COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[lfromnj]

Great schools are too stupid to optimize computer programs to make passing times more dispersed between students or move teachers around instead using carts.

[lfromnj]

I kinda want to open schools just to spite teacher unions but ik its probably too risky of an idea(by spite teacher unions I mean ones in Oakland that want to limit live online instruction to 2 hours a day)

[lfromnj]

I don't have a problem with teacher unions opposing reopening schools, my problem is when they make absurd demands like limiting online instruction to 2 hours a day maximum, when such absurd demands are made they should not be listened to and one should go Reagan 1981. I still moderately oppose reopening schools but I just find it insane what the unions are doing.

[lfromnj]

I don't have a problem with teacher unions opposing reopening schools, my problem is when they make absurd demands like limiting online instruction to 2 hours a day maximum, when such absurd demands are made they should not be listened to and one should go Reagan 1981. I still moderately oppose reopening schools but I just find it insane what the unions are doing.

Sounds like you know literally nothing about teaching. Keep it up.

Explain why the unions should be listened to over their demands of limiting live instruction to 2 hours a day? Shouldn't the goal be to as close to as normal school as possible?

[lfromnj]

So anyone want to actually explain why teaching shouldn't involve more than 2 hours of live instruction per day and why I'm wrong or they just going to say I don't understand anything?

[lfromnj]

I don't have a problem with teacher unions opposing reopening schools, my problem is when they make absurd demands like limiting online instruction to 2 hours a day maximum, when such absurd demands are made they should not be listened to and one should go Reagan 1981. I still moderately oppose reopening schools but I just find it insane what the unions are doing.

Sounds like you know literally nothing about teaching. Keep it up.

Explain why the unions should be listened to over their demands of limiting live instruction to 2 hours a day? Shouldn't the goal be to as close to as normal school as possible?

“Instruction” is not the only meaningful interaction teachers have with kids. There is on-the-spot feedback, conferences, workshopping, one-on-one coaching, questions and answers, independent work time for the kids... Two cumulative hours of straight instruction in front of 30 kids is more than what most teachers would give even on a normal school day. There are innovative ways to offer “instruction” alongside all the other things I mentioned as part of distance learning. In total it is still a full day’s work for teachers. It just means they are not necessarily live on camera for two hours.

Most parents do not want their kids staring at a screen for that long anyway.

Any of the worksheets or anything would be due staring at the screen anyway. Why does the union want a maximum of 2 hours?

Why are LA teacher unions demanding a ban of charter schools to get back to work? All this gives them the right to do is assign some worksheet and tell them to do it. Thats literally what the Union wants. Why not just assign Khan Academy at this point?

[lfromnj]

Theresa Lyons, who sits on the Paulding County BOE, suggested students change seats every 14 mins to get around this.

Brilliant! Just brilliant! Absolutely amazing work. 

The school also said masks were a matter of personal choice but if someone has some shoulder strap too thin thats going back home

[lfromnj]

One of the items in today's Political Insider blog at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

After photos of mask-less students at a Paulding County high school went viral, state Rep. Beth Moore had an idea.

The Democrat from Peachtree Corners set up an anonymous inbox -- reportmyschool@gmail.com -- for whistleblower tips, photos and videos about unsafe conditions at Georgia schools.

She says she’s been both overwhelmed and “shellshocked” by the response -- hundreds of messages in the last two days. The worst, she says, came from a teacher she verified as working in a north Georgia school district.

“I am planning for 27 students in my tiny classroom,” the unnamed teacher wrote her. “They are not making masks mandatory. My principal is joking to people that this is ‘god’s cleansing plan.’”

Clearly it's not realistic to require masks in schools. Adults can barely wear one for 5 minutes when they go to the grocery.

I think we can do better than this sort of dystopia.

But I think the photos from the school actually did a positive service. It shows we can have schools that are almost normal even in one of the more hard-hit states. If you can have school in Georgia, why not Vermont or Maine?

Yet the same schools send anyone home for violating a dress code lol.

[lfromnj]

One of the items in today's Political Insider blog at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

After photos of mask-less students at a Paulding County high school went viral, state Rep. Beth Moore had an idea.

The Democrat from Peachtree Corners set up an anonymous inbox -- reportmyschool@gmail.com -- for whistleblower tips, photos and videos about unsafe conditions at Georgia schools.

