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Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk
- koop123 6y agoMaybe all nurses should quit, too.
- lm28469 6y agoidk if it's a tongue in cheek comment or what but when you sign up to work in the medical system it's kind of implied (and probably explicitly written in your work contract) that you'll encounter dangerous and unpleasant situations, much less for teachers, especially when the whole thing is unnecessary and preventable in the first place.
- matz1 6y agoExcept the danger is overblown, there is risk ? yes of course, like everything else in life there is risk. Thats being said If they feel uncomfortable to work then they should quit, give opportunity for other teacher to take their job.
- s5300 6y agoThey're literally not being given the supplies to do their job. That kind of negates presumed responsibility.
- adamsea 6y agoNo. The danger is not overblown. New teachers just don’t appear out of the woodworks, it takes time to be trained. Plus, since in the US it’s such a poorly paid and poorly respected profession (at least not respected by society; Id imagine parents appreciate teachers), where will these new teachers come from?
- matz1 6y ago>No. The danger is not overblown. Ok not for you but at least for me and whole lot other people consider the risk be overblown. >New teachers just don’t appear out of the woodworks, it takes time to be trained This assume there are more teacher who are afraid than not. If there is truly lack of teacher then there are plenty of ways to urge them to work, such as giving more benefit.
- lm28469 6y ago> Ok not for you but at least for me and whole lot other people consider the risk be overblown. Funny to think that this is exactly the mental state that put the US at the top of the worsts countries in term of coronavirus response. Six months in and "it's just the flu bro" is still going strong, humans are weird.
- matz1 6y agoI agree the US government response is really disappointing, they should have just reopen everything now. I'm not saying that there nothing should be done regarding this virus. The vaccine research still have to continue, treatment research still have to continue, increase medical capacity(if needed) still have to be done. What I'm against is this lockdown/restriction and this fear mongering because the damage it cause is more than the virus. >Six months in and "it's just the flu bro" is still going strong, humans are weird I'm not saying its just flu, I'm saying the risk of this virus is very low. The data clearly shown that for majority of cases it either asymptotic or only mild symptom. Would there be risk of death due or long term damage to his virus ? of course, any diseases could cause that but the risk is low.
- lm28469 6y ago> I'm saying the risk is very low. The data clearly shown that for majority of cases it either asymptotic or only mild symptom. The data also shows that 140k Americans died (probably many more if you take into account the excess deaths that have been recorded but haven't been linked to covid yet) and many more will suffer long term side effects. The data also shows that Europeans countries almost completely curbed the epidemic and can _safely_ and _slowly_ reopen because they went through a real lock down. If anything the data clearly shows that reopening anything in the US right now is suicide for thousands of people. This situation will be a literal text book example of how to completely fail at handling an epidemic for the centuries to come, it would be comical if it wasn't for all the preventable deaths and suffering.
- lm28469 6y agoLook at other countries, the US wants to reopen during the peak of the virus... There are always risks, but there are more risks if you knowingly reopen everything during the worse time possible.
- throwaway69123 6y agoThis is 100% false, nurses and doctors did not opt-in for working under pandemic like conditions. Also they never agreed to do so while understaffed or without appropriate levels of PPE
- starkd 6y agoIt's also kidn of implied that teachers signed up to work with snivelling children who spread germs. That being said, there's evidence this particular virus doesn't even spread easily among children.
- lm28469 6y ago> this particular virus doesn't even spread easily among children. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/507442-almost-one-third-of-florida-children-tested-are https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...
- starkd 6y agoThere's some conflicting results here. There's a study showing it generally doesn't transmit among children: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-commentary-pediatrics-children-dont-transmit.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-commentary-pediatrics... The study acknowledges children having been infected, but that they generally aren't a major vector for transmission. In particular, the study concludes that rise in cases among the young seem to occur from adults infecting the children.
- starkd 6y agoIt's also kind of implied that teachers signed up to work with sniveling children who spread germs. That being said, there's evidence this particular virus doesn't even spread easily among children.
- hobs 6y agoMaybe we should take better measures to protect both incredibly valuable professions instead of making snarky comments that imply they should just go get sick and die because someone else decided making bad calls is good.
- koop123 6y agoNo, I think everyone should overreact and quit their jobs because covid-19 killed around 150,000 Americans in a country of 300,000,000 people. (Except I would actually totally understand nurses quitting.)
- cheerlessbog 6y agoMany or most of whom are social distancing or at home rather then in a room full of kids from different households. Plus very disproportionate effect on older people, a group that includes many teachers. Plus the extended effects in some cases even if you survive. Then consider how little they get paid and that there’s potentially alternatives (delay or virtual)
- leetrout 6y agoNurses also make significantly more than teachers do, as well. North Carolina where my wife is a teacher: Registered Nurse RN Salary $62,560 North Carolina Avg Teacher $37,631 And some other numbers: 2017-18 National Average Starting Teacher Salary: $39,249 U.S. Registered Nurse RN Salary $73,550 U.S. National Average Salary $50,620
- engineer_22 6y agoDid you intend to compare starting salary to average salary?
- leetrout 6y agoYes! Just wanted the other numbers to compare -- NC is paying less than the national starting salary on average for teachers and less than the national average for nurses. In both cases starting pay and average NC pay are less than the US average salary. My wife could match her salary working at the local Sheetz gas station which does not require a masters degree AFAIK.
- koop123 6y agoNo salary would be worth my life. Not everyone cares about money as much as people on HackerNews. And nurses definitely have more exposure to covid-19 than teachers.
- s5300 6y agoIf they don't receive proper PPE, which they've been quoted that they still aren't, how could you blame them?
- aahhahahaaa 6y agoNurses get about double the salary and literally signed up for this type of work. School teachers often buy their own supplies and aren't remotely prepared for this.
- doopy-loopy2 6y agoI'm OK with giving teachers the choice not to return - but they should absolutely NOT be getting paid. And those who want to work can do so.
- newfeatureok 6y agoThis doesn't make any sense - it's possible to teach children remotely. It is not possible to be a nurse remotely. The two situations are not remotely (pun intended) similar.
