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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

by 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.

by dx034 7y ago

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.