Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
yes, they do.
and it's fucking insanity.
young children have runny noses and/or mild coughs for like 20% of their existence up until around age 10 or so. it's called developing an immune system.
but apparently we're going to try to legislate good old fashioned childhood runny noses out of existence because the world has lost its damn mind.
newsflash dipshits of planet earth: a 100% risk-free world is completely impossible.
life IS risk.
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There's another way. While the PCR test is and will remain the gold standard, an antigen test can be done for a few dollars and the results are available in minutes; and they are very reliable for those with symptoms.
As long as covid remains at significant levels in the population, kids with runny noses could have an antigen test done by the school nurse and, if negative, they could be allowed back in class immediately. Similarly at the workplace. I purchased a couple of such test kits at a neighborhood pharmacy and have them in my closet (the wholesale cost for school districts should be much less--less than $10 per test) and plan to use them if/when I get any respiratory symptoms this winter. Hopefully I won't. Since I stopped riding transit in the winter I haven't gotten many colds, but you never know.
I do think covid vaccines should be mandatory to attend public school for kids age 5 and above like other vaccines once they are fully approved and I would hope most employers with large offices full of people or that involve extensive public contact would mandate vaccination as well.
Newsflash for the ostriches of the world: We CAN do better at controlling communicable diseases than we've been doing. We know how and we should do what makes sense rather than pretending we all just have to get one sickness after another because that's the fate of humanity.