- doopy-loopy2 6y agolol. stop trying to make "remote everything" happen. It's not gonna happen regardless of how badly you want it to.
- doopy-loopy2 6y agosoftware engineers too
- bryanlarsen 6y agoI've heard medical professionals opine that they're safer at work than they are at the grocery store now that they have adequate PPE along with well designed and properly followed procedures.
- 3pt14159 6y agoThis is exactly why all the people that said "choosing to protect life is also choosing to protect the economy" were right. It sucks, but people with savings can choose to quit over having to risk their lives. So if there is an appreciable risk (and associated hazard, which, for many of our older educators there is) then that is what is going to happen and you still get the disruptions to the economy.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- collegecamp293 6y agoWhy are nurses and grocery workers working then? How are they less at risk than teachers?
- searine 6y agoIn both those cases exposure is much different. Nurses largely have the PPE needed to deal with covid and have been trained to do so. Store workers have far less exposure than a teacher trying to wrangle 30 kids for 8 hours a day.
- collegecamp293 6y agoI would argue store workers have much higher exposure due to thousands of customers touching surfaces throughout the store everyday
- leetrout 6y agoAgree! Comment I made the other day: > What bothers me the most is that just like retail / grocery store workers we put people with the lowest earning potential and generally worst benefits directly in the path of this. I don’t want to get COVID but unless I convince my wife to quit her job my odds of getting it greatly increase due to situations out of my control.
- jsight 6y agoI feel like there is too much emphasis on these and not enough on the ones that earnestly want to go back to work. There should be a balance here, as we really do need a lot of students to have access to schools in the fall. 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.
- sl1ck731 6y agoI would prefer every student to be held back 1 semester from graduating high school than 1 more dead (if that were a possibility, but you get the point). 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.
- lmilcin 6y agoIt is easy to go about and proclaim, "life is priceless", "I would prefer to have every student held back than one dead", and so on. 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?
- sl1ck731 6y agoHow does delaying your school career 1 semester cause death? 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.
- lmilcin 6y agoWe are talking about large number of people. On average this would take away half a year of their productive life. 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.
- bzb3 6y agoHow many? 2? 200? 20%? 90%? Without an answer to this question this doesn't seem a productive discussion.
- engineer_22 6y agoIt's too late to put the genie back in the bottle. Whether we like it or not we're going with the Sweden Model. I've got school age kids myself, and I understand the risk. This is going to be a situation that could become hard to manage but our society's economy is constructed in such a way that relies on daytime programming for children and teens outside of their home. The teachers are going to have to help bear the load, just as we all are.
- marvin 6y agoOr maybe they'll choose not to. It's a market economy. Maybe $30k per year isn't worth risking the life of one's family.
- engineer_22 6y agoMaybe. I think the major problem is there is not a compelling childcare alternative that's ready to take over if the schools don't open. I also think it's a "tale of two cities". There's a lot of political will to reopen the schools in rural areas that haven't been as deeply impacted by the virus itself. And rightly so - the risk in rural upstate New York is much lower than in Flushing, Queens. It's probably wisest to address this at a local level.
- indymike 6y agoI'm already having friends with kids call to see if we can do co-ops where 3-4 kids go to a single home and do online school. By limiting the families, you limit exposure, and solve the child care and socialization problem at the same time.
- nathanyz 6y agoYes, we are considering this exact thing as well. I think the challenge systemwide is this further divides the privileged from the lowest income earners. It adds additional cost that even when pooled with others is outside the realm of affordable for many. The only option for them will be to send kids back to school because they need to be able to work in order to feed their kids. Their choice is food/shelter vs low risk of death for children with COVID. Sucks, but we should at least understand why there is such a push to reopen schools. The divide this creates though.....who knows what the long term consequences will be
- Kapura 6y agoMy mother is an elementary school teacher, and I don't want her to go back to school this year. The federal government is worse than useless, and the state government is feckless and unwilling to make the tough calls to protect people's lives. She's been a teacher for ~15 years and still makes less than $30k a year teaching. She loves helping the kids, but her life isn't worth it.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoCheck out Outteach for your mother: https://outschool.com/teach https://outschool.com/teach No relation, saw one of their engineering jobs on HN and your comment made me think of a solution for your mother's situation (it's teaching over Zoom).
- cheerlessbog 6y agoWhere does she work that pays $30k for an experienced teacher? Teacher pay sucks
- leetrout 6y agoMy wife has worked in rural TN and NC and my mom was a speech language pathologist for 30+ years in KY. Pretty much everywhere rural starts under $40k (or under $30k in some cases) and stays under $40k for 5-10 years of experience.
- tathougies 6y agoRural areas are significantly cheaper. For example tennessee's median home price is $164k, which means $40k is 1/4 the price of a new home. Meanwhile, California's median home price is $533k and the average teacher's salary is 49k - 84k, making it 1/10 - 1/6 the price of a new home
- Kapura 6y agoShe's in Colorado. The teachers' union agreed to a pay cut & freeze during the Bush financial crisis; pay had had only started to rise again a few years ago. This is somewhat of a digression, but the extremely low rate of teacher pay (for a job that requires a Master's degree) limits the pool of available teachers greatly. The people taking these jobs typically must have some other way of supporting their family; either their spouse has a higher-paying professional job or they are the beneficiary of some other form of generational wealth. But we tend to lose the teachers who must make ends meet their own selves on a teacher's pay. There is no good economic argument made to become an elementary school teacher.
- purple_ferret 6y agoSerious question. At this point, why can't teachers wear n95 masks? Data has shown they adequately protect even healthcare workers that are constantly exposed to heavy viral loads.
- ceejayoz 6y ago> “They said we’d have masks and face shields and everyone is going to be covered, but it’s a school district — sometimes we don’t have soap,” he said. We've had trouble getting enough N95s for healthcare staff, let alone teachers.
