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I'm not close enough to the data to know -- so am asking HN -- but why are schools being kept open? Is it because truly there is low risk on transmission that w

by corry 6y ago

I'm not close enough to the data to know -- so am asking HN -- but why are schools being kept open? Is it because truly there is low risk on transmission that way (and this holds true for new variants too)? Or is this just to avoid the negative drag on worker productivity caused by kids staying home? In other words - how political is the decision to keep schools open? Should concerned parents still keep their kids home anyways? (Note - I don't have school-aged kids, so it's a theoretical question for me - but one that many friends are struggling with).

hn8788 6y ago
There was an article published not long ago that said there has been a huge increase in the number of reported mental health cases for school-aged children due to the lack of socialization from lockdowns. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-students/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-c...
ChrisArchitect 6y ago
keep schools open (the kids need to go to school/helps on a number of levels), that should be a chosen priority and that's it. drop everything else. Problem is everyone wants it all, shopping and dining and schools. Can't have it all. Society needs to priortize the one thing and lockdown rest
14 6y ago
I don't think we need much more data then what is already available, there are transmissions in children and they are happening at schools. In my local news there have already been several stories about outbreaks happening in schools and having to shut them down for periods of time. Even if kids are at lower risk they are still at risk so sending them to school is foolish if avoidable. I say if avoidable because not working for months on end and starving to death is also not good.
- space_fountain 6y ago
  Could you please provide citations? My understanding is that most of that transmission is happening outside of school and documents like: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/transmission_k_12_schools.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... seem to back up the idea that transmission inside schools is pretty rare. There's also tons of studies showing online school has been devastating to children https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2772834 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
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space_fountain 6y ago
Schools are indeed quite safe. The younger the safer, but generally children get sick less and are vanishingly unlikely to end up in the hospital or die. There's also evidence that schools haven't been a big transmission sites for covid probably because while teacher to teacher transmission is as big a problem as anywhere teacher <-> student and student <-> student transmission isn't that likely. The other side is that closing schools has had big negative impacts on children especially poor children. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/transmission_k_12_schools.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2772834 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
- ska 6y ago
  If I understand correctly there is some evidence this may be changing with the variants, but it's inconclusive.
- Scramblejams 6y ago
  I'm very skeptical that schools are quite safe. See https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1346362159446577154 https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1346362159446577154 Some key quotes: Here is a study carried out across >200 countries that showed that among all interventions studied, closing educational institutions was the 2nd most effective. Importantly, the impact on R was similar for pre-school, primary & secondary school settings. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0 Another study of >131 countries showed that among different interventions studied, one of the highest changes in R (R ratio) between introducing an intervention & lifting it was for school closures: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30785-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... There are more good quotes and citations in that thread, it's worth a read. Anecdotally, the amount of times I've been sick since my daughter enrolled in public school has been mind-blowing. The notion that kids are somehow impervious to contracting this, or don't bring it home to vulnerable family members, would mean this virus behaves very differently from all the other upper respiratory diseases commonly seen out there. That's certainly possible, but based on what I've observed -- for example, I'm 99% certain the coronavirus vector that got me was a child -- it just doesn't pass the smell test with me. (Edit: Moved this from downthread)
lhorie 6y ago
FTA: In hotspot regions like Toronto, the new measures are very similar to restrictions that are already in place. At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Health Minister Christine Elliott said that the province did not issue a stay-at-home order like the one from the start of the year, because the last time officials saw that it had "tremendous ill effect on children and adults." Many stores were already doing curbside pickup only, or already limiting capacity for in-store shopping, so this lockdown isn't really all that much of a difference than the current status quo. The meat of this order is to limit social gatherings, which has been a sort of Achilles heel in Ontario's policy IMHO. At the end of day, the infection rates have started going up again, the vaccine rollout has been somewhat slow, and "something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done". Hopefully it's enough.
- guyzero 6y ago
  The Achilles Heel in Ontario's policies have been a lack of mandated paid sick days, so people in warehouses are going in sick and at no point closing down large store or warehouse-type workplaces where the bulk of the transmission is happening. This is nowhere near enough and is very much a token effort without making any meaningful change. The Ford government refuses to actually spend any money to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    I mean, I'm always all for better worker rights, but are you saying they had better sick leave policies mid last year? Because my understanding is that that's roughly when social gatherings restarted and coincidentally when infection rates started to rise again. I'd argue that social distancing protocols at places of business are more strict now than they were then, and I'm not sure better sick leave policies necessarily would help, since a lot of transmission is asymptomatic, and I don't imagine anyone in their right mind is going to allow a visibly sick person to be up and about at a workplace regardless of sick pay.
    - guyzero 6y ago
      No, but Ontario has no mandatory paid sick days and you would think that the pandemic might be a good opportunity to fix that situation, but no. The government continues to blame social gatherings when the incoming ICU patients are primarily essential workers. Also the government has abandoned contact tracing, so they're not event attempting to enact evidence-based policies. Just yo-yo lockdowns. And yes, covid's delayed symptom onset does mean that sick days don't help a lot, but they'd help a little. For all we know people are going into warehouses to work while fully symptomatic.

by corry 6y ago

hn8788 6y ago

There was an article published not long ago that said there has been a huge increase in the number of reported mental health cases for school-aged children due to the lack of socialization from lockdowns. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-students/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-c...

