COVID-19 Thread

[LouisEly]

I think that sending kids back to school in the Fall is completely insane. The longterm effects for those who survive Covid are not known...

 

I think it would be completely insane NOT to send them back. The long term psychological and physical effects from children not socializing for many months up to several years are not known.

https://www.wpr.org/high-school-athletes-experiencing-increased-anxiety-depression-during-pandemic-study-shows

[OldSchoolSnapper]

As with everything else the last few months: there is no right answer, only answers that are varying degrees of bad.

 

My 4 year old needs to go back to school this fall. Preschool was his first time being around kids his own age and he loved it and needs it. He's sick of being around mom, dad, and grandmas, and we are honestly sick of being around him too.

 

I struggle to think that anyone advocating keeping kids home has kids under the age of about 10. The virtual learning thing is not a solution. It was completely inadequate and a stopgap to get us to the summer. It can't continue. How many daycares have been operating normally this entire time without issue. I know of at least two, the ones my kids go to.

 

Children need to go back to school. Especially the little ones that need socialization, and need to learn how to read and write. Someone used the word insane. Well I think it's insane to keep them out of school for a calendar year. Half of them are in sports or having sleepovers or going to the zoo anyway. Seriously, when is enough of this just enough? If the vaccine took 3 years are we going to reconvene at school in 2024?

 

This doesn't even get into the number of families not set up to accommodate it or the damage it will do to already disadvantaged kids, neither of which will affect me at all. Sorry. I've done my best to excuse myself from this kind of discussion, but to go from "flatten the curve!" to "no school for 12 months" is just getting ridiculous.

[stoutdude04]

I think our school is taking temperatures before entering. If the kid has a fever they go home.

[nodakfan17]

As with everything else the last few months: there is no right answer, only answers that are varying degrees of bad.

 

My 4 year old needs to go back to school this fall. Preschool was his first time being around kids his own age and he loved it and needs it. He's sick of being around mom, dad, and grandmas, and we are honestly sick of being around him too.

 

I struggle to think that anyone advocating keeping kids home has kids under the age of about 10. The virtual learning thing is not a solution. It was completely inadequate and a stopgap to get us to the summer. It can't continue. How many daycares have been operating normally this entire time without issue. I know of at least two, the ones my kids go.

 

My son is almost 4. We held him out of pre-school for nearly 3 months, but eventually sent him back on June 8. It went OK, but we had to pacify him with Disney+, iPad games, and food bribes so my wife and I could get our work done. Had we continued down this path, we ran the risk of him growing up to be a giant turd. We noticed an immediate improvement in his behavior as soon as he returned to school. Kids need structure.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

As with everything else the last few months: there is no right answer, only answers that are varying degrees of bad.

 

My 4 year old needs to go back to school this fall. Preschool was his first time being around kids his own age and he loved it and needs it. He's sick of being around mom, dad, and grandmas, and we are honestly sick of being around him too.

 

I struggle to think that anyone advocating keeping kids home has kids under the age of about 10. The virtual learning thing is not a solution. It was completely inadequate and a stopgap to get us to the summer. It can't continue. How many daycares have been operating normally this entire time without issue. I know of at least two, the ones my kids go.

 

My son is almost 4. We held him out of pre-school for nearly 3 months, but eventually sent him back on June 8. It went OK, but we had to pacify him with Disney+, iPad games, and food bribes so my wife and I could get our work done. Had we continued down this path, we ran the risk of him growing up to be a giant turd. We noticed an immediate improvement in his behavior as soon as he returned to school. Kids need structure.

 

It was the exact same situation in our house and still is some days because the daycare are at capacity and can't take them every day. We don't have a choice when I have conference calls that require focus and silence. There have been days of 6 hours of Disney+/YouTube. It's not a viable long-term solution. And yes, they were also turds and are always in a better mood on the days they have school.

[tmwiese55]

Generally agree with finding a way, as i said that was my goal the whole time. It's huge for the kids and society.