- mnm1 6y agoMeanwhile multiple N95 production lines are sitting dormant in Texas and elsewhere. You're confusing not being willing to make masks with having trouble getting enough. No, we have no trouble getting enough. We have no willingness to make any. Those two couldn't be further from each other.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- newfeatureok 6y agoEven if N95 masks worked, do you think school districts will give every teacher an N95 mask every day? AFAIK there are way more teachers than "healthcare professionals" and we failed to get all the healthcare professionals N95 masks. I highly doubt we'd be able to get teachers the same amount.
- doopy-loopy2 6y agowhy not? also, they have machines that can sanitize them so they can be reused.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
- hprotagonist 6y agoMy 65 year old parent, an educator in a sunbelt state, told their superintendent that if the distict came back for in person classes too early, they would walk on the spot. they'll be online-only for at least the fall.
- tomohawk 6y agoBased on what? This risk of an adult being infected by a child is almost zero. https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/hunting-down-covid-19/ https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/hunting-down-covi... The flu is also deadly for 65 year olds. Will your parent refuse to work during flu season when the risk of getting infected from a child is much, much higher than with covid?
- aaronbrethorst 6y agoGood thing every school building only has a single adult in it.
- matchbok 6y agoCovid isn't the flu, champ.
- andi999 6y agoRisk of flu can be mitigated by applying a vaccine.
- goda90 6y agoHuman ingenuity has accomplished some marvelous things in the last century. I can't help but wonder how easily we could have tooled up for mass production of affordable PAPRs to distribute for times when remote work isn't very effective, like teaching children.
- kevmo 6y agoWhy wouldn't a teacher quit if they possibly could? The pay is peanuts, certainly not worth any serious immediate risk to your health.
- Wowfunhappy 6y agoIt's a lot better than no pay at all! (Also fwiw, teacher salaries in the US do vary greatly by state. You won't make off like a bandit anywhere, but it's a perfectly respectable amount in some places.)
- pravda 6y agoTeachers around me (NYC suburbs) are getting $200K compensation packages! I consider that making out like a bandit. Only 186 days of work a year, summers off, can never be fired.
- hellofunk 6y agoWell it is definitely true that having schools fully open does not contribute to much greater risk if the community already has the virus under control as this has been widely demonstrated by many European countries where infection rates continued to decrease, hospitalizations and deaths decreased, even as schools fully opened. But in those countries, they actually did the responsible thing and had a full uncompromised lockdown for months to get the virus under control.
- steve76 6y agoToday the same people saying we messed up the lock down cheered a mob which just burnt down the city.
- hellofunk 6y agoI don’t see anyone out there with widespread praise of the violence you are talking about.
- ars 6y agoI did. It was billed as the only way to get racists to pay attention was to destroy their property or city.
- panda-giddiness 6y ago> Today [some subset of] people saying we messed up the lock down cheered a mob which just [destroyed some property]. There's no need to be hyperbolic; it's possible to have a nuanced view on both of these issues. When you presume the latter are the former, the only group of people you denigrate are the strawmen you created.
- hodgesrm 6y agoThis is another example of how modern economies are driven by individual choices about participation--in this case teachers refusing to provide service because they don't feel safe. The same choices are devastating a wide range of industries like aviation, hospitality, tourism, etc. It's a little mindboggling that so many political leaders do not understand this basic concept. Economics is far from perfect but the effect of the pandemic on economic behavior was about as close to a slam dunk prediction as you can get.
- dragonwriter 6y agoOne should note that the safety risks are not one sided, as the American Academy of Pediatrics has pointed out in strongly urging planning centered around means to reopen in-person schooling, there are risks to health and lives at issue with not returning to school: > the AAP strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school. [...] Lengthy time away from school and associated interruption of supportive services often results in social isolation, making it difficult for schools to identify and address important learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation. This, in turn, places children and adolescents at considerable risk of morbidity and, in some cases, mortality https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/clinical-guidance/covid-19-planning-considerations-return-to-in-person-education-in-schools/ https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-cov...
- hhs 6y agoPlease note that there’s more to the story than that statement: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/07/13/trump-administration-cites-american-academy-pediatrics-make-its-case-school-reopening-heres-what-aap-really-said/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/07/13/trump-ad...
- dragonwriter 6y agoI'm not endorsing the simplistic and punitive Trump Administration spin that is at issue in your story, so I'm not sure what your point is. Both the “reopen without significant investment in safety” and “stay closed” sides are both grave health risks and education failures, as the original statement itself implies and the further elaboration makes clear. It's probably the case that, reduced to those options, “stay closed” (to in-person schooling, continuing distance learning) is best for teachers, so it's understandable that with governments refusing to offer more when it comes to reopening that’s their stance. But even when it is reduced to those two bad options, it's far less clear that that's the best for kids (especially since a lot of the private internet access subsidies from ISPs, that were given with no obligation by providers, that mitigated the inequities with distance learning have expired.)
- war1025 6y agoI believe the old FDR phrase, "There's nothing to fear but fear itself," is becoming more and more accurate with our situation. The risk from this virus goes down dramatically the younger you are. Kids are young. That's obvious. Their parents also tend to be young, at least young enough to not be in the high risk groups. These groups are also accustomed to being sick or dealing with sick people. If there were no vaccine in the pipeline, our only option would be herd immunity. If we were shooting for herd immunity, the groups exposed by going back to school would be exactly who we'd want to put at risk from a statistical standpoint. So it's really a question of do we want to continue hiding out in hopes that they truly are able to fast track a vaccine, or do we want to just deal with a couple hard months and get our lives back? Most of the alarmism at the beginning of all this was centered around it being a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic. It's not.
- nsriv 6y agoYeah, you were saying? https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/507442-almost-one-third-of-florida-children-tested-are https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...
- war1025 6y agoI read the article and I don't see how it contradicts my point. Kids are getting sick, as we expected. Soon they will be immune. Then it won't be an issue.
