If we keep on getting pandemics (something that's been expected for a long time) the whole baseline of how society operates will be forcibly disrupted. (a baseline people can be 'left behind' on the way to: I hear talk of students missing vital academic AND SOCIAL connections, which sounds like pre-pandemic talk)
If we have even moderate economic collapse, which is inevitable with the pandemic we do have (and the other, related upheavals going on) then the destination simply will not exist. We will be flung into a Star Trek future where the existing mechanisms of human survival no longer apply. It's possible the consequences of dropping 'behind' will mean the difference between becoming wealthy through business and social connections, and literally starvation and homelessness (rather than just doing poorly and getting by). However, in those conditions, all of society collapses and the wealthy have no place to be anymore. Wealth depends upon the existence of a society that can support it.
In my opinion there is no possible benefit to pretending it's possible to go 'back to normal' in any sense, and it's on us to envision what comes next. 'Normal' is never coming back. It's already gone forever, so it's time to decide whether we want human beings to survive or not.
> 'Normal' is never coming back.
That's ridiculous. If anything, this pandemic has restored 'normal' to the world. The normal state of the world is pandemics, natural disaster, human death, etc. Only by active human society have we been able to avoid that. Modern society is so good and efficient that too many people have forgotten what's normal.
Let's be perfectly clear, this isn't something abstract. The consequences are dead kids and dead teachers. Get that through your head. You of course imagine it won't be your kids that die but there's absolutely no reason to think that.
Yes, the serious risk of increases in childhood “morbidity and mortality” if schools remain closed are exactly what the American Academy of Pediatrics cited as a key consideration when strongly urging that planning center on a return to in-person schooling with the start of the coming school year.
"Returning to school is important for the healthy development and well-being of children, but we must pursue re-opening in a way that is safe for all students, teachers and staff. Science should drive decision-making on safely reopening schools. Public health agencies must make recommendations based on evidence, not politics. We should leave it to health experts to tell us when the time is best to open up school buildings, and listen to educators and administrators to shape how we do it."
Bottom line IMO is that these decisions need to be made locally. There is no one-size-fits-all for schools across the country. And sadly there will also be other significant negative consequences for some kids who can't go back to school yet. We should be attacking these issues on multiple fronts with multiple strategies, using strong leadership, increased funding, and careful planning instead of rushing into a situation we are unprepared for.
I'm not sure why this is valid response.
CDC says that 1.7% of COVID cases belong to children. [2]
Among children, CDC says 1.8% of cases required hospitalization. [2]
>>> 74000000*0.017*0.018 < 25000
True
[1]: https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/number-of-children
>> Among 95 children aged <1 year with known hospitalization status, 59 (62%) were hospitalized, including five who were admitted to an ICU. The percentage of patients hospitalized among those aged 1–17 years was lower (estimated range = 4.1%–14%)
And of course the number of children infected would be much lower than "all 74 million".
If we look at mortality, it is better. The current estimate for IFR in kids is about 1 in 300,000. That gives about 220 estimated deaths if every school age kid gets Covid. Cars kill more kids per year driving to school.
This is all horrendously tough to decide on, but we need to use the best data we can and understand the dangers and comparisons to other dangers.
Finally, kids are going to spread it anyway, so I think kids getting it is really a non-issue, except for the very vulnerable.
Staff/teachers are another concern. An even worse concern is people at kids' homes. That's the really tough part.
You need the Infection Fatality rate for mortality.
Granted, the situation has become a lot worse since then. It's still a good glance at how the virus spread before any measures were put in place. Especially for relative figures of how COVID behaves differently across age.
It's the parents that will be at risk.
This spring we rushed into something unexpected. We've had time to improve. But it seems that instead of focusing on improvements people are focused on their agenda.
Mortality isn't the only issue, either. We're seeing plenty of signs some folks survive, but with long-term health impacts.
(An overwhelmed medical system will kill vulnerable kids in non-COVID ways, too. Mortality of things like car accidents and asthma attacks and suicide go up if the ICUs are full.)
I'd expect my niece to survive COVID19 if she got it. But I'd also expect her to get significant kidney damage and possibly dialysis as a result. Every UTI she gets results in an emergency room visit under normal circumstances. We've been lucky enough that she hasn't had anything this year, but... she's definitely not someone we'd want to see COVID19 infect.