 

Issue you're going to run into is we've treated teachers like crap for years and now this is another thing we're going to dump on them. You're going to see older ones close to retirement choose retirement instead. Many who are married and don't need to work will choose not to work. Pregnant or trying to get pregnant ones will take the year and possibly never come back. You'll also have a substitute problem as many are retirees, who now won't want to do it. Another big chunk are recent grads who didn't get jobs, those will be now already be hired due to the people I said who will quit. And then what's gonna happen, society will guilt the teachers into it because it's the right thing to do (as it probably is) all the while demanding their pay/benefits go down, that they pay for supplies out of pocket, do all kinds of extra hours help for free, be able to defend themselves vs assault rifles, etc. And they have to do this because it's the right thing to do, but a big chunk of the pop couldn't be hassled to not go to bars/restaurants even though it's the right thing to do, which has led to this problem still being here.

[TURBO]

Generally agree with finding a way, as i said that was my goal the whole time. It's huge for the kids and society.

 

Issue you're going to run into is we've treated teachers like crap for years and now this is another thing we're going to dump on them. You're going to see older ones close to retirement choose retirement instead. Many who are married and don't need to work will choose not to work. Pregnant or trying to get pregnant ones will take the year and possibly never come back. You'll also have a substitute problem as many are retirees, who now won't want to do it. Another big chunk are recent grads who didn't get jobs, those will be now already be hired due to the people I said who will quit. And then what's gonna happen, society will guilt the teachers into it because it's the right thing to do (as it probably is) all the while demanding their pay/benefits go down, that they pay for supplies out of pocket, do all kinds of extra hours help for free, be able to defend themselves vs assault rifles, etc. And they have to do this because it's the right thing to do, but a big chunk of the pop couldn't be hassled to not go to bars/restaurants even though it's the right thing to do, which has led to this problem still being here.

 

On point.

 

I have 2 years left, if I could retire now at 55, I would. (well, actually, I could retire, but it would be too large of a financial hit, so waiting until 57) I am just dreading the start of this school year and the chaos it is going to bring.

 

Our current climate is just one more reason that people are crazy to go into teaching as a profession now-a-days. A teacher shortage has been in effect the past 5 or 6 years as it is. It took a few years for ACT 10 to decimate the hiring pool, but we are feeling the effects now. There used to be a big pool of teachers applying for jobs, and the district got to pick the best one, now, getting people to apply for the job is difficult, and when they do, districts are left with hiring a body, not the best candidate. We have hired teachers in the past few years based on the fact that they showed up for an interview. lol Slim pickings.

 

Substitutes are already impossible to find, no one wants to babysit brats for 8 hours, get treated like dirt from grades 7 on up by the brats, and get paid almost nothing. Take all that into account, and now get thrust into a situation like the pandemic? Most of the subs in my district are retired teachers, at the age of risk, so Yeah right...

[nate82]

be able to defend themselves vs assault rifles

 

You can't buy assault rifles in the US well you can you just have to buy a stamp from the ATF and also pass the background check and then dish out $30k-100k for the rifle itself.

 

To be considered an assault rifle it has to have a fire mode selection going from safety to semi, 3-roumd burst or automatic. No rifles currently being sold to the public in the US have this select fire option.

 

The AR in AR-15 stands for Armalite Rifle.

 

Sorry this just bugs me when someone claims there are assault rifles being bought or owned in the US. There are still some pre NFA assault rifles but again you have to get the stamp to own them and you will have to pay about $30k just to buy it if you can find an individual who maybe selling their 20+ year old rifle.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Generally agree with finding a way, as i said that was my goal the whole time. It's huge for the kids and society.

 

Issue you're going to run into is we've treated teachers like crap for years and now this is another thing we're going to dump on them. You're going to see older ones close to retirement choose retirement instead. Many who are married and don't need to work will choose not to work. Pregnant or trying to get pregnant ones will take the year and possibly never come back. You'll also have a substitute problem as many are retirees, who now won't want to do it. Another big chunk are recent grads who didn't get jobs, those will be now already be hired due to the people I said who will quit. And then what's gonna happen, society will guilt the teachers into it because it's the right thing to do (as it probably is) all the while demanding their pay/benefits go down, that they pay for supplies out of pocket, do all kinds of extra hours help for free, be able to defend themselves vs assault rifles, etc. And they have to do this because it's the right thing to do, but a big chunk of the pop couldn't be hassled to not go to bars/restaurants even though it's the right thing to do, which has led to this problem still being here.