- lm28469 6y agoOr you know, you could deal with the virus like 99% of the other first world countries and be half way through it instead of still not having hit the peak of the epidemic. It's crystal clear that the US is doing something wrong. "it's not that bad", "europe is reopening schools so we should do it too", &c. What kind of mental gymnastic do you have to go through to even write these things... https://i.imgur.com/2Pkl2PY.png https://i.imgur.com/2Pkl2PY.png
- war1025 6y ago
- jedimastert 6y agoI have a friend who got hired for his first teaching job this summer. It's all he's wanted to do and he's incredibly passionate. He's afraid that if he backs out now the school board won't hire him back after this is all over.
- throwawaysea 6y agoLA’s teachers union issued calls to defund the police and limit charter schools (AKA competition and accountability for teachers) as part of their reopening plans so I’m not sure that health is the only thing in play. It seems like large numbers of teachers are just openly exploiting this crisis for political and personal gain. https://news.yahoo.com/l-teachers-union-calls-defund-164943481.html https://news.yahoo.com/l-teachers-union-calls-defund-1649434...
- tomohawk 6y agoIn Iceland, they did extensive testing, and genetic tracing of infections. Children infecting other children was extremely rare. In almost all cases, it was adults infecting them. There was only a single case of a child infecting an adult. https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/hunting-down-covid-19/ https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/hunting-down-covi... Now that we have actual experience with the disease, hospitalization rates for children with covid is 5x lower than flu. As pediatricians have noted, focusing only on covid risks leaves a whole host of other more serious risks with no management.
- tgv 6y agoIceland, of course, has only 360.000 inhabitants.
- bpodgursky 6y agoYes... that's why it was easy to do the tracing. What other point do you think this makes?
- neverartful 6y agoHow big of a sample size do you need to be convinced?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tgv 6y ago32 different countries? Iceland doesn't necessarily generalize to denser populations. Even the capital, Reykjavik, has a low population density, 472/km2, whereas New York has over 10,000/km2.
- lemmonii 6y agoHN is feeling more and more like reddit every day. Why is this comment downvoted/flagged? It's the first well sourced scientific information I find in this thread.
- ryandrake 6y agoTeachers' unions are among the most powerful unions left in the country. If there ever was a time for them to flex that power, it's now: In the middle of a raging worldwide pandemic, they are actually being asked to risk dying for their jobs and risk having their classrooms turn into petri dishes sending infected children back to infect their families. If that's not enough to motivate collective action, what is?
- creaghpatr 6y agoWhat collective action are you talking about here?
- pantaloony 6y agoThe power of teacher’s unions varies a ton. Supposedly in some places they have so much power it’s impossible to fire teachers for pretty much any reason. I’ve never seen anything close to that, but I believe accounts that such districts exist. Meanwhile in others the best they can do, with great effort, is get districts to pinkie-promise not to abuse teachers (but then do it anyway, of course). That’s the only kind I’ve seen but I dunno how it works in New York or Chicago or wherever.
- yboris 6y agoA protest sign I saw is an apt response to the situation: "Why should we go to school if you won't listen to the educated?"
- sfotm 6y agoBecause education is valuable regardless of whether or not everyone listens to you?
- triceratops 6y agoIf no one listens to you, who is a formal education valuable to, exactly? I assign no personal value to the pieces of paper I got from the various institutions I've graduated from - society and the job market values them.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoTo you, even if nobody listens to you.
- triceratops 6y agoI already answered that.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoNo, you didn't. You said you don't assign any value to the piece of paper. Find, but did you actually learn anything in the process? That has value, to you. Now, perhaps your point is that the formal education didn't matter, that is, you could just as easily have learned the same thing by informal means. That is true, if you had the self-discipline or curiosity to do so. While you may have had that, and I did, many who attend public school do not. The things they learn are still of value to them.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoTrue, but not the point. The point is that those in authority are acting both inconsistently and stupidly.
- mmastrac 6y agoUnderpaid, unappreciated by many, overcrowed in classrooms, forced to pay for their own supplies. Not really surprising -- I would not last long in that situation when you add in life-threatening. Education needs a massive reform.
- eaandkw 6y agoI have pretty much given up on everybody at this point. I have already pulled my kid from school and will not send them back. I am in a single income family and I am now working from home. All actions and purchases at this point are to help us to become more independant from the system. Society and government at large has shown itself to be unreliable and undependable. I am also making longer term plans to move out of my current state. So good luck everyone with the education system.
- Florin_Andrei 6y agoThe real illness is on a different level - it's the way the main culture in the US sees and understands the world. It makes some spectacularly wrong assumptions there. But those assumptions were never seriously challenged (no enemies nearby, dominance after WW2), so then why change, right? Now those assumptions are being challenged. And of course a lot of people, rather than change and give up their cherished "identity", would plow ahead blindly, consequences be damned. Everyone who is protesting masks, I am looking at you and your beliefs. This has happened many times in history. Societies get their beliefs challenged by reality. Some adapt, fix their stuff, and go on. Some don't. There is still time to change. But not much.
- antepodius 6y agoYour only example here is 'masks'. The rest of your comment could equally be applied to the american left or right, depending on your perspective.
- ashtonkem 6y agoMasks were also protested in 1918, so this isn’t a post-WW2 phenomenon.
- timmytokyo 6y agoThere were pockets of resistance to mask wearing in the 1918 flu pandemic, but it was not widespread. https://www.history.com/news/1918-spanish-flu-mask-wearing-resistance https://www.history.com/news/1918-spanish-flu-mask-wearing-r... Also, they didn't have government leadership publicly questioning the wisdom of mask wearing.
- jMyles 6y agoSweden's strategy is looking more sensible every day (with the exception of failing to isolate nursing homes, which was a blunder). Their excess mortality rate is back to zero, and they never closed schools for a day.
- craydandy 6y agoCompletely agreed! Excess deaths are reaching all time lows in many European countries. Most of the excess deaths - as in Italy - were probably due to antibiotic resistance. But this is something you can't say, not at least in HN. You have to agree and obey the official truth. It is mind boggling how otherwise sensible people panicked and refuse the see the truth. I really hope vaccine would come soon, just to calm people down.
- mynameishere 6y agoOnce President-Elect Biden pronounces this strategy on November 4th (with universal acclaim from the media and all corners of the ruling class), you can point to your comment from today and get some more downvotes!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- aaomidi 6y agoThe federal government is doing this on purpose to kill public schools.
