8 ms·

I 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

• sl1ck731 6y ago
  I 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 ago
    It 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 ago
      How 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 ago
        We 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.
        • newfeatureok 6y ago
          > 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. Based on the data from March it's pretty easy to estimate the effects of reopening things, including school. It's a very easy decision, don't reopen yet. You're comparing an estimated thousands to tens of thousands dying from schools reopening to at most a few hundred thousand having to pause for 6 months and saying it's not an easy decision...? Not to mention that most schools would have online programs as an alternative, not hold everyone back so your entire premise is false anyway.
          • lmilcin 6y ago
            I was reacting to the person saying how easy the decision is. Whether it is actually safe to let people back in schools, I have not enough data and knowledge to decide. Most likely not.
        • sl1ck731 6y ago
          Nowadays no one's plans work out exactly the way they planned. You can ignorantly (and hypocritically) call avoiding super-spreading schools in the midst of a pandemic an extremist position all you want, but you are overvaluing 6 months of "productivity" and completely avoiding continued remote learning.
  • ja3k 6y ago
    I'm also against schools reopening in the fall (though I haven't done much research and don't hold this opinion strongly). But it seems like holding people back semesters eventually adds up to something that's as bad as a death. These kids are never going to get that semester back. And if you think they enjoy the at home alternatives half as much, or learn half as much or value that time in their lives half as much it seems like on some level the equivalent of 1000s of person lifetimes of value have been lost. I wouldn't hold back everyone one semester in high school in exchange for even on the order of 100s of deaths.
  • benmmurphy 6y ago
    I presume kids die in accidents at school at the moment. if 1 kid dies a year falling down steps at school should all schools be forced to be only 1 level? there needs to be a sensible look at the cost and benefits and zero deaths should not be a a hard requirement.
  • CJefferson 6y ago
    You would hold back every kid 1 semester to save 1 child? How about 10 semesters to save 10 children? 100 semesters to save 100 children?
  • mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Let’s be honest. It’s not a semester we’re talking about, following your guidelines. It’s more likely three years or so. Doling the pain out in a few month increments is how it is made to seem more reasonable.
• leetrout 6y ago
  Strong statement: dumb kids are better than dead kids.
  • doopy-loopy2 6y ago
    Deaths in children are essentially 0
    • hellofunk 6y ago
      Which is not relevant. This is not an issue regarding the health of the children as much as it is the health of the teachers.
      • leetrout 6y ago
        YES! I don't want my wife sacrificed by an asymptomatic kid carrying it to class
        • nickysielicki 6y ago
          In spite of the common idea that schools and young children are germ factories that make adults sick, there's a recent article from the American Academy of Pediatrics that shows children are very rarely the index case for COVID. It's much more likely that she would give it to them, than that they would give it to her. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2020/07/08/peds.2020-004879 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2020/07...
          • ceejayoz 6y ago
            "Children aren't typically the family index case during lockdown" doesn't really tell us much about non-lockdown spread.
            • hellofunk 6y ago
              But all the evidence from European countries tells us a lot about non-lockdown spread following a proper lockdown.
• newfeatureok 6y ago
  > 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. I'm curious - how few would have to die so that the "overall consequences of another lost semester" is not worse?
  • jsight 6y ago
    That is a really good question, and also one that most people are incapable of discussing rationally. The reasons are, of course, understandable.
• devalgo 6y ago
  >may be far worse than the consequences of reopening. Let's be perfectly clear, this isn't something abstract. The consequences are dead kids and dead teachers. Get that through your head. You of course imagine it won't be your kids that die but there's absolutely no reason to think that.
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Let's be perfectly clear, this isn't something abstract. The consequences are dead kids Yes, the serious risk of increases in childhood “morbidity and mortality” if schools remain closed are exactly what the American Academy of Pediatrics cited as a key consideration when strongly urging that planning center on a return to in-person schooling with the start of the coming school year.
    • devalgo 6y ago
      Appeal to authority, not a real argument.
      • dx87 6y ago
        Appeal to fallacy, not a real argument.
        • devalgo 6y ago
          Appeal to fallacy, not a real argument. Its fallacies all the way down.