 

The daycare teachers who've been working since March for $10/hr (and have somehow survived without the kids also suffering mass casualties) would probably be ecstatic to take a job in WI public schools. I don't want to waste any time bagging on teachers but I've also had a bit of an issue with this idea that they're treated oh so terribly. It's a profession most people respect with a lot of nice benefits in most of WI and an almost guaranteed retirement in your 50s with a modicum of planning. I don't envy teachers in most large city public school systems but there are many of them making a very nice living on a generously short career length compared to many.

[tmwiese55]

Semantics on ARs. You know the point, we don't do anything about it as a society and the solution was that teachers should arm themselves, cmon.

 

OSS, Yea I agree with you in general and did in general with the limiting that Walker did here. The numbers back then were too much and the state was in the red. But the pendulum probably swung too far the other way now, classic politics. You're right, the folks who've been in it for a long time reaped the benefits of good pay, early retirement, pension, etc. The young ones now are not though. A younger teach essentially has no shot to buy a home unless they get married or family help. Many struggle to pay bills, need roommates, etc. They haven't had raises in years in many districts. They literally have to pay for the school supplies out of their own pocket. Those retirement perks are way way down now.

 

The respect thing is probably a bit gone now too. First, the politics essentially convincing 30% of the pop that teachers are overpaid trash stealing money from them. Second, everything is now the teachers fault not the kids. Back in the day (i know) the teacher had authority and the parents sided with the teacher as kind of a disciplinary figure the kid needs to respects. Now, a huge chunk come in attacking the teachers for everything and their kid is never in the wrong. It's the teacher doing this wrong or picking on their kid, etc. Talking to teachers, it sounds just a bad situation to be in.

 

Have to remember the daycare workers probably don't have the education to be a teacher either. But overall your point is right, it's not the worst thing job in the world and there is still good state benefits, even if less than before. And so far we haven't seen a big issue with daycares (obviously a much smaller scale, but still). It's probably swung a bit too far against teachers of late and now this is another thing added to it and they're gonna do it. I was just told by one today they were told by their district today they're fully "on" as of now. And like you I didn't mean to get in the teacher rabbit hole. Was just pointing out the problems I said and the teacher who just posted said, combined with covid you're going to be running into a teacher shortage issue. The reasons behind that all are probably best left alone.

[PeaveyFury]

It was completely inadequate and a stopgap to get us to the summer.

 

A couple of issues to point out here- first, comparing whatever the 2020-2021 school year's version of 'learn at home' looks like to what happened this spring is unwise. As teachers like turbo can likely attest, this year's version was thrown together on about a week's notice and was focused solely on maintaining what the kids' learned, rather than an expansion of knowledge. For any district (and at the states' level), they've been working on their contingencies now for months and have had the opportunity to develop a way to actually make this work in a better way.

 

It is completely fair, though, to note that some districts and states will do this significantly better than others, which is problematic. I fear that some have used this time very wisely, while others have stuck their heads in the sand in a way that will prove devastating at some point this fall/winter.

 

This doesn't even get into the number of families not set up to accommodate it or the damage it will do to already disadvantaged kids, neither of which will affect me at all. Sorry. I've done my best to excuse myself from this kind of discussion, but to go from "flatten the curve!" to "no school for 12 months" is just getting ridiculous.

 

The first part here is very accurate, and an extremely valid concern. But the latter point is the main part of the problem right now: the curve wasn't sufficiently flattened, and now we're going to see this balloon into the fall and create the problems we're now discussing. It seems that the poor choices that continue to being made on the personal and at various public levels throughout the country are undoing a lot of the benefit of the initial steps that were taken, sadly, and we're going to have to deal with the fallout of that.

[tmwiese55]

OSS, you're last line is basically where I'm at on it too. Can't have unlimited spending bankrupting like other states but also see the problems. Changes had to be made back then and I was for it. Now, rather than be dug in on that view no matter what happens I look at objectively and think it's gone too far the other way. But I also feel like someone is stealing a chunk of this money somewhere, these budgets are huge and referendum after referendum gets approved, where is this money going. The overpaid administrators can't be the only problem in that sense.