She says she’s been both overwhelmed and “shellshocked” by the response -- hundreds of messages in the last two days. The worst, she says, came from a teacher she verified as working in a north Georgia school district.

“I am planning for 27 students in my tiny classroom,” the unnamed teacher wrote her. “They are not making masks mandatory. My principal is joking to people that this is ‘god’s cleansing plan.’”

Clearly it's not realistic to require masks in schools. Adults can barely wear one for 5 minutes when they go to the grocery.

I think we can do better than this sort of dystopia.

But I think the photos from the school actually did a positive service. It shows we can have schools that are almost normal even in one of the more hard-hit states. If you can have school in Georgia, why not Vermont or Maine?

I can’t tell if you are illiterate, or just have lost a bunch of blood flow to the brain.
There were nine f**king Covid cases one the first week at the “normal school”. Do you not see the problem?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Stop playing roulette with our lives as students because you have some grandeur delusions of returning to normal during a goddamn pandemic! It’s not so fun when you are on the receiving end of terrible beliefs and delusions held by fossils from Kentucky. I’m sure this will get reported, but someone needs to honestly stand up to your bulls**t.

Literally even driving kids to school is roulette. Im not that worried about students(However the spread they may cause is a worry). The real problem is we need to use the threat of reopening schools to force teacher unions to stop making up bs trying to limit their live online instruction. If they don't want to do live instruction just do mass scale classrooms and just shove Khan Academy or whatever.

[lfromnj]

I think it was possible to keep schools reopened even if wasn't the greatest idea, However doing it with 0 restrictions was stupid.

[lfromnj]

Maybe those of us saying that classes have to be remote for now (even if that’s not at all ideal) had a point? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm out of university for almost a decade and don't have kids at school, so I'm not pretending to exactly know how things are going on the ground, but the problem with remote lessons is mostly infrastructure. Not all teachers have sufficient training with technical issues, let alone kids and their parents. Particularly in low income households. A small percentage might not even have internet access. Business as usual in schools for sure is irresponsible in the situation we're in, but I'm more than skeptical remote lessons can sort of replace schooling.

They can't fully replace schooling, which is why it's very far from ideal. It's basically the least bad solution, since a lot of schools just don't have the resources, space, or time in the day to provide in-person learning with distance. There are just so many hidden forms of contact and normal activities in school that can lead very quickly to an outbreak. It's only really possible if it's in an area that has virtually no cases and is pretty isolated. In areas which have a high positivity rate, schools often just have to close again after a day or two because outbreaks happen almost immediately. Teachers and union members in my district spent pretty much all spring and summer discussing the possibility of opening in the fall, and there were many potential risk factors that no one could come up with a solution for. Then, of course, cases went way up, and there was no question that we couldn't open schools yet.

I was unsure at first but then I agreed online schooling made more sense. However why are certain teacher unions opposing online live learning? Shouldn't the point be to make it as normal as possible?

[lfromnj]

And early this morning my grandmother, 95 years old, joined those who passed from covid-19.

New she tested positive a couple weeks ago, and slipped into a very bad State mid-week. She actually was recovering and doing better these last few days. Since she had recovered enough to be conscious, I planned on trying to set up a phone call or a Skype meeting for her with my family since no one is allowed to visit her in person oh, but alas it was not to be. Had to tell the boys today that their GG-- short for Great Grandma - - passed away.

She was a very strong woman who went through a lot. She married my grandfather when she was in her late teens and had my dad a year later when she was I believe 19.. earlier, during World War II she worked in a factory making machine guns for the war effort. She told us about how during lunch breaks her and the other workers would go out to the parking lot dance to music on a radio. She remarried another man close to 30 years ago, and he passed about 3 years ago himself. Ironically, also a railroad man before he retired. She raised four successful kids, had only four grandchildren including myself since my one uncle and my aunt never had kids, and has five great grandkids.

Rest in peace, Grandma. I love you.

Badger I give you the best of my sympathies.

[lfromnj]

Cuomo's status as the Good COVID Governor last spring looks quainter and quainter the more time passes. What a feckless monster.

Well he does really deserve that acting award for how he fooled the entire nation.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/BillFOXLA/status/1355220676228108291

These idiots just like to abuse their power for fun.

[lfromnj]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/31/us/chick-fil-a-drive-thru-covid-vaccine-trnd/index.html

(CNN)When a South Carolina drive-thru coronavirus vaccine clinic got backed up, leaving people waiting for hours, the town mayor decided to call in a professional for help: a Chick-fil-A manager.

