I'm simply asking if the spread risk is greater in sports than any other school activity, especially given the social habits of teenagers.
New Mexico first state to say no high school football
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I'm simply asking if the spread risk is greater in sports than any other school activity, especially given the social habits of teenagers.
If this is the case and there is regular testing in your community, there is zero point in even trying to have in-person school.
You’re looking at it wrong. Any time you get people together that you haven’t been in contact with previously will increase the spread. THAT is the issue. We have to get the spread under control. That should be the only thing guiding policies at this point.
Some states are playing youth football and baseball right now. In New Jersey, my brother's kid had his youth baseball game on Wednesday.
I would think that the threat of having federal funding cut to K-12 schools played a huge role in this. Canceling sports would limit the risk to catching the illness from teams traveling or bringing in opponents that could but students at risk and cause schools to go virtual. I can only imagine the somersaults school admins are doing to get kids back in school, but this will be an issue in K12, and not necessarily college(at least not yet).
I've been thinking about this kind of thing more and more lately. Following the news of countries that are doing better than us in keeping the virus in check, it seems they are forced to shut things down regularly. A case will pop up and restrictions go into place. This does not appear to be sustainable to me. They are playing whack-a-mole. I think it's only a matter of time before a "mole" pops up that they don't notice in time and infections are widespread again. Then, what do you do? Widespread lockdowns for months again?
Personally, I think the sustainable path forward is to learn and understand what level of infection is sustainable and can be kept in control by our health care system. Keep restrictions in place with the aim to control, but not eliminate, the virus. Then you don't have a need for hyper-vigilance at all times, possibly for years on end.
That said - as it applies to schools I agree with what you're saying. You can't shut down a school for one positive case. That's just not reasonable. You shut down a school if it's clear the virus has started to spread in the school. Maybe 5-10 related cases, or some other number. But if you have to shut down for a single case, nothing can ever be open. And - more importantly, you're not even working toward what your actual goal should be - preventing spread of Covid in the schools. If you catch one case, you send that person home until they're no longer contagious. It may be that they never spread it to anyone else. If they did spread it, then you go online only for a period of time.
Of course, I'm no expert but that is what makes sense to me.
My mom was a school nurse for 25 years and this is here quite (not just about Rona but any contagious illness:
“if one kid has it, then 20 have it. If two kids have it, 40 kids have it and so on.”
If that's your take, surely you're against them playing football at all until they're adults, no? Football is pretty dangerous, even when there aren't new viruses to worry about. Probably should add driving to the list - that's more deadly than the others combined. Think of the children!
We all hope to have a fall sports season in both HS and College, but people throwing out the idea that if its too much of a risk to have sports, then we its too much of a risk to have school is really missing the bigger picture.
The population of any school district is very limited each day to the students and staff, plus a few others that happen to stop by the school. That number is totally different than people that will attend a sporting event. Many in the crowd are outside your local area, so its impossible to say for certain that everyone that is at the game is virus free. I cannot envision any school taking temperatures for the fans as they enter the stadium, and turning them away if they are higher than normal. But its very doable to take the temp of every student and staff entering a school building.
It sucks we may not have sports this fall, but its the world we currently live in, and no amount of complaining about it, is going to change that fact.
The population of any school district is very limited each day to the students and staff, plus a few others that happen to stop by the school. That number is totally different than people that will attend a sporting event. Many in the crowd are outside your local area, so its impossible to say for certain that everyone that is at the game is virus free. I cannot envision any school taking temperatures for the fans as they enter the stadium, and turning them away if they are higher than normal. But its very doable to take the temp of every student and staff entering a school building.
It sucks we may not have sports this fall, but its the world we currently live in, and no amount of complaining about it, is going to change that fact.
Yeah - that's a fair point and I know there is truth to it. But to me, it's also insight into the mindset of school administrators. This is the conventional wisdom and it's what drives their mentality and decision making. So it influences people to want to shut down faster. And people are naturally afraid either because they're scared of the virus itself or possible legal liabilities related to the virus.
I think you have to open, and I think you have to base your openings and closings on actual data, not just conventional wisdom. I think you close the school if you have data and evidence to say it's spreading there. If you have evidence that 20 kids in the school have it, yes shut it down for cleaning and then send the healthy kids and teachers back. See if doing that stops the spread. If not, then at that point you do have to go extremely conservative and shut down early and often. But the aim should be for a return to school in person. Don't give up before you even try. Covid is not influenza, or chicken pox, or whatever else. There's some evidence to say it doesn't spread as much between young children as it does between adults. There's also evidence to say that typically, children do not infect adults (studies tend to show that in homes where someone gets the virus, it is rare for the children to be infected first). This may be skewed due to the fact that most schools closed early on. But it's the data we have now. We shouldn't assume that covid spreads like other diseases.
Realistically, yes, everything should be shut down, but we still need certain things to live.
We don’t need in person school or sports to survive.
Didn't the American Academy of Pediatrics a couple of weeks ago quite strongly state that we do need in-person school?
Yes, they did. We need to weigh both sides of the argument, as there are definite risks to not having school too.
One of my best friends umpires baseball and softball here in Iowa. He said about 1/2 his games get cancelled. He also said the players and staffs are doing a good job. He said based upon observing the fans, it is a different story. Fans are the ones not acting responsibly.
This is what they said. Not as simple as stated.
https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2...ons-return-to-in-person-education-in-schools/
I thought his comment captured the essence of it. They do strongly recommend sending kids back to school.
Those are OK guidelines but they seem to assume the resources are available to implement them.
Imo saliva tests would go a long ways to maybe helping mitigate issues and should have been pushed a long while ago if threatening or forcing schools to open was going to be the action taken.
School is a hell of a lot more necessary than a football game.
My guess is the people crying the loudest about things being cancelled are also the last people to even consider wearing a mask because of their "freedom."
Fact of the matter is we could've sported masks two months ago and be basically in the clear right now but many Americans decided they were too cool for that. Now we all get to pay for their stupidity.
My guess is the people crying the loudest about things being cancelled are also the last people to even consider wearing a mask because of their "freedom."
Fact of the matter is we could've sported masks two months ago and be basically in the clear right now but many Americans decided they were too cool for that. Now we all get to pay for their stupidity.
So for full context, the governor didn't say no school, she's said no contact sports.
They are talking about doing 2-days in person, 3-days remotely though. I'm dubious about how well that will work.
We're also going to get indoor restaurants closed again, more than likely. Whee!
The parts of this state not in the Sante Fe-Albuquerque corridor are probably going to revolt.
They are talking about doing 2-days in person, 3-days remotely though. I'm dubious about how well that will work.
We're also going to get indoor restaurants closed again, more than likely. Whee!
The parts of this state not in the Sante Fe-Albuquerque corridor are probably going to revolt.
