Coronavirus Outbreak: Part 2

That’s really interesting. I wonder what the other key difference(s) is/are between the UT school and those that are without masks and not clearly tied to spread. I mean, the UT school did have at least some mask usage, so if that was the only significant difference you would expect more spread from a school without masks.

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Yes you would, and I was horrified that there were no masks to be honest when it was announced. Kids are testing positive, but not that many, and it seems to be community spread. I wonder if there a big numbers but they are mainly asymptomatic. But that seems unlikely to me. I’m not an expert though!

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Are they doing distancing or is everything the same as pre-Covid?

I just got a chance to read the article. I am confused if they think it is community spread that was brought into the schools, or virus that spread in the schools?

We have gone remote. I didn’t realize NYC had the two cases per school to close rule? That could be one family?

Masks plus social distance seemed to work well for us. Positive cases came into school every single day as the community members increased large gatherings and got tired of masks. The other reality is that elementary teachers just can’t social distance in a classroom (emotionally they cannot keep themselves at a safe distance) and it might open them up to additional exposure for us.

They are supposed to be distancing where possible. I know at DS’s old school classrooms were full to bursting so I’m not sure how possible it is. They are being kept in bubbles so they know who has been in close contact. In primary schools (4-11) that will just be their class of about 30. For older kids it could be their whole year group, of 150-250 kids. At college (16-18) they set their own rules. Where DS goes they are doing alternate weeks and the first years are kept apart from the second years as far as possible - DS isn’t allowed to go to the on-site coffee shop for example, first years can only go to cafeteria. And vice versa.

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You know, it never clearly states that the cases were definitively linked to the school. Assuming that there were substantially similar levels of testing among the school community before and after the school moved to remote learning, it is implied that it is spread in the schools. There was a significant drop in cases when the schools closed heir doors - 77 cases when they switched to remote, which then rose to 90, presumably because there were infected people whose cases hadn’t progressed enough to be detected, and then a drop to somewhere between 1 and 5 cases more recently. The rates of covid in UT continue to rise, so that drop couldn’t be attributed to a drop in community spread. Though I suppose we don’t know if other things shut down when the schools did, or if other behaviors changed. With a drop of that magnitude, though, it seems likely that closing the schools at least contributed to the drop in cases.

I think what may be happening here can’t all be chalked up to masks don’t work well. It seems clear that the population is pretty hostile towards COVID restrictions, but teenagers have a mind of their own and Have been shown to transmit the virus much like adults (vs younger kids). I feel like you also have to know how much mask wearing is enforced and followed among students - both off and on campus.

We have changed the way a lot of things work on our campus, which should keep exposure limited to one cohort of kids.

I’m also finding this is true. I’m always close to kids helping them with something. Usually those interactions in close proximity are limited to les than 15 minutes per interaction, though, as I work in the school office and teach only one elective - a kindergarten art class.

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Interestingly though, our district has seen more cases (don’t know if they are adults or students) in the HS and MS. Our K/1 building has had 0 cases. The 2/3 building, only 1 case. You could chalk it up to asymptomatic cases, but apparently the adults aren’t getting Covid either.

On a side note, my middle schoolers told us a few weeks ago that mask wearing covering the mouth and nose is part of the behavior part of their grades.

It would be interesting to do a study on the number of cases, as well as hospitalizations and deaths, for students and adults in elementary schools compared to middle schools and high schools.

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Yes. I think young kids are really proving to not be vectors. Older kids seem to be a real potential problem.

I’m feeling more like we will make it to Thanksgiving. After that, I’m worried about significant community spread.

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There was an in-depth article in our biggest newspaper today about our state’s largest school district. They seem to be doing well, despite the spike in cases in MT. In my little school, we still have had no cases outside from the first one or two at the start of the year.

Fingers crossed that I’ll remain a contact tracer with nothing to do.

