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Many parents can’t take time off if we close school. Children aren’t at risk here, reason why still unknown. That’s a terrible idea.

yaks_hairbrush 7y ago
The issue with schools is that they're daily large gatherings where the virus can be transmitted. Children can be carriers with schools providing the network effect for spreading covid-19.
testcase_delta 7y ago
Garmine's recommendation is in line with expert opinions I've been reading for the last couple of days. There is at least one really great case study from the Spanish Flu: St Louis proactively closed schools and reduced deaths by 50%, compared to Pittsburg who closed schools relatively. It seems a decidedly good idea to get ahead of these things.
vkou 7y ago
1. Just because kids aren't dying, doesn't mean they aren't carriers. 2. When it gets bad, schools will be closed anyways, and parents will need to figure out how to handle childsitting. 3. The longer we delay closure, the worse off everyone else will be.
dcolkitt 7y ago
Children aren't at risk, but can still act as vectors of infection. And it's not just kids, many adults work in the school system. Shutting down schools is almost assuredly an effective measure to slow the spread of the disease. And slowing the spread is the overriding public health imperative. Even if the same number of people get infected, fast transmission means the healthcare system gets overloaded with all the patients at once. A 5% reduction in the rate of transmission could plausibly reduce the number of fatalities by 50% or more. We need to do everything possible to institute "social distancing" to slow the process done.
- dx034 7y ago
  But you need to provide daycare at least for some children. Otherwise police, fire departments and hospitals will cease to work. Doctors can't work long shifts if there's no one at home taking care of children. You could make school voluntary and encourage everyone to stay home who can take care of their children. But closing all schools sounds dangerous.
  - dcolkitt 7y ago
    I agree completely. But I think the status quo of just continuing normal school procedures is a potential epidemiological nightmare. We could still provide childcare to those who need it, but in a format that drastically reduces transmission potential. First, like you very astutely pointed out, stop making school mandatory. Even encourage families to keep kids home if they have childcare available. That probably entails ceasing any academics, since parents will otherwise feel pressured to keep their kids in school lest they fall behind. Second, we can keep kids isolated in small groups, so they're not intermingling as is typical during a school day. A child should be assigned to a single pod, and only interact with his assigned pod for the remainder of the epidemic. Obviously childcare workers should be assigned a single pod, and stay in that pod. The smaller we can sub-divide pods, the better. Finally big common activities, like lunch or recess should be staggered so that kids aren't ever exposed to anyone else outside their pods. Other than that pods should stay confined to the same classroom for the duration of the epidemic. Pods should probably be assigned based on busing routes, so that kids only bus with their pod.
  - lozenge 7y ago
    Part of the worry is that even for completely non-essential jobs, managers will say "you can still send your child to school so I expect you to come in and work". "Schools are closed" is a much simpler message, and I imagine the vast majority of doctor parents can arrange for a non-doctor parent (from another family) to provide their childcare.
  - taborj 7y ago
    > But you need to provide daycare at least for some children. Here's a problem: what's the difference between state-provided daycare and school, from an infectious disease standpoint? Both are a bunch of kids in one building, attended to by adults. Both will require busing kids to said building, with buses driven by adults. Might as well just leave the schools open. I don't have a solution, just pointing out that daycare == school for this situation, so closing schools but providing daycare in it's stead won't make a difference.
rolltiide 7y ago
> Children aren’t at risk here, reason why still unknown. Isn't this the underlying plot of Maze Runner, and a bunch of other books/movies? A decade of young adult fiction dystopian worlds of only young adults, followed by an actual decade of dystopian world of only young adults.

yaks_hairbrush 7y ago

The issue with schools is that they're daily large gatherings where the virus can be transmitted. Children can be carriers with schools providing the network effect for spreading covid-19.

testcase_delta 7y ago

Garmine's recommendation is in line with expert opinions I've been reading for the last couple of days. There is at least one really great case study from the Spanish Flu: St Louis proactively closed schools and reduced deaths by 50%, compared to Pittsburg who closed schools relatively. It seems a decidedly good idea to get ahead of these things.

vkou 7y ago

1. Just because kids aren't dying, doesn't mean they aren't carriers. 2. When it gets bad, schools will be closed anyways, and parents will need to figure out how to handle childsitting. 3. The longer we delay closure, the worse off everyone else will be.

dcolkitt 7y ago

Children aren't at risk, but can still act as vectors of infection. And it's not just kids, many adults work in the school system. Shutting down schools is almost assuredly an effective measure to slow the spread of the disease. And slowing the spread is the overriding public health imperative. Even if the same number of people get infected, fast transmission means the healthcare system gets overloaded with all the patients at once. A 5% reduction in the rate of transmission could plausibly reduce the number of fatalities by 50% or more. We need to do everything possible to institute "social distancing" to slow the process done.

dx034 7y ago
But you need to provide daycare at least for some children. Otherwise police, fire departments and hospitals will cease to work. Doctors can't work long shifts if there's no one at home taking care of children. You could make school voluntary and encourage everyone to stay home who can take care of their children. But closing all schools sounds dangerous.
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  I agree completely. But I think the status quo of just continuing normal school procedures is a potential epidemiological nightmare. We could still provide childcare to those who need it, but in a format that drastically reduces transmission potential. First, like you very astutely pointed out, stop making school mandatory. Even encourage families to keep kids home if they have childcare available. That probably entails ceasing any academics, since parents will otherwise feel pressured to keep their kids in school lest they fall behind. Second, we can keep kids isolated in small groups, so they're not intermingling as is typical during a school day. A child should be assigned to a single pod, and only interact with his assigned pod for the remainder of the epidemic. Obviously childcare workers should be assigned a single pod, and stay in that pod. The smaller we can sub-divide pods, the better. Finally big common activities, like lunch or recess should be staggered so that kids aren't ever exposed to anyone else outside their pods. Other than that pods should stay confined to the same classroom for the duration of the epidemic. Pods should probably be assigned based on busing routes, so that kids only bus with their pod.
- lozenge 7y ago
  Part of the worry is that even for completely non-essential jobs, managers will say "you can still send your child to school so I expect you to come in and work". "Schools are closed" is a much simpler message, and I imagine the vast majority of doctor parents can arrange for a non-doctor parent (from another family) to provide their childcare.
- taborj 7y ago
  > But you need to provide daycare at least for some children. Here's a problem: what's the difference between state-provided daycare and school, from an infectious disease standpoint? Both are a bunch of kids in one building, attended to by adults. Both will require busing kids to said building, with buses driven by adults. Might as well just leave the schools open. I don't have a solution, just pointing out that daycare == school for this situation, so closing schools but providing daycare in it's stead won't make a difference.

rolltiide 7y ago

> Children aren’t at risk here, reason why still unknown. Isn't this the underlying plot of Maze Runner, and a bunch of other books/movies? A decade of young adult fiction dystopian worlds of only young adults, followed by an actual decade of dystopian world of only young adults.