ChrisArchitect 6y ago

keep schools open (the kids need to go to school/helps on a number of levels), that should be a chosen priority and that's it. drop everything else. Problem is everyone wants it all, shopping and dining and schools. Can't have it all. Society needs to priortize the one thing and lockdown rest

14 6y ago

I don't think we need much more data then what is already available, there are transmissions in children and they are happening at schools. In my local news there have already been several stories about outbreaks happening in schools and having to shut them down for periods of time. Even if kids are at lower risk they are still at risk so sending them to school is foolish if avoidable. I say if avoidable because not working for months on end and starving to death is also not good.

space_fountain 6y ago
Could you please provide citations? My understanding is that most of that transmission is happening outside of school and documents like: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/transmission_k_12_schools.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... seem to back up the idea that transmission inside schools is pretty rare. There's also tons of studies showing online school has been devastating to children https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2772834 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
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space_fountain 6y ago

Schools are indeed quite safe. The younger the safer, but generally children get sick less and are vanishingly unlikely to end up in the hospital or die. There's also evidence that schools haven't been a big transmission sites for covid probably because while teacher to teacher transmission is as big a problem as anywhere teacher <-> student and student <-> student transmission isn't that likely. The other side is that closing schools has had big negative impacts on children especially poor children. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/transmission_k_12_schools.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2772834 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

ska 6y ago
If I understand correctly there is some evidence this may be changing with the variants, but it's inconclusive.
Scramblejams 6y ago
I'm very skeptical that schools are quite safe. See https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1346362159446577154 https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1346362159446577154 Some key quotes: Here is a study carried out across >200 countries that showed that among all interventions studied, closing educational institutions was the 2nd most effective. Importantly, the impact on R was similar for pre-school, primary & secondary school settings. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0 Another study of >131 countries showed that among different interventions studied, one of the highest changes in R (R ratio) between introducing an intervention & lifting it was for school closures: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30785-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... There are more good quotes and citations in that thread, it's worth a read. Anecdotally, the amount of times I've been sick since my daughter enrolled in public school has been mind-blowing. The notion that kids are somehow impervious to contracting this, or don't bring it home to vulnerable family members, would mean this virus behaves very differently from all the other upper respiratory diseases commonly seen out there. That's certainly possible, but based on what I've observed -- for example, I'm 99% certain the coronavirus vector that got me was a child -- it just doesn't pass the smell test with me. (Edit: Moved this from downthread)

lhorie 6y ago

FTA: In hotspot regions like Toronto, the new measures are very similar to restrictions that are already in place. At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Health Minister Christine Elliott said that the province did not issue a stay-at-home order like the one from the start of the year, because the last time officials saw that it had "tremendous ill effect on children and adults." Many stores were already doing curbside pickup only, or already limiting capacity for in-store shopping, so this lockdown isn't really all that much of a difference than the current status quo. The meat of this order is to limit social gatherings, which has been a sort of Achilles heel in Ontario's policy IMHO. At the end of day, the infection rates have started going up again, the vaccine rollout has been somewhat slow, and "something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done". Hopefully it's enough.

guyzero 6y ago
The Achilles Heel in Ontario's policies have been a lack of mandated paid sick days, so people in warehouses are going in sick and at no point closing down large store or warehouse-type workplaces where the bulk of the transmission is happening. This is nowhere near enough and is very much a token effort without making any meaningful change. The Ford government refuses to actually spend any money to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic.
- lhorie 6y ago
  I mean, I'm always all for better worker rights, but are you saying they had better sick leave policies mid last year? Because my understanding is that that's roughly when social gatherings restarted and coincidentally when infection rates started to rise again. I'd argue that social distancing protocols at places of business are more strict now than they were then, and I'm not sure better sick leave policies necessarily would help, since a lot of transmission is asymptomatic, and I don't imagine anyone in their right mind is going to allow a visibly sick person to be up and about at a workplace regardless of sick pay.
  - guyzero 6y ago
    No, but Ontario has no mandatory paid sick days and you would think that the pandemic might be a good opportunity to fix that situation, but no. The government continues to blame social gatherings when the incoming ICU patients are primarily essential workers. Also the government has abandoned contact tracing, so they're not event attempting to enact evidence-based policies. Just yo-yo lockdowns. And yes, covid's delayed symptom onset does mean that sick days don't help a lot, but they'd help a little. For all we know people are going into warehouses to work while fully symptomatic.