- tathougies 6y agoPublic schools have failed students, especially minorities. Good
- skrowl 6y agoI wish we had decent charter school options where I live. I bet A LOT of parents have this same wish.
- aaomidi 6y agoCharter schools take funding that was made by the public for the public and decide to do whatever they want from it. Charter schools are also not required to provide adequate support for children that need extra accommodation.
- txsoftwaredev 6y agoParents, or lack of, have failed students, especially minorities.
- aaomidi 6y agoAnd to add onto this, the lack of parents have been a top down failure from the US government as well.
- aaomidi 6y agoThis is completely false. Mismanaged school systems have failed minorities. Rampant wage theft and inequality has failed minorities. Schools can only do so much within a broken society and broken system. They were doing the best they can with the tools given to them. How does public schooling failing help minorities in any way what so ever?
- 6y ago
- xnyan 6y agoThinking about having a kid. There's no way I would ever have a kid in my current US state. Not saying anyone has done it well vs rest of the world, but there are clearly states (and counties/cities) that have done a much better job at protecting human life than others. As someone who has lived in the US South for most of my childhood and adult life, I truly don't think it's responsible to have children here if you have another choice. I know a lot of people don't, but I do and I'm out of here.
- ashtonkem 6y agoDitto, except I’m dubious about the prospect of having a child in America.
- _qn5w 6y agoYou’re fulfilling the Idiocracy prophecy. Those who think about their life choices are less likely to breed than those who are more reckless and have children with less hesitation. The similar survival rate of children of the two groups means the more-reckless genes & culture will out-propagate the less-reckless genes & culture. I’m pretty sure less-reckless is what we need more of, but without some extreme and questionable measures, I don’t see how it’s possible to sway the force of nature.
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- tehwebguy 6y agoOh cool, eugenics on HN. People are obviously free to downvote this but Idiocracy's entire premise, and the parent comment, are about eugenics. Additionally, Idiocracy was not very funny aside from Picnicface's Powerthirst jokes recycled into Brawndo.
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- hosh 6y agoFor the teachers whose calling is teaching, I can see them moving to this part-time: https://outschool.com https://outschool.com My wife and I were concerned about our daughter getting isolated. We don't want her on social media, but we do think it is important for her to connect with her affinity group, and explore her passions. I found out about outschool recently, and it looked like exactly what we needed to address this. The classes and activities on outschool don't conform to any national standard. Instead, teachers, both accredited and non-accredited, can teach subjects they are interested in teaching. In turn, technology is used to connect interested students together with the teacher. There are some really unusual things that connects different disciplines together in a more wholistic way. Such as a class on world architecture using Mindcraft. Teacher set their own pricing at a minimum of $10 for a course, and the platform takes 30%. Some are prerecorded and some are live. The intended audience if k-12.
- seniorgarcia 6y agoSo, keeping my child engaged for 5 days a week would cost about 150$ and 45$ go to the platform (judging from glancing over class duration/classes per week and cost). Can somebody tell me what value outschool adds aside from being an agency?
- somethoughts 6y agoCuration of content creators. A presumption that efforts to create a brand will lead to long term quality and consistency in content and creators who are controversial will be removed. You can do the equivalent of this using Youtube videos - the onus is on the parent to figure out how to block Youtube from auto-suggesting/auto-playing click bait viral videos after the tutorial you want the child to watch is over.
- cheschire 6y agoWhat's wrong with the only value being an agency? Do you not approve of B2B generally speaking? If teachers didn't have a service like this to use, they would each have to find their own way to attract the attention of potential students.
- tathougies 6y agoWonderful. If they stay employed, we have to pay their salaries, despite not receiving any kind of education for America's children. We can't fire them, due to the union. But if they quit, we achieve everything -- tax payers save money for something they are not getting, and the funds can be used to educate children (Perhaps by direct payments to parents for use in hiring private tutors, or whatever).
- csb6 6y agoThis comment shows an astounding lack of anything resembling human empathy. Teachers do not want to return to work because the outbreak is getting worse in many places, and the already underpaid job of being a teacher would become even more dangerous. Ask any teacher (especially grade school) during normal times: they get sick constantly, and kids constantly pass around colds/the flu. In AZ, the emergency room ICUs are so full that patients are having to be flown to New Mexico. Huh, I wonder why teachers are concerned. Probably just union BS. America’s children not receiving education isn’t the fault of teachers. It is the fault of a failed state that is unable to protect public health. Instead, you (and probably a large portion of older, affluent Americans) will celebrate as our already underpaid teachers are forced to seek other work rather than kill their students/families. Before the pandemic, many teachers in my district were forced to work second jobs (e.g. at restaurants). This is a breaking point. America has truly lost any sense of community solidarity or just the barest altruism. Everything has become individualized and treated like a business cost that needs to be cut off like some sort of tumor in order to boost some shitty education startups that is “innovative” or “focused on shareholder value” or some shit. Teachers have an interest in not seeing their students/students’ families die, so it seems pretty obvious why they would be reluctant to pack a bunch of children in a classroom setting. But hey, maybe we can all create tutoring startups and unbundle public education into 40 SaaS apps.
- tathougies 6y ago> Instead, you (and probably a large portion of older, affluent Americans) will celebrate as our already underpaid teachers are forced to seek other work rather than kill their students/families. Before the pandemic, many teachers in my district were forced to work second jobs (e.g. at restaurants). This is a breaking point. Yes. Teachers at private schools are paid much less but produce better outcomes, despite having similar demographics. For example, Catholic school teachers earn much less (and catholic schools spend much less per pupil than similar pupils at public schools). Yet the outcomes are better. This is not a problem with pay. The public school system and teachers who are complicit in it have failed our students. And to be clear.. I am not older. I have soon-to-be school age children. My mother was a teacher. We have seen the rot in the system, and our children will not be attending. Especially as a minority, we cannot let our children be subject to the silent and self-denying racism inherent in the public school system. Sorry you don't get to ruin my kid's life as people like you forced my mother to ruin other children's lives be following the edicts of the public school system.