I recall arguments from way back in the spring from when schools were starting to close. Some experts floated the idea that the kids were safer in school, that SARS-CoV2 was sufficiently different from the flu that maybe school closures weren’t what we should be doing, and that the kids would be out doing things in a less-supervised environment where the virus might more readily be transmitted. Of course, no one had solid data then about transmission among young people- just clues that they might be different- so closing the schools seemed reasonable, because that worked with the flu.

But I wonder if those people were on to something. That would explain why our cases, including the near-fatality of a beloved teacher, were all at the start of the year, despite our current high number of cases in the community.

I’m starting to think that school re-opening protocols tied to the number of community cases are maybe not the way to go. Schools, especially elementary schools, seem to be a whole different animal.

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It’s not a good thing that cases are exploding in Europe, but it does make me feel better as an American that it’s not just us. Humans are difficult to control, and most of the time that is a good thing, but unfortunately in a pandemic it complicates things.

I’m assuming a lot of the recent growth is due to small social gatherings as it has been conjectured in the U.S. Could also be due to improved testing capabilities in certain countries. Note that Germany is still doing relatively well compared to other similar countries, despite having its own small spike in cases.

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Does anyone buy that Asia line? Are the extremely densely populated countries of China, India, Bangladesh, etc. really that good at limiting spread, are they barely testing any people, or do we have no idea what their actual case and death numbers are?

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I don’t believe China was forthcoming about their case / death count early in the pandemic, but I do buy that they have since virtually eliminated the spread (benefits? of authoritarianism).

In the case of India, etc. I have read that there are large holes in their reporting depending on region. But it’s also the case that those areas that have the worst reporting also tend to have a younger average age, which means they probably aren’t being hit as hard.

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Also, Asian countries have more ppl wearing masks as a norm.

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Good point. I didn’t think about that. India and Bangladesh are almost 10 years younger on average than the U.S. and about 15 years younger than Europe. With a life expectancy about 6-8 years shorter as well, the distribution of “elderly with underlying conditions” may look quite different there too. Although, in India the rate of cardiovascular diseases, for example, is even quite higher than in the U.S. Is it possible older Indians dying of heart disease who also had, or even potentially had, covid, are just considered heart disease deaths, whereas in the U.S. they would be covid deaths? Another thing, India has had like 360,000 seasonal flu deaths but 115,000 covid deaths? That’s just a totally different dynamic to account for. I don’t really know what my point is, but it’s just fascinating to dig through all the factors that are different between countries that make it so hard to directly compare situations.

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There have been reports that Covid-19 had been in China possibly as early as August 2019. They may have had their spikes last fall.

I’m not really into conspiracy theories, but I generally, don’t trust China to be truthful with this sort of thing, especially in light of how long the virus was hidden from the rest of the world.

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We may never know what happened in some of the countries with less reliable reporting. But maybe in a year or two we will get excess death estimates which should give us a better idea of how many people died and where. I think you’re right that some of the deaths are simply misclassified or classified differently due to insufficient testing.

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True, it is more customary there. You would think in a place like South Korea that the more frequent use of masks would lead to a lower rate of flu/pneumonia deaths, but it is 2x higher than the US, even in spite of Korea’s higher vaccination rate than the US. (Not using that as a claim that masks don’t matter, just found it interesting and confusing.)

Also, S. Korea has tested about 5% percent of its population and US has tested 38%. That’s going to pick up a lot more cases and deaths that could otherwise be attributed to something else.

My stance right now is that it is hard to trust a lot of the numbers out there, and a lot of extra research needs to take place to get to the bottom of how things are counted and which variables are controlled when making comparisons. I like @Jeff_AZ’s approach of probably needing hindsight and excess death totals to make more sense of things eventually.

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Well, I finally cancelled my reservation for early january :cry:

I’ve known for a while we won’t be going and I already had my flights from Europe canceled two weeks ago, but this makes it much more real.

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So apparently NY is telling it’s neighboring state residents to stay home. They won’t put them on the quarantine list because it’s impractical. Meanwhile, here in PA, I’ve seen plenty of NY license plates driving around.

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