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The P&R Plague Thread (Covid-19)


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3 minutes ago, Jason Sitoke said:

She does not present it as fact. Her point is that risk mitigation is an everyday job of parents. Yes, kids have died of Covid. I’d ask that you look up just how many children (11 and under) have died of the disease since it arrived, and measure that against other risks. Yes, kids can spread it, but if you’re a vaccinated adult..so can you, and you should be protected from serious illness…yet even when municipalities have periodically lifted indoor mask mandates, they have remained in schools. Why is that?

 

She presents this as evidence of her opinion, which is another unfounded opinion:

 

Although the science on the benefits of child masking is uncertain, and the downsides are becoming clear, the districts presumed that allowing parents to come to their own conclusions would cause great harm.

 

A reasonable reading of this is that the article to which she links is trusted source, but it's another opinion, which concludes with we don't know.

 

She's saying what we're doing is harming children. She has no proof, she has opinion, and there's no conclusive evidence that masks harm children. But we know masks do mitigate spread of contagion. 

 

It's more anti-mask rhetoric. 

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At some point in this thread we discussed the potential of hospitals turning non vaccinated away, and also we talked a bit about criteria for organ transplants etc.  Found this article from today interesting, and it answers a lot of questions we talked about.  

 

I will add, I spend a lot of time at BW and am familiar with their transplant program, and its one of the top tier programs in the US.  They turn a TON of fairly good potential patients away as they're very focused on outcomes data.  Someone who gets transplanted at Cleveland Clinic or Emory often is not viable at BW, so this decision aligns to their philosophy.  Will be interesting to see if any other institutions have similar policies.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/25/heart-transplant-patient-refusing-covid-19-vaccine

 

Also yesterday there was an article about a covid patient who was brain dead and on a vent, and the hospital wanted to remove it (in MN I think) and the family was fighting it, trying to transfer the patient to another institution - patient died yesterday, but it was a similarly interesting medical ethics situation.  Should that machinery be allocated to someone who had chosen to not get vaccinated, who is showing no signs of brain activity (and has little to no chance of survival ) and was taking a machine away from another needy patient.

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29 minutes ago, Jason Sitoke said:

Short answer…yes, this is an editorial.  She does provide references as background, but the conclusion is the authors.  
 

It seems grounded in reality. This statement is at the crux of it, and I find it fairly indisputable:

 

Most children are neither in grave danger nor do they pose a grave danger to others—especially now that vaccines are widely, freely available—but we routinely treat them as if they were.’

Agree, there is really no evidence to the contrary.  

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26 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

She presents this as evidence of her opinion, which is another unfounded opinion:

 

Although the science on the benefits of child masking is uncertain, and the downsides are becoming clear, the districts presumed that allowing parents to come to their own conclusions would cause great harm.

 

A reasonable reading of this is that the article to which she links is trusted source, but it's another opinion, which concludes with we don't know.

 

She's saying what we're doing is harming children. She has no proof, she has opinion, and there's no conclusive evidence that masks harm children. But we know masks do mitigate spread of contagion. 

 

It's more anti-mask rhetoric. 

She did link an article about self harm being up 99% during the pandemic, just as an example that you’re incorrect about there being no evidence. Maybe the evidence doesn’t compel you, which is fine. 
 

There are different approaches to risk, and I think (hopefully) we’re seeing evidence of yours with your response. You seem to be extremely risk adverse with children and covid. I can’t argue with that, even though statistically you would be protecting them more by preventing them from being driven to/from school.  

If your response is not a reflection of your risk tolerance, then I’m not sure why you wouldn’t consider this worthy of discussion and dismiss it as rhetoric. The author is not lying and not misinforming. 
 

If you want irrefutable proof that the pandemic measures have damaged kids, then you’ll conveniently find that there is none at this point. Similarly you will find out that our economy did just fine despite everything we went through during the pandemic. However, i do not hear that from my hospitality industry friends. And I certainly don’t remember things going well during my sons freshmen year of high school that he spent nearly 100% remote. 
 

You’ll likely get evidence over the next 5-10 years about just how well the kids did during all of this. Maybe you’ll be proven right, that it was all a bunch of stirred up drama.  But I doubt it. 

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On 1/3/2022 at 6:17 PM, Red Five said:

This website estimates the total population of each state that has be infected -> https://covidestim.org/

 

It doesn't have a national number, but let's look at the 10 largest states. California at 66%, Texas at 68%, Florida at 80%, New York at 77%, Pennsylvania at 65%, Illinois at 65%, Ohio at 65%, Georgia at 84%, North Carolina at 63%, and Michgan at 73%.  Doing some math just on those 10 states gives me 129M infected right there.  Those states represent about 55% of the US population and have a combined infection rate of 70%.  Extrapolate that 70% across the entire US population of 330M you get about 230M infected.

 

Time to after 3 more weeks of the Big O.

 

Here is how the estimated % ever infected moved in the last 22 days.

California 66% -> 79%

Texas 68% - > 76%

Florida 80% -> 85%

New York 77% -> 80%

Pennsylvania 65% -> 73%

Illinois 65% -> 74%

Ohio 65% -> 78%

Georgia 84% -> 82% (must have been some data issues here)

North Carolina 63% -> 75%

Michgan at 73% - > 78%

 

That gets me to 140M infected in those 10 states which is 78% of their population.  Apply that 78% to the entire 330M in the US and you get about 258M infected.

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4 minutes ago, Jason Sitoke said:

She did link an article about self harm being up 99% during the pandemic, just as an example that you’re incorrect about there being no evidence. Maybe the evidence doesn’t compel you, which is fine. 

 

What's that article supposed to compel me to believe? Did you read the study that article cites? 