 

But like Turbo said, there's now a shortage. I used to say back then (remember then teachers out of school couldn't get jobs because there was too many applying) that it's supply and demand. If you have too many applying because it's a good gig, well you're probably paying too much and can scale back. Now, that same view applies the opposite way.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

 

They hired a few teachers that didn't have teaching degrees in my district...they are awful.

 

 

Seems pretty dismissive of examining ways to improve the process of recruiting teachers. I suspect that 4-year degrees for teaching K12 are just as superfluous as they are in many other professions. I don't think anybody is suggesting hiring Walmart cashiers to teach K12, but if the supply is an issue for a fairly low to middle wage job, perhaps it's time to think about decreasing or easing the barriers to entry.

 

You can expect this problem to get worse without some innovation; the number of people who can and will pay for 4 years of college to make $34k will continue to dwindle, especially with the gravy train of benefits not what it once was.

[tmwiese55]

There is a third option too for that problem and it's pay more. That's the tradeoff. Continue to pay low and accept worse teachers and worse education for your kids, essentially lowering the bar. Or pay more. You seem to be on the let it get worse camp. I'd guess the majority would prefer better education. That said, I'm all for outside the box ideas to do things differently in education, it seems our bang for the buck on it vs other countries is low. Not sure just punting on it is the route I'd go though. I'd also guess the majority of the problems on those results are our society in general and the infrastructure/politics/bureaucracy of education these days than the actual teachers themselves. Seems to me the people on the top need to start listening to the people on the floor, which is a problem in many many business.

 

But I digress, sorry.. The whole point was simply that its gonna be another problem to navigate right now.

[homer]

OK guys, let's get back on topic.

[igor67]

A few things perhaps Wisconsin has managed to do things differently on the retirement side, but in MN the you can retire after 30 years flat or it's close variations have been gone for quite a while. I worked when I started with a few people who had started early enough they could still just qualify for those rules.

 

I tell my students I never used a planner until I started teaching. Lab research had it's particular challenges, but teaching is definitely harder. Given that the first years are the hardest the low starting pay is particularly problematic. Mid to late career if you like the life style it is OK, but it is not a joke to say that I've worked with teachers who received free/ reduced lunch for their children as well.

[LouisEly]

I don't know much about teaching now, my mother was a teacher back in the good old days (when there were 300 applicants for every elementary school opening).

 

But I do know this - my colleagues who have school-age kids have a whole new level of appreciation for teachers after having their kids at home for a couple of months trying to play teacher to them. This fall I think you'll see a lot more parent involvement and cooperation in helping any way they can to get their kids back in school.

[pacopete4]

The appreciation for teachers will all be forgotten once some parent thinks their little Billy or Suzy do no wrong.

[SoCalBrewfan]

I'm not defending Sweden, but just wanted to say that it is too soon to know for sure.

 

Re Sweden, it's not just that they have had more deaths than their immediate neighbors...the long term aspects of their experiment remain to be tested. It's the second part that is also important. Despite their lack of a hard-core quarantine, their economy is no better off, in fact is very similar if not slightly worse than than that of Denmark, probably their closest nordic peer in terms of development. The reason people hold up Sweden (at least some of them) is to say, see, we could develop herd immunity and keep our economy humming along! As the article says:

 

It is simplistic to portray government actions such as quarantines as the cause of economic damage. The real culprit is the virus itself.

 

And

 

“There is just no questioning and no willingness from the Swedish government to really change tack, until it’s too late,” Mr. Kirkegaard said. “Which is astonishing, given that it’s been clear for quite some time that the economic gains that they claim to have gotten from this are just nonexistent.”

 

Even when things are theoretically open, plenty of people are scared and other people are sick or living with someone who is sick...and while many countries have beaten down the transmission rates, in the US the virus is still there in the community without good testing or tracking available. And of course, as we see, the virus doesn't care about anyone's models or slogans...it just spreads, remorselessly, when people are in contact. So to the people saying, reopen because we have to fix the economy, well, it's just not that simple. If you don't do something about the virus, hanging a victory banner and saying now we are reopening, it just doesn't solve the problem.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

My problem with using Sweden's economic fallout as a strike against them is that an economy can't self-sustain itself when the other large economies around the world shut down entire sectors for months at a time and others are still going at 50 and 25% of what they were. The world is too globalized for any first-world country to operate like an island. If China stops all operations overnight and the US doesn't, that doesn't mean it's not felt in the US.

