How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City?

[the urban politician]

My older son gripes about the masks and does the "Trump supporter" mask thingy where it hangs halfway down his face (my wife and I give him grief about that)

My younger son is very compliant about mask wearing and never complains.

So all kids are different, obviously

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by 10023

What makes you think the teachers’ unions won’t apply the same argument to kids?
.

^ They absolutely will. They will refuse to ever work again until they've had boosters upon boosters upon boosters upon boosters and the kid's faces are shrouded in 10 layers of protection. It's a HAZARD to work unless you have a 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance of dying!!!

[TWAK]

Oh, well there are some teacher's unions out there that would fight a vaccine mandate and mask rules. So....move there? Most of the time, the places that have more funds will require more COVID rules, so all the "good schools".

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by 10023

And the fact that kids are accustomed to masks is a bad thing, not a good one. I can only imagine the amount of fear and trauma that kids of a certain age (old enough to remember but too young to really understand this) are going to need to work through later.

What an idiotic post. Shameless fearmongering.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by homebucket

What an idiotic post. Shameless fearmongering.

I'll have to remind him that COVID is the deadliest pandemic in American history. Yup, I just did it.

[Pedestrian]

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.

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.

[10023]

Originally Posted by homebucket

What an idiotic post. Shameless fearmongering.

You don’t think telling small children that there is a deadly virus circulating, and if they don’t wear a mask and stay 6 feet away from everyone they will get it and die, is going to have some lasting negative effects?

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by 10023

You don’t think telling small children that there is a deadly virus circulating, and if they don’t wear a mask and stay 6 feet away from everyone they will get it and die, is going to have some lasting negative effects?

Finally you have accepted it. Excellent. I have a reward!
I will assure you that the masks for kids will only be for a few more months, so don't worry.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

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.

oh how would i love it if the school accepted the results of a rapid antigen test.

and if they could be done right at school by the nurse? glory hallelujah!!!

it'd certainly make my life a shit-ton easier.



and that's a perfect example of how we need to be smarter about risk assessment so that we can say things like "now, rapid antigen test results may not be as accurate as those of PCRs, but in the interest of not upending a parent's life every single fucking time their child sneezes, they are a reasonably good enough test to use for any incident where a child at school presents a possible covid sympton (cough, sneeze, sore throat, runny nose, etc.), but without an accompanying fever."

reasonability!

what a concept!

and sadly (though not unsurprisingly) there's been so little of it from both extremes during this whole stupid episode.

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

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

agreed. science is fucking awesome!

[TWAK]

Steely it sounds like y'all are dealing with some red tape kinda problems. Maybe it's the cost or the approval process is different?

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by 10023

You don’t think telling small children that there is a deadly virus circulating, and if they don’t wear a mask and stay 6 feet away from everyone they will get it and die, is going to have some lasting negative effects?

If you had any sense you'd realize there are better ways to tell a kid why wearing a mask is necessary. But fortunately we are talking mostly about kids in school and starting next week those can get vaccinated in the US and with these young children I do think we have a case where abandoning the masks for those who ARE vaccinated is appropriate. But I would be ruthless about either mandating the vaccine (preferably) or mandating masks for unvaccinated kids. It would be a good inducement to parents to get their kids vaccinated.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by 10023

You don’t think telling small children that there is a deadly virus circulating, and if they don’t wear a mask and stay 6 feet away from everyone they will get it and die, is going to have some lasting negative effects?

Baby Boomers were terrified of getting Polio and we turned out O…er… Never mind!

Anyway, kids have all kinds of fears instilled in them. “Stranger Danger!” being one that comes to mind.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 10023

You don’t think telling small children that there is a deadly virus circulating, and if they don’t wear a mask and stay 6 feet away from everyone they will get it and die, is going to have some lasting negative effects?

Little kids don't understand any of this. My 4 yo believes there's a "yucky little bug" and people wear masks so that the "bugs" don't go in you, which isn't that far off from reality.

Kids will be fine. I mean, Cold War kids hid under their desks waiting for the Soviets to nuke them.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

Baby Boomers were terrified of getting Polio and we turned out O…er… Never mind!

Anyway, kids have all kinds of fears instilled in them. “Stranger Danger!” being one that comes to mind.

...or El Cucuy or La Llorona.

Or hell, even Jesus.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

...or El Cucuy or La Llorona.

Or hell, even Jesus.

Don't forget that old dude in the sky who's always listening and watching, so your thoughts are being monitored. If you don't do what he says, well you have to burn forever .
Not damaging at all!

[Pedestrian]

I saw a report on TV the other night that 49% of US kids already have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Can't kind a similar number in print to post but if true the horse may be out of the barn already.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Don't forget that old dude in the sky who's always listening and watching, so your thoughts are being monitored. If you don't do what he says, well you have to burn forever .
Not damaging at all!

Well, some outgrow that belief, so, they end up OK.

Which is why critical thinking is always a good thing.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

Baby Boomers were terrified of getting Polio and we turned out O…er… Never mind!

Anyway, kids have all kinds of fears instilled in them. “Stranger Danger!” being one that comes to mind.

I honestly can't recall being terrified of much of anything as a young child. It was my generation that was in primary school when adults were building fallout shelters and preparing for nuclear Armageddon and I recall seeing those backyard shelters as similar to the "underground forts" we kids were building in the nearby forest. I asked friends if we could play in the ones their families had (usually the answer was "no").

By the time I was in high school, I do recall that "ban the bomb" types were telling everyone that an entire generation was being warped by the certainty that they would become radioactive cinders before reaching adulthood . . . and yet here we are, cynical old folks laughing at the self-centered, hedonistic offspring we produced who are unwilling to undergo any form of privation.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

I was really referring to my calling the governor an idiot when I wrote that.

Yes, Rollo is an idiot.

Anyway back to your earlier post about the 'state', I think the government absolutely has a role especially early on; shut downs, mask mandates and not to mention bankrolling the vaccines. I was for all of this back in 2020 leading up to the vaccines. Except it's 2021/ almost 2022 and the government needs to back down and realize this isn't going anywhere and human nature cannot be forced into 100% compliance.

The new normal is that we know have a new virus that is deadlier than the flu but one we must learn to live with.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

I saw a report on TV the other night that 49% of US kids already have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Can't kind a similar number in print to post but if true the horse may be out of the barn already.

oh it almost certainly is. most little kids likely never even produce very noticeable symptoms.

which makes it even more absurd that my daughter has to be punished for having seasonal allergies and making her already miss 6 days of school instruction early in this new school year, simply because her body's main histamine reaction is to sneeze and cough.



really now, CPS? it HAS to be a PCR test? the rapid antigen ones aren't good enough to quickly differentiate a child's allergy sneeze from a covid sneeze, among a population of people who are by far the most minimally affected by covid in the first place?


it's all so dumb.