- DenisM 6y agoThe Los Angelos teachers added a few other requests [1]. The introduction starts with: [...] LAUSD educators clearly want to get back into schools with their students, but the underlying question at every step must be: Given broader societal conditions, how do we open physical schools in a way that ensures that the benefit outweigh the risks [...] And then proceeds to the following recommendations, among many others: - Defund Police - Shelter the homeless - Paid sick leave for all - Medicare for all - "Charter Moratorium" - "Financial Support for Undocumented Students and Families" - Wealth tax - Millionaire tax - ... [1] PDF https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/samestormdiffboats_final.pdf https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/samestormdiffboats_...
- seibelj 6y agoI don't understand the logic around the left's hatred of charters. Parents choose to send their kids there - if the existing public school was so good, why would they send them somewhere else? It's simply about choice, and sending your own kids to the best possible option. No one would ever deny their own children the best possible education available. It's so clearly about administrators and professionals over the needs of children, it's simply immoral and bordering on evil.
- ran3824692 6y agoI went to a high school in Cali that was converted to a charter school. As far as I could tell, the main change was that they kicked out all the kids with poor grades or other problems. That is the polar opposite of "choice", it was about increasing inequality and it was completely disgusting.
- tareqak 6y agoWow, so charter schools allow for stack-ranking their pupils all the out of the school if desired? Is there a list of reasons that a school cannot use to suspend or expel a student up somewhere? In addition, a list of active conditions with associated constraints for when they can?
- prof-dr-ir 6y agoIt is a bit surprising to me that there is such a strong focus in the US on school closures and mask wearing (here on HN but also in the major newspapers). It is my impression that in quite a few European countries there have been, and to some extent still are, significant debates about the effectiveness of both these measures. On the other hand, there appears to have been a much more universal implementation of other measures, namely 'stay home' (if you feel sick) and social distancing (be it 1m, 1.5m, 2m or 6 feet...) throughout affected Western European countries, all of which have the epidemic under control for now. Am I alone in thinking that these measures deserve more attention in the US?
- jt94mf90d 6y agoIf people are fighting over masks, the other stuff isnt going to be done.
- blub 6y agoSeveral countries rolled back mask wearing and are making it mandatory again now that cases are increasing - most recently Austria. France is tightening its mask rules ahead of schedule. etc. I think by now there's little doubt that masks work, but Europe's incredibly and stupidly averse to them.
- int_19h 6y agoSocial distancing isn't really contentious in US (other than the subset of the population that believes that COVID is hoax). "Stay home" is one of those things that are on every list of recommendations, but it's completely non-viable in practice because of the way US handles healthcare in work context. Keep in mind that there is no federal requirement for paid sick leave, and only 13 states mandate it. Consequently, 30% of workers don't get any paid sick leave at all - mostly the lowest-paying jobs, that are paid the least (and so taking an unpaid day off can easily mean an unpaid bill etc), and who interact with random people the most. And don't forget that employment in US is "at-will", meaning that businesses can fire workers without giving a reason. FMLA limits that somewhat wrt unpaid sick leave, but 1) it only applies to businesses with at least 50 employees, and 2) it only applies to illnesses that are incapacitating to the person claiming sick leave. The focus is on mask wearing right now, because the return to stay-at-home is clearly not happening, and so people go and mingle. If they mingle with masks, they definitely reduce the transmission rate enough to notice - there's ample evidence of that. What's unclear is just how large the effect is. Also, why focus on Europe alone? We could also look at Japan, which seems to have made a bet largely on mask wearing - and has some impressive results to show for that.
- newspheasant 6y agoMy wife is a teacher and starting school (in person) in a week and a half. There’s no answers to questions like: - Do they have the budget for counseling when students and teachers pass away? - When a teacher gets sick, what substitute teacher is going to want to teach an exposed class (also, they’ll be making sub plans with covid?)? - When they’re sick are will they be getting additional sick leave? - Do they get worker’s compensation if they get sick, since they were knowingly sent into a dangerous environment?
- neverartful 6y agoAll good questions. If it were me I would join forces with other teachers and parents to bring the questions to the principal and school board (or district). I suspect that in many cases, teachers and parents will need to put significant pressure on the PTB to force them to confront these important questions. edit - If your wife belongs to a teachers union, this would be a great thing for the teachers union to push for.
- peterwoerner 6y agoI think the problem is a majority of parents are FOR school opening up.
- japhyr 6y agoYou can push for answers from those people, but there's probably no real answers to give. The federal response to the pandemic has been so ineffective, to put it kindly, that it leaves people at all levels with no meaningful responses. Principals, superintendents, and school boards can want to offer the support described in this thread, but have no real way to actually deliver it.
- WalterBright 6y agoThe public schools are run by the states. Look to your governor.
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- MattGaiser 6y agoI have to ask you Americans. Are you giving up on society yet? I'm Canadian, and it is surreal watching the country below us completely waste the lockdown so they can go to beaches and bars and then urgently move to shoving kids back into the classroom. Do you still feel that you can count on your government? On your neighbours?
- mulmen 6y agoI’m optimistic. We are being tested from many directions right now and when we come out of this we will be better for it.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoAs an American, I'm absolutely OK with each state's governors making safety determination for their own state. The current death rate in each state can very easily be explained by actions the governors in those states took. They'll answer to their voters, and we'll see if their PR campaign blitz is enough to save them.
- ciarannolan 6y ago>Are you giving up on society yet? The answer to this for me depends on what the election in November holds. Making a mistake once and having to live with it for 4 years is manageable. Institutions can recover. But another 4 years of this is would be an unmitigated disaster for the republic.
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- miked85 6y agoThere isn't a way to force schools to reopen in person right now. As soon as there is an outbreak (and there will be), teachers will stop going, and parents won't allow their kids to go.
- QuercusMax 6y agoIn Santa Clara County, CA (Silicon Valley), a group of 40 principals got together in person a few weeks back to discuss reopening plans. And they got COVID. Is it any wonder that teachers don't trust that they will be kept safe?