      • AlexandrB 6y ago
        The counterargument doesn't even bother to appeal to a (relevant) authority - it just says "but muh economy :'(" I'm not sure why this is valid response.
    • glitcher 6y ago
      Yes, and then the American Academy of Pediatrics announced a revised statement that included: "Returning to school is important for the healthy development and well-being of children, but we must pursue re-opening in a way that is safe for all students, teachers and staff. Science should drive decision-making on safely reopening schools. Public health agencies must make recommendations based on evidence, not politics. We should leave it to health experts to tell us when the time is best to open up school buildings, and listen to educators and administrators to shape how we do it." Bottom line IMO is that these decisions need to be made locally. There is no one-size-fits-all for schools across the country. And sadly there will also be other significant negative consequences for some kids who can't go back to school yet. We should be attacking these issues on multiple fronts with multiple strategies, using strong leadership, increased funding, and careful planning instead of rushing into a situation we are unprepared for.
• Applejinx 6y ago
  Here's a question to consider: behind on the way to what, exactly? If we keep on getting pandemics (something that's been expected for a long time) the whole baseline of how society operates will be forcibly disrupted. (a baseline people can be 'left behind' on the way to: I hear talk of students missing vital academic AND SOCIAL connections, which sounds like pre-pandemic talk) If we have even moderate economic collapse, which is inevitable with the pandemic we do have (and the other, related upheavals going on) then the destination simply will not exist. We will be flung into a Star Trek future where the existing mechanisms of human survival no longer apply. It's possible the consequences of dropping 'behind' will mean the difference between becoming wealthy through business and social connections, and literally starvation and homelessness (rather than just doing poorly and getting by). However, in those conditions, all of society collapses and the wealthy have no place to be anymore. Wealth depends upon the existence of a society that can support it. In my opinion there is no possible benefit to pretending it's possible to go 'back to normal' in any sense, and it's on us to envision what comes next. 'Normal' is never coming back. It's already gone forever, so it's time to decide whether we want human beings to survive or not.
  • tathougies 6y ago
    We've always 'kept on getting pandemics'. Pandemics and rampant disease and death is the normal historical state of the world. We have become accustomed to it being not the case due to the prevalence of vaccines and better medicines, but COVID is nowhere near the worst pandemic ever, nor is it even the last in living memory. Recall that the worst pandemic in terms of per-capita death is still within living memory. Pandemics are normal. There is nothing that has accelerated their emergence. This is a fantastic lie. > 'Normal' is never coming back. That's ridiculous. If anything, this pandemic has restored 'normal' to the world. The normal state of the world is pandemics, natural disaster, human death, etc. Only by active human society have we been able to avoid that. Modern society is so good and efficient that too many people have forgotten what's normal.
  • steve76 6y ago
    Societies collapse long before public infrastructure or economies. It starts when people become callous to one another just to do whatever they want. No schools in a war zone. That's a choice, making everything about you and your celebrity instead of just walking away. School for a long time has been a chore, like boot camp, instead of a place of education which really starts in the home. For a long time there's been no real community in America, looking out for each other, trying to be nice. Just unbridled ambition for celebrity. Perhaps we are on the way towards no more fooling ourselves, that mistakes are meaningless and other people's lives are very important. Churning people, firing people, someone else's failures dumped onto society are often the very worst outcome as you no longer can help, and always come back home to hurt you far worse than what you have now.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• MisterBastahrd 6y ago
  The ones who want to go back are either working with special needs kids or have no family of their own. There's a difference between "I'd love to be in a classroom teaching again" and "I want to be in a room full of 20+ potentially infectious children." The government has a responsibility to its constituents that goes beyond "a return to normalcy." We're hitting 75K positive tests a day in this country and that number is increasing daily. That's WITH social distancing by kids. What do you think is going to happen when a school has 800 kids running around? That's 800 daily potential avenues for disease transmission. Seriously, who cares if some people "fall behind?" They can catch up at their own pace. I'm pretty sure that most parents would rather their kids graduate at 19 or 20 than be buried at 8 or 9.
• mnm1 6y ago
  The consequences of losing a semester for students are highly debatable considering the primary and in many cases only function of schools outside of feeding students is babysitting.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]