs will tell you it takes 2 weeks. The entire first day is spent learning to mute and unmute and half the kids/students never show up as they are unfamiliar with the interface (as are the teachers!)

Then, classroom 27 parents are notified that yes, Kid 27-R has CoVid. Class advised to go for testing, students not allowed back on campus without a negative test (really, it should be an immediate test and then one a week later, obviously). Does the school pay for that? I think not in most models. At any rate, the parents have to take their kids (all their kids, if they're smart) for testing.

2 weeks later, Kid 27-R has tested negative twice. Everyone is called back into the classroom. Yet, unknown to everyone, Kid 27-A actually got CoVid from 27-R two weeks prior, but had just one test and it was too soon to pick up a positive. No one knows about that one, so all of the kids in 27 get CoVid - and all but one merely have the sniffles.

Meanwhile, Room 11 has a kid whose parents tested positive at work and now that class has to stop until Kid 11-B is tested.

And all of this, in this "model" is considered a good plan by the parents. As I said, I think it meets certain social needs and perhaps even some academic ones. But it isn't a good plan for teaching math or science.

I totally get their decision to have their children mostly in school.

But I do think some kids will be very anxious and others, thrilled to have school stop and start (with little accountability for them), and still others will be just fine, as they are self-driven learners anyway.

In all my years of observing distance ed (including such places as reservations or isolated villages), the thing that mattered most (IMO) was consistency. Also, family harmony. Some kids learn really well at home with their families, going about fairly regular lives.

It's cool that families get to choose, but I don't buy the argument that either method is educationally superior. I doubt we'll see much data about this chaotic year, but it would be a great project for a school of ed. grad student in your state.

Sweden actually gave the same options as what you described - they continued with "regular school." Some parents immediately created ad hoc "private schools," which were based on online learning. The demographics of these schools were different (just as I'm betting they will be in any place with these two systems). The only difference is that Sweden didn't give much support to the online learners, although...their existing online learning system is better than most of ours, so, it remains to be seen whether we can do it as well as Sweden.

When people got sick, their communities found out, and people quarantined (a lot) when they found out they had been exposed - it just wasn't required. Here, it can be required (but people don't do it - and no one was made to do it in Sweden, which was my point).

The Swedes are getting through it, their economy is no better than Denmark's or Norway's, and all three nations do not yet have data about education.

Will schools where you are have any ability to enforce CV+ employees or students to quarantine?

If answer is yes, then much less like Sweden.

If answer is no, then very much like Sweden.

(And very unlike, say, Utah).

Florida (West Coast) My son attends a small private school, and every child was required to meet with the teacher at school to discuss the start of school. We had decided to keep our son home for e-learning, and am fortunate that I am able to be home. His class (10th grade) normally has 22 students, however the teacher said that there will be 11 in class students. They are seated every other cubicle, and they all are required to complete schoolwork on a laptop. All students are doing all of their assignments on the computer, and click submit when complete. This way, it is the same at home as in the classroom. The teacher and assistant can communicate with students at home via email, messaging or a video chat if needed. Each student is required to have their own hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes at their cubicle. The teachers are fearful, but are really doing a good job. They are staggering arrival and departure times, and using additional doors. For example, my sons classroom has a door that will be used just for his class. They are lucky, because there are only 80 students, and they don't change classes.

 

[nightowl1975]

You're on the right track. However, you missed the part where symptoms don't show up even in the sickest people until well after they have been transmitting.

No one should wait for symptoms and then "run out" for testing. It's too late.

The point is that tests aren’t giving an accurate result until several days into symptoms. I didn’t miss anything. It doesn’t change the facts. It’s sort of like having unprotected sex tonight and expecting a pregnancy test to be accurate tomorrow or even next week. It takes time for the hormone to become detectable before the test is positive, despite the fact that you may be very much pregnant and symptomatic prior to the test being positive. But if testing negative before the test would be accurate makes some folks feel better, so be it.

 

[nightowl1975]

How do they deal with an inconclusive test? I have a friend who was positive, his wife was negative and son tested inconclusive twice.

We re-test inconclusive results and continue quarantine in the meantime if indicated. It’s possible a 14 day quarantine would be up post-exposure before a definitive negative result came back, in which case we discontinue testing because the quarantine period is over anyway.

 

[nightowl1975]

In an freakishly healthy world maybe. Right this minute I have a headache. Does that mean I should quatantine for 10+ days? I don't think the boss man would buy it.

We don’t generally quarantine for a headache alone, though it does depend on the specifics of the situation. If it’s someone who never has headaches, generally feels not great, has a headache, and works directly with patients, that is likely handled differently from a staff member who has a history of migraines or allergy related headaches, or didn’t sleep well the night before and has stress headaches, otherwise feels fine, or doesn’t work directly with patients. We have a nurse on call 24/7 who assesses every staff member who answers “yes” to any question on our screening tool used prior to entering the building daily. It’s not perfect, but so far, we have zero cases of staff to patient transmission and zero cases of staff who got it from work.

 

[Trino]

That is truly scary.

Can just envision the lawsuits, despite probably doing the right thing.

 

[Deleted member 158085]

This might belong in one of the sub-threads - IDK. But I’ve been giving some thought to the holidays. Normally, my siblings and I each host a holiday for the 16 or so family members who come. On Thanksgiving, we always draw names for Christmas gifts. So I’ve proposed that each family unit join a zoom get-together to virtually draw names on Thanksgiving. (We will do a dry run ahead of time to be sure everyone can manage the zoom thing.) Then, 3 or 4 days before Christmas each person delivers their gift to the doorstep of whoever’s name they drew so it has time to quarantine. On Christmas, we will all get together via zoom to open our gifts.

It’s better than nothing. It’s the only way that number of people can safely spend a holiday together, anyway.