- ciarannolan 6y agoThese "it's a hoax until it happens to me" stories are super common in the US. >Former game show host Chuck Woolery announced Wednesday his son has tested positive for COVID-19, just days after Woolery accused medical professionals and Democrats of lying about the virus in an effort to hurt the economy and President Trump's reelection chances. >Woolery, who hosted several popular game shows including "Love Connection" and "Wheel of Fortune" and who is a staunch supporter of the president's, has since deleted his Twitter account following the announcement about his son. >"To further clarify and add perspective, Covid-19 is real and it is here. My son tested positive for the virus, and I feel for of those suffering and especially for those who have lost loved ones," Woolery tweeted before his account disappeared. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/507663-chuck-woolery-deletes-twitter-account-after-announcing-his-son-has-coronavirus https://thehill.com/homenews/media/507663-chuck-woolery-dele... Another one from today: >An Ohio man who died due to complications from COVID-19 has drawn criticism for his staunch refusal to wear a mask earlier in the pandemic. >Richard Rose III, an Army veteran who spent nine years in the United States Army according to his obituary, died on July 4. He was 37. >Rose’s death gained notoriety on social media after expressing that he was “not buying a (expletive) mask” less than three months before his death. >“I’ve made it this far by not buying into that damn hype,” he said in a post published April 28. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/17/covid-19-ohio-veteran-37-refused-wear-mask-died/5457283002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/17/covid-...
- jdminhbg 6y agoThese "it was a hoax until happened to me" stories are super commonly hoaxes in the US, as well: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/did-the-times-print-an-urban-legend/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/did-the-times-print-an...
- scarface74 6y agoMy wife is a school bus driver. I got another job where I could work from home and make more money partial so she could quit working.
- mola 6y agoIllegal to strike, my God ....
- beepboopbeep 6y agoThere is no excuse for this behavior from politicians and the public at large. This is selfish ignorance of the utmost degree. It is, at face value, ridiculous to even think of re-opening schools. The real story is the total and complete abdication of their duties by elected politicians. Faced with a tough choice, they'd rather let people die and systems collapse then take responsibility. Despite watching this unfold in the news and social media for months, these people chose to ignore it and shrug or, as we've seen with kemp, purposefully stop other governments from enacting policies, and now thousands will die. Why these politicians haven't been dragged out into the street is beyond me. We are going to soar clean over 200,000 people dead in no time-- many of which were preventable. Just imagine-- if a contractor's shoddy work resulted in 3 people being killed, they'd be hauled into court on gross negligence charges. Yet...politicians are being given a pass. That's not ok.
- oramit 6y agoWhat we currently have going on right now is a complete collapse in confidence. So many commenters are debating the death rate, case counts, hospitalizations, etc, which is all besides the point. Heres the thing: even if you believe people are being irrationally afraid, telling people they are stupid and should just suck it up isn't going to get people to cooperate. Do you want to be smugly right, or do you want things to actually get better? People are scared, that's just a fact, and they need to feel confident that action is being taken in their best interest. Telling people that only 1% of them will die so it's all okay is telling people you don't care about them - they notice, they're not dumb. We all know that this is an exceptional event and that there will be missteps. People will forgive mistakes and setbacks and take on more risk if they are confident that there is a plan - but so far there isn't one. We're almost six months into this and the messaging is still chaos. The lack of a national strategy is what is causing this pandemic to worsen. The rot really does start at the top. The United States is currently choosing the worst possible combination of options. We locked down - causing enormous financial damage, but we didn't follow through with the lockdown nationally to actually stomp the virus. So we get to have the deaths and have the financial damage as well. Yay us!
- mtgp1000 6y ago>Telling people that only 1% of them will die so it's all okay is telling people you don't care about them - they notice, they're not dumb. No no no no no. It's high time we stop treating everything as black and white in this country. It's not just callously disregarding the dead - it's about determining whether the literal and figurative loss of life caused by a lockdown is worth the loss of life caused by the virus. And the signal/noise ratio right now is absolutely tiny, especially considering how much damage the media has done by unambiguously turning this into an opportunity to bash Trump. Regardless of how you feel about the presidency, if you compare per capital rates ours were actually on par with most other first world nations until the recent protests (both left and right) began; and while I do believe it is shameful that we were caught with our pants down, scrambling to gather supplies nearly 3 months late, I'll remind you that so was everyone else. Let's also not forget that a number of other countries like Sweden didn't lock down at all and are doing fine. We also shouldn't be applying the same policies to urban and rural areas. You know what would really answer this question to me? What percent of nurses and doctors in COVID wards have gotten sick? And what is their CFR? That's pretty much worst case exposure and seeing as I haven't heard of doctors dying in droves, I'm inclined to start believing that people do have and/or develop immunity and the fatality/complication rate really is extremely low, for whatever reason. But I need data to be sure.
- eric_b 6y agoWhat about the gas station workers? Grocery store workers? Millions are working during COVID as they're deemed "essential". Teachers are just as essential.
- gorbachev 6y agoMy wife is a teacher. She's quitting in two weeks so that she can give her mandatory 30-day notice in time for the beginning of the semester. The planning being done for the next school year where we live is complete bullshit. The politicians and administrators running the planning have no idea about the realities. They are driving these hybrid models with kids doing remote and in-person learning in alternative days/weeks with the in-person class sizes being about one third of the normal class size. To do that they would need at least twice the amount of teachers (one to teach in-person, and one to teach remotely to kids staying at home), possibly even more. Are they planning on hiring more teachers? No. It's going to be a complete shitshow even without teachers quitting en masse. There's this completely unrealistic sense among the people in charge that teachers will just magically make it work with no additional training, no proper support, no additional resources, nothing. And I'm not even addressing the difficulties families, especially those that have multiple kids and/or can't work from home, will have with these proposed schedules.
- charwalker 6y agoEven if they rotate kids in and out to keep crowds down, they still need separate facilities or FEMA level decontamination daily with same day testing for employees like those working the cafeteria and would interact with all sets of students... We need to double resources for schools and teachers anyway but even if we had the time and funding it would be less than ideal to combat the pandemic too.