Not everyone's kids are 100% healthy out there. Keep that in mind. There are mutations out there that are completely silent and hidden, and we try to keep these little facts inside the family.
And adults for that matter. (Any teacher who has a similar immuno-comrpomised situation, or knows of someone similarly immuno-compromised is at risk).
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In any case, I "don't worry" about the potential death of my niece at all. What I care about are the long term health effects on her and her life. And for the long-term health effects of other children too.
This disease has been shown to ravage and disable athletes: destroying their lung function even when they survive. Deaths are hardly endgame: long-term chronic illnesses are still a problem to try to minimize.
When the child is sick with a disease, they bring it home. Now the parents are exposed.
/s if that wasn't obvious - but with a small element of truth.
> Strong statement: dumb kids are better than dead kids.
https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2020/07...
Which the US refuses to do.
It's like we're the kid in school who refused to do their work, then has a tempter-tantrum because they have to forgo recess. And much of the EU (and Taiwan, Singapore, HK, etc) are the nerdy kid who finished early and now get to spend the afternoon doing something fun.
"It doesn't spread in European schools" doesn't really help us very much in evaluating what'll happen in America right now.
I'm curious - how few would have to die so that the "overall consequences of another lost semester" is not worse?
We're hitting 75K positive tests a day in this country and that number is increasing daily. That's WITH social distancing by kids. What do you think is going to happen when a school has 800 kids running around? That's 800 daily potential avenues for disease transmission.
Seriously, who cares if some people "fall behind?" They can catch up at their own pace. I'm pretty sure that most parents would rather their kids graduate at 19 or 20 than be buried at 8 or 9.
I don't even understand how its possible to prefer sending kids back over one semester. Of course I think the bigger issue is its just parents that want kids out of the house for a multitude of reasons including getting back to their own work.
What of students that have debt and now will have to wait more to get their "education"? Do you realize this is all going to cause more pain and suffering and possible deaths?
Do you realize given more budget it is possible to save more people if you spend it wisely?
What debt? School debt? Are you talking about college? If you aren't attending school at all then you aren't adding to the debt (in most cases with Federal loans). If its online then you are still on track so I don't see your point.
Nowadays, many people have a plan which is mostly: finish school, get a job based on the education.
It is not difficult to see that if you set back financially large number of people, suddenly, this might increase suicide rate, for example. Or may make them worse off in many different ways causing some to tip into loosing life.
These are not easy decisions, and saying "I would prefer people to pause their lives for 6 months than loose one life" is a completely braindead, extremist way of looking at things.
To show how stupid this is, you can use just a portion of your home budget to save a life. Today. There are many people that don't need much in the way of help. You are free to find one and help him/her, without involving large percentage of population that doesn't want to get involved in it.
I guess it is easier to go about and proclaim extremist slogans.
You can ignorantly (and hypocritically) call avoiding super-spreading schools in the midst of a pandemic an extremist position all you want, but you are overvaluing 6 months of "productivity" and completely avoiding continued remote learning.
Based on the data from March it's pretty easy to estimate the effects of reopening things, including school. It's a very easy decision, don't reopen yet.
You're comparing an estimated thousands to tens of thousands dying from schools reopening to at most a few hundred thousand having to pause for 6 months and saying it's not an easy decision...?
Not to mention that most schools would have online programs as an alternative, not hold everyone back so your entire premise is false anyway.
Whether it is actually safe to let people back in schools, I have not enough data and knowledge to decide. Most likely not.
How about 10 semesters to save 10 children? 100 semesters to save 100 children?
But it seems like holding people back semesters eventually adds up to something that's as bad as a death. These kids are never going to get that semester back. And if you think they enjoy the at home alternatives half as much, or learn half as much or value that time in their lives half as much it seems like on some level the equivalent of 1000s of person lifetimes of value have been lost. I wouldn't hold back everyone one semester in high school in exchange for even on the order of 100s of deaths.
Doling the pain out in a few month increments is how it is made to seem more reasonable.
Remote learning doesn't work for everyone and leaves a lot of people behind. The overall consequences of another lost semester may be far worse than the consequences of reopening.