 

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1 hour ago, NM11046 said:

At some point in this thread we discussed the potential of hospitals turning non vaccinated away, and also we talked a bit about criteria for organ transplants etc.  Found this article from today interesting, and it answers a lot of questions we talked about.  

 

I will add, I spend a lot of time at BW and am familiar with their transplant program, and its one of the top tier programs in the US.  They turn a TON of fairly good potential patients away as they're very focused on outcomes data.  Someone who gets transplanted at Cleveland Clinic or Emory often is not viable at BW, so this decision aligns to their philosophy.  Will be interesting to see if any other institutions have similar policies.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/25/heart-transplant-patient-refusing-covid-19-vaccine

 

Also yesterday there was an article about a covid patient who was brain dead and on a vent, and the hospital wanted to remove it (in MN I think) and the family was fighting it, trying to transfer the patient to another institution - patient died yesterday, but it was a similarly interesting medical ethics situation.  Should that machinery be allocated to someone who had chosen to not get vaccinated, who is showing no signs of brain activity (and has little to no chance of survival ) and was taking a machine away from another needy patient.

 

I find it hard to believe that someone is willing to donate or accept a donation but is unwilling to get a COVID vaccine, but here we are. I have gone through the donor process and have been poked and prodded many times over. I can't imagine someone getting a kidney or heart and not getting the vaccine since their immune system is going to take a huge hit from the rejection drugs. Trust me, it is hard to give a organ and not care about the outcome of the recipient. And you are right, the top donor centers in the country care about the outcomes and the surgeons are pissed (might not be a strong enough word) when the recipients aren't careful, protect themselves as much as possible, and take care of themselves. 

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3 hours ago, Jason Sitoke said:

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/621353/

 

Good article (IMO) concerning the affect of the pandemic on kids. Something we were discussing a few days ago. 

 

I think that article would have made a lot more sense a year or two ago. Surprised to see that it was released today.

 

I live in the bluest of blue counties, had two kids in school and was surrounded by other parents. I don't remember a lot of living in fear. What I remember most about the first weeks of lockdown was how the sidewalks, parks and hiking trails filled up with entire families walking their dogs. People you don't normally see, out in the community, because everyone was home and there was nothing to do. The dogs were thrilled. Traffic was light and given the lenient definition of "essential business" a surprising number of stores were open. We started patronizing our favorite restaurants more than ever as they shifted to take out. There was a run on jigsaw puzzles for god's sake. Air quality visibly improved. There was an oddly wholesome family values thing going on at the beginning. 

 

Restrictions on kids were up to the parents. Kids still played in the park and rode their bikes on the street. The local teenagers completely ignored every rule. 

 

A majority of parents wanted their kids back in school. We paid attention to the science and the science looked promising for school age kids. And they started accommodating the elementary school students within a few months. It wasn't parents making the call about the high schools --- it was the teachers. And even they were split 50/50 initially about returning to live classes according to our principal. Of course teachers don't have the natural immunity kids do, and typically catch everything kids bring to school in the best of times. I totally forgot that our favorite teacher has a bundle of compromising conditions. But the teachers came back and they've had school and full athletics for a year now.

 

My son had a pretty s#!tty senior year, but they had Senior Skip Day at the beach, resumed the live graduation, and everyone went to the go-cart track and arcade for a post-graduation party. 

 

I walk the dog every day and never stopped seeing kids out playing and neighbors chatting.  Every business has long been reopened. Even live music has returned. Most of us are totally vaccinated. We're irritated by the omicron surge, but not fearful. We're buying the science that it's far less fatal and burning out quickly.  

 

I know people who are a lot more paranoid than I am, but they're like that regardless of pandemics. 

 

It's been worse for a lot of parents and their kids, but at the same time I feel that the "living in fear" angle gets a little overheated, as if the fearful are speaking with one voice and a lot of misinformation. They're not. At this point everything is anecdotal.  

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34 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

It's been worse for a lot of parents and their kids, but at the same time I feel that the "living in fear" angle gets a little overheated, as if the fearful are speaking with one voice and a lot of misinformation. They're not. At this point everything is anecdotal.  

I hear you. My take away wasn’t necessarily the ‘living in fear’ angle. I think the point is to ask ourselves at each stage why we’re doing what we’re doing, and saying ‘well, kids aren’t complaining’ is a cop out. We’ve established that the risk to kids is minimal, and yet we feel justified to take measures to reduce this risk from some small value to some slightly smaller value. However, when the potential fallout to these same kids might be more than zero, we seem to dismiss it out of hand. So on one hand our kids should be uber protected, but on the other hand…’eh, they’re probably fine’.  If the answer is that kids need to be masked or school remotely to protect adults at all costs, then it’s kinda proving the point that The NY Times article (linked in the article I posted) was making. 

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5 hours ago, Jason Sitoke said:

As far as the harm it has caused to children…how can that be measured truly at this point?  I, like others here, have shared anecdotes about our experiences with our kids during remote learning. I can’t quantify the damage done, but it was more than zero. Her point with the headline is that every time we ask whether we should continue to impose these measures on kids…the answer is often ‘well, kids are resilient’ or ‘kids aren’t complaining’. Kids don’t complain about a lot of things that happen to them, so it’s a lazy response to a valid question 

I can quantify it...it is hurting them a s#!t ton.  Especially in the super crazy places that are refusing to go back to the building. 

 

The latent function of school is so important, most of us losers don't believe that anymore because we are old and have our memories and had our time.  When you are 15, for most kids, HS is the biggest deal in the world.  Kids need to be in the building, they need everything that goes along with being in school around friends and making memories. 

 

Most juniors in HS have NEVER had a normal school year.  

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