- jimbokun 6y ago> There's this completely unrealistic sense among the people in charge that teachers will just magically make it work with no additional training, no proper support, no additional resources, nothing. I honestly doubt they think it will magically work, I think there are no good options that will give all the kids good educational outcomes, keep kids and teachers safe, and allow the economy to function without the use of schools as childcare, and that they are trying to pick the option that will have the least number of people calling for their heads.
- blisseyGo 6y agoMedia has done a great job at fear mongering. People aren't realizing that kids not being able to go to school means the child abuse numbers are through the roof and they aren't even getting caught or reported. There are safe ways of achieving schooling without putting older teachers at risk.
- newbie789 6y agoSuch as?
- doggydogs94 6y agoMaybe a nationwide gap year.
- ipnon 6y agoThis whole generation is going to be lost. It's not a cataclysm, but a whole generation of American kids are going to be a year or two behind on their studies. They will have grown up during unprecedented social unrest. If the economy doesn't recover and society doesn't support their families, millions of them will grow up in poverty. It's not a certainty, but the outlook could be much better. It's sad, I feel for these kids.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> They will have grown up during unprecedented social unrest. No, they won't. The almost continuous post-war race riots and civil rights protests of the 1940s-1960s (overlapping with the anti-war protests of the 1960s), the intense period of labor and race riots in the interwar period, and...well, it goes on and on as you go back to and before the Revolutionary period. Not unprecedented, or even close.
- maerF0x0 6y agoGood, that will save us from laying them all off when Online school teachers are able to teach nearly unlimited students via repeatable content like videos. And those who are better tutors than lecturers can become tutors for those who need more help
- Consultant32452 6y agoPennsylvania is considering putting the funding with the kids, rather than through the system/administration. The average spending per student in the US is about $15k/yr. If that money went with the student, instead of to administration, etc. a teacher could take on 10 students and make $150k/yr revenue. A mainstream online curriculum for those students costs less than $30/mo. I'm not saying that's exactly the solution, I don't want to get caught up in the details on the HN forum, but I hope we can head in that vague direction.
- enchiridion 6y agoThis is a great idea! Cut the amount a bit to pay for state oversight and certification. Maybe light standardized testing to make sure everyone is generally on track.
- segmondy 6y agoTeachers have gone on strike for paychecks, I hope they do so because their lives are worth more than paychecks.
- kvz 6y agoI live in the Netherlands. Schools were closed here for nearly two months and then re-opened for 6 weeks now, the re-opening did not affect R. Tests are available for all school personnel and there were no hospitalizations. Some more data points: - we do take care that parents stay 1.5 meters apart. There’s special drop-off routes and such, parents don’t enter the buildings - I don’t have data on this but I assume ventilation is good in our schools and they opened windows - kids had to wash their hands a lot - younger kids can come close to teachers and intermingle, older kids have to keep their distance - we don’t wear masks, they are only required in public transportation <— I disagree, just stating what’s up here - this is on a population of 17 mio Perhaps this is in some ways too small or different a dataset for it to be meaninful, but politics aside and living this reality it is apparent to me that schools for young kids can be reopened with minimal risk.
- int_19h 6y agoWhat were your numbers for new cases looking like when the schools reopened, though? Keep in mind, many parts of US never even got past the first hump in the curve.
- duderific 6y agoWe don't do much nationally in the US to help our public schools. They vary widely in terms of having resources available to do things like deep clean the classrooms every day, provide PPE for teachers, etc. And there is zero federal support for providing a testing program of the sort you mention for teachers.
- nullc 6y agoWe pay teachers poorly enough that plenty of people who otherwise would be teachers were already choosing to not take those jobs. Now keep the poor pay and crank up the risk of death knob. Obvious result is obvious, it's actually surprising to me that they're actually able to reopen schools-- that the number of teachers uninterested in continuing in this environment isn't much greater. How many teachers does it take to quit before you can't reopen? 10%? 20%? Many are economically desperate enough that they'll take the added risk of death, but surely a portion is not. I can only imagine that there are also a lot of parents who don't want their kids back in schools, perhaps there is a much greater market now for private tutoring.
- pokstad 6y agoSchool districts should give at-risk teachers the first pick for virtual work. When they run out of virtual teaching jobs, they should offer voluntary furlough. Allowing teachers the flexibility to temporarily leave would allow younger and healthier risk-takers to step up and do the job during the pandemic. In our current economy, there are tons of young healthy workers willing to take these teaching jobs. Any worker is free to quit if they don't agree with the risks. The real problem, that I don't see mentioned anywhere, is that teachers want to continue being paid the same salary and benefits to teach virtually, despite virtual learning being a disaster. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
- dnprock 6y agoI follow COVID-19 data. I notice an interesting trend: Cases increase. Deaths and hospitalizations have not increased much. It seems the US has come up with good enough cures for COVID-19. The cost of shutdown is high. The trend is reopening. https://vida.io/dashboards/ckbk04mht00000ul63lr6m53w https://vida.io/dashboards/ckbk04mht00000ul63lr6m53w
- greggeter 6y agoHonest question for any teacher: what stat -- death rate, cases, hospitalizations, etc. -- needs to reach what value for you to be ready to go back?
- odysseus 6y agoWhy not have older teachers that are more at risk teach from home via video? Then have a younger proctor coordinate with kids in the classroom.
- tt 6y agoHere's San Francisco guidance for school reopening: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/alerts/covid-guidance/Preliminary-Guidance-TK12-Schools.pdf https://www.sfdph.org/dph/alerts/covid-guidance/Preliminary-...
- 627467 6y agoI find it odd that countries/cities with much higher population density (and some, worst healthcare ie. in east Asia) are not going through this paranoia (finding hard to pick a mildler term) that many in the west have been going through. It's like: "I'm not leaving my house EVER until my (insert authority) guarantees I or someone won't die". I guess people suddenly have much higher expectation of what is realistically authorized can guarantee. Good luck with that.