 

All I think the Swedish experiment has shown is that this is a giant mess and nobody will come out of it cleanly. It's human nature to think we're always in control of everything and we could have changed this or that and it would have solved the problem. The kind of isolation that would have made the kind of magic wand difference people want would never have happened in a place like the US. Just too vast, too many people, too many different governing bodies with different jurisdiction.

 

A country ill-equipped to handle it in the first place, and lacking the culture of many other places of the world where the vast majority of the population respects authority and there is not as much division in the messaging.

[tmwiese55]

I saw Swedens numbers have recently come way down. I want to say some 0 death days recently. So, while they've had some of the highest per pop deaths in the world so far due to this which looks like their strategy is probably not good. Some of the recent trends look good, so maybe it'll pay off later on, we'll see. Although, whatever I read had some kind of anti body test stat that I think only estimated like 6% of the population has had it. Don't hold me to the number but it was low and nowhere near the herd immunity buzzword. I don't think they could really draw a conclusion as to why the sudden drop off as I think it only started in the last 2-3 weeks. Best guess I think was that people are simply taking it serious and distancing themselves from others and masking even if the govt didn't make them.

 

Or maybe they just stopped testing, haha

[CheezWizHed]

I'm not defending Sweden, but just wanted to say that it is too soon to know for sure.

 

Re Sweden, it's not just that they have had more deaths than their immediate neighbors...the long term aspects of their experiment remain to be tested. It's the second part that is also important. Despite their lack of a hard-core quarantine, their economy is no better off, in fact is very similar if not slightly worse than than that of Denmark, probably their closest nordic peer in terms of development. The reason people hold up Sweden (at least some of them) is to say, see, we could develop herd immunity and keep our economy humming along! As the article says:

 

It is simplistic to portray government actions such as quarantines as the cause of economic damage. The real culprit is the virus itself.

 

And

 

“There is just no questioning and no willingness from the Swedish government to really change tack, until it’s too late,” Mr. Kirkegaard said. “Which is astonishing, given that it’s been clear for quite some time that the economic gains that they claim to have gotten from this are just nonexistent.”

 

Even when things are theoretically open, plenty of people are scared and other people are sick or living with someone who is sick...and while many countries have beaten down the transmission rates, in the US the virus is still there in the community without good testing or tracking available. And of course, as we see, the virus doesn't care about anyone's models or slogans...it just spreads, remorselessly, when people are in contact. So to the people saying, reopen because we have to fix the economy, well, it's just not that simple. If you don't do something about the virus, hanging a victory banner and saying now we are reopening, it just doesn't solve the problem.

 

You make valid points that are true right now. But the "game" is only half way over to really see if the strategy works. Now that they have been at (or near) zero deaths for a week or so (still looking for a new info source since my last one stopped reporting Sweden's daily death totals), this is where they hoped to "gain"; both death toll and economically.

 

Again, I'm not saying it was the right choice. Hard to dictate that you will have 2x the death rate of other nations and bank on an unknown backside effect of the virus. As people said above, they aren't close to herd immunity, but the death toll certainly dropped off.

 

Its just too early to really know for sure.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Nearby school district is letting families pick between virtual and in-person school. I think that is the best approach, although I suspect that somewhere around 97% will send kids to school, mostly due to necessity and and inability to afford sending them elsewhere. Those truly uncomfortable with the idea don't have to do it.

[homer]

I think UK (85, seems like an outlier - could have been back loading cases) was the only country in Europe with more than 20 deaths yesterday. Most of that continent is in the single digits now.

[CheezWizHed]

Looks like France and Germany are still bopping around in the 20-40 range and unfortunately, Sweden came back up to the double digits after hitting zero for a few days. But Norway, Finland, and Denmark are all at zero or very low single digits for some time now.