Local hospitals in Mount Pleasant opened the clinic on January 22 for residents eligible to receive the first shots of Covid-19 vaccine. But shortly after the drive-thru opened, the computer system handling registrations went down, causing hundreds of people to wait in heavy traffic.

LOL

[lfromnj]

Biden's goal was to reopen schools within the first 100 days. There's still time for that to happen.

Biden's "goal" of opening a *majority of K-8 schools within the first 100 days (right in time for summer vacation!) is not very aspirational

Infact a majority of schools were open, his promise was to open 50% when something like 55-60% are open for 1 day a week. Its an obvious goal of setting low expectations that are actually a reversal and then clap in 2 months when it already happened.

[lfromnj]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/us/schools-reopening-west-coast.html?smid=tw-share

Vaccines for teachers are important but its utter insanity to offer some 30 year old teacher a vaccine before the elderly. And then in the end they don't even go back to school.

Worried that schools would not reopen until the 2021-22 school year if she waited to vaccinate teachers along with other essential workers, Ms. Brown rejected federal guidelines and bumped school employees up in priority, before people 65 and older, even though that constituency would — and did — protest.

I can agree with an overall bump up in priority but it should be a shift. A 30 year old teacher is very low risk. However a 60 year old teacher should probably get it before some 65 year old retiree who is isolated.

Is there any data showing that teachers are more likely to catch the virus than other in person workers?

[lfromnj]

I'm not sure if this article by Dr. Julia Marcus has been posted here yet, but it crystalizes a lot of the feelings I've had about how the messaging re: vaccines has been totally mishandled. I hope in the next few weeks we'll have better guidance from the CDC, because telling people "do nothing differently" is not a way to drive vaccination rates up, even if it is the only 100% sure way of risk mitigation. (As Marcus points out, "trying to eliminate even the lowest-risk changes in behavior both underestimates people’s need to be close to one another and discourages the very thing that will get everyone out of this mess: vaccine uptake.")

Thoughts from anyone smarter than I? Am I misreading the whole situation?

It hasn't been a serious problem yet, demand for vaccine still outstrips supply but it was extremely stupid to discourage the vaccine so much.

[lfromnj]

I'm not sure if this article by Dr. Julia Marcus has been posted here yet, but it crystalizes a lot of the feelings I've had about how the messaging re: vaccines has been totally mishandled. I hope in the next few weeks we'll have better guidance from the CDC, because telling people "do nothing differently" is not a way to drive vaccination rates up, even if it is the only 100% sure way of risk mitigation. (As Marcus points out, "trying to eliminate even the lowest-risk changes in behavior both underestimates people’s need to be close to one another and discourages the very thing that will get everyone out of this mess: vaccine uptake.")

Thoughts from anyone smarter than I? Am I misreading the whole situation?

It hasn't been a serious problem yet, demand for vaccine still outstrips supply but it was extremely stupid to discourage the vaccine so much.

I get that being overly pessimistic isn't helpful but what?

They might be referring to the sensationalistic way the media trumpets every single side effect or post-vaccination infection in dark tones, without emphasizing just how rare these are.

Not just that but also just saying nothing will return to normal after the vaccine. 

[lfromnj]

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/02/25/ohio-school-3-feet-social-distancing-masks-teacher-vaccination-golodryga-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn

Good solid measures in order to open a school. One can't go too lax but schools can be opened.

[lfromnj]

Trump getting the vaccine would have been fine ino if it was public to reduce skepticism

[lfromnj]

Met a vaccine skeptic dude online, easily convinced him the vaccine was safe with the argument that all of congress took it. I think this is the best argument for those who are just skeptical, full on conspiracy theorists will probably just say congress got something else.

[lfromnj]

So why is it not racist to refer to the new variants as the South African/Brazilian?

[lfromnj]

Anyway I assume within a month once our shots per day starts going down, we will be able to start distributing our excess vaccine supply to the rest of the world.

[lfromnj]

Anyway I assume within a month once our shots per day starts going down, we will be able to start distributing our excess vaccine supply to the rest of the world.

We should immediately share the millions of doses of AstraZeneca vaccine the U.S. is sitting on.  They're not going to be used here, and they could do a world of good for other countries.

I think we did that with Canada and Mexico