Are adults forced to take similar precautions to children?

I got an email this week that story time at the public library is canceled because of covid. No adult venues canceled.

Are you suggesting children and adults have similar behaviours and understanding of situations and behave accordingly?

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. You can make your substantive points thoughtfully, as most users in this thread have been doing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: you've unfortunately been making a habit of doing this. That's not cool, and we ban accounts that do it. Would you please review the site guidelines and fix this?

Somehow all the private schools around me have been open for in-person learning safely since the lockdowns began.

Covid is contagious enough that most people are either going to get it or have had it. Why we should sacrifice children's well being to marginally delay the time at which their parents or families will be infected is beyond me.

If individual families want to choose to take their kids out of school that should be their choice. It should not be the default.

> Covid is contagious enough that most people are either going to get it or have had it

Based on what? Also, you can get it more than once. This is a pretty bleak outlook.

> Why we should sacrifice children's well being

Why should we sacrifice the teacher's well being?

> delay the time at which their parents or families will be infected is beyond me.

Because getting sick isn't guaranteed and getting sick can land people in the hospitals and clog our healthcare system.

We are now nearly in the situation where most people have had it and the virus shows no signs of abating. This is not a bleak outlook simply a realistic one. You've either had it or are going to get it. The bleak outlook is the one that says you should cower alone and apart from friends and family until you do get it. Go get vaccinated and live as before.

Again, you aren't sacrificing the teacher's well being. The teacher is, anyway, most likely going to get covid. If a teacher doesn't like being exposed to children they should resign or be fired. Schools are not for the benefit of teachers but for the benefit of children.

Once vaccinated you are unlikely to require hospitalization. Actually, you're unlikely to require hospitalization regardless of vaccination but especially unlikely once vaccinated. Maybe it's sensible for people to make some minor changes to "flatten the curve" but going to remote school is no minor change and it is far worse than the negligible benefits.

While it's true you can catch the disease multiple times subsequent infections are less likely and less severe.

What does the teacher do who has an immunocompromised 2 year old at home?

Get a different job. If teaching would put your children at risk, you should not teach.

Whatever a small number of teachers or students need we should not rearrange the education system for the benefit of edge cases. We should optimize for the typical case - average health people, and make adjustments to support the edge cases, not the other way around.

This article provides a good explanation of why no one will be able to avoid the virus.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

The CDC estimated that 44% of the US population had been infected as of September 2021. Obviously that number will be higher now.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

> Based on what?

There was a study in the UK from the summer of last year that said the majority of unvaxxed people had antibodies to it. (Sorry, don't have the URL)

Omicron is more transmissible, so if most had been infected then, an ever higher proportion will have been infected now.

Are adults not capable of getting vaccinated and eliminating their risk of severe illness?

You would think so, but here we are and a segment of the population still doesn't have the vaccine.

They are not. Vaccines reduce the chance of severe illness. They do not eliminate it, particularly with comorbidities.

It's rare to be able to completely eliminate a risk.

Both of the extremes in this kinda drive me batty. On one side, I know a family that was taking distance learning as a chance to travel the world with their kids, before any vaccine was available. They have caught covid 3 times now.

I also know people that have resolved to never get covid. Why? Because it's covid. Any attempts to discuss things in more detail brings out comparisons to things such as the bubonic plague, measles, and drinking water you shit in.

Crazy how in other countries schools haven't been closed at all!

Not quite sure how this answers my question.

You're mistakenly equating covid cases with a need to shutdown schools.

The science says no