The Science Is Very Clear: Schools Should Reopen This Fall

Sailor said:
Worth a read. Shows the crookedness of the teachers unions and how they are driving these school closures. Not science.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/17/the-science-is-very-clear-schools-should-reopen-in-fall/


Progressives like to brag that they prize science over politics. Indeed, it’s a major talking point in their effort to “transform” America from the greatest nation on Earth to, well, something else. But one look at the debate over reopening schools this fall shows just how absurd that assertion really is.

Los Angeles, home to the nation’s second-largest school district, is a case in point. The city has long been governed by far-left Democrats, to its detriment. But the local teachers’ union really takes the cake when it comes to extremist positions on COVID-19 and school closures.

The 35,000-strong union put out a staff “research paper” — it was in fact merely regurgitated leftist talking points and propaganda — telling local politicians they would refuse opening unless, among other things, there was a “moratorium” on charter schools and the police were defunded.

Among the “other things” in the union demands were a national Medicare-for-All program, new taxes on the wealthy, and, of course, a federally funded infusion of cash for the near-bankrupt Los Angeles school district.

The proposal would place so many restrictions on students and their interaction with teachers that it would make the educational experience nearly meaningless. But the document went way beyond just talking about education. Here’s a taste:

The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States underscores the deep equity and justice challenges arising from our profoundly racist, intensely unequal society. Unlike other countries that recognize protecting lives is the key to protecting livelihoods, the United States has chosen to prioritize profits over people. The Trump administration’s attempt to force people to return to work on a large scale depends on restarting physical schools so parents have child care.

So much for “it’s all about the kids.” Or “science.” It’s really all about Karl Marx – and more money and more control.

Los Angeles is an admittedly extreme example, but similar things are happening around the country in other union-run school districts.

Unfortunately, most parents don’t fully understand the damage being done to their kids as a result of the teachers unions’ COVID-19 power-play. It’s a real pity.

As we noted, so-called Democrat “progressives,” which includes teachers unions bosses and members, like to say that “science” should drive public debate over COVID-19 and school openings.

Fair enough. So let’s look at the “science,” shall we?

One of the surprising revelations from the COVID-19 nightmare is that doctors and scientists strongly agree that it would be better for young people to go back to school in the fall than to stay at home.

Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control, told The Hill last week that keeping schools closed this fall “is a greater public health threat to the children than having the schools reopen.”

That follows a June 25 American Academy of Pediatrics suggestion that local officials “should start (their deliberations on the coming school year) with a goal of having students physically present in school.”

The AAP noted that not only are kids the least likely to have serious coronavirus infections, but that any actions taken should consider “the known harms to children, adolescents, families and the community by keeping children at home.”

It later backtracked, issuing a “joint statement” under pressure from the two largest national teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, along with the education bureaucrats’ interest group, the School Superintendents Association.

Sure, the statement pays lip service to science, saying that “Science should drive decision-making on safely reopening schools,” and that “Public health agencies must make recommendations based on evidence, not politics.”

Unfortunately, the science on the transmission of coronavirus by kids at school is pretty clear.

A number of studies and reports in the U.S. and around the world (here, here, here, here and here, for example) show that, in the words of one study, “children play a minor role in the spread of the novel coronavirus. The virus is mainly spread between adults and from adult family members to children.”

So the medical danger to kids of reopening schools is minimal or nonexistent, while the danger of having parents out of work and unable to pay their bills is very real and has already affected millions due to needless lockdowns.

Think rising suicide rates, more child and spousal abuse, soaring mortgage default rates, increased stress and depression. Better for kids to be in school, learning.

And this is a commonly held idea among leading doctors and researchers.

“Of course, we can (reopen schools.) Everyone else in the world and the western world, our peer nations are doing it. We are the outlier here,” Dr. Scott Atlas, former head of Stanford University Medical Center’s neuroradiology department, told Fox News on Wednesday.

“If you believe in science, science says that 99.97% of deaths in the United States are in people over 15, 99.9 are people over 24,” he added. “The hospitalization rate for influenza according to the CDC is much greater than from COVID-19 for children.”

We don’t close schools because of the flu. Why do it for the coronavirus?

“There is virtually zero risk for children getting something serious or dying from this disease,” says Scott Atlas. “Anyone who thinks schools should be closed is not talking about the children. It has nothing to do with the children’s risk.”

A study by World Bank education economist Harry Anthony Padrinos showed that, among rich nations such as the U.S., an additional year of schooling adds about 10% to a child’s lifetime income.

Based on that, since poor and disadvantaged kids are most likely to be hurt by continued school closures, keeping doors closed this fall could add to inequality and poverty.

It seems clear that the teacher unions and others pushing to keeps schools closed in the fall aren’t really interested in science. Nor do they have kids’ best interests in mind. Instead, they are more interested in their own pocketbooks, expanding their own power and getting rid of a certain president for whom they have a near-pathological loathing.

Yes, they should be ashamed. But shame has long ago left the building.
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I just love it when scientifically illiterate people, like you, show off their confirmation bias citing partisan politically biased articles.

Why don’t you try something new and unique. How about citing some peer reviewed research actually written by real scientists with real knowledge in public health, epidemiology and virology? Oh you couldn’t possibly do that! It might not support your confirmation bias!

This sort of science illiteracy in the American public just depresses the hell out of me. Is the American public just to fucking stupid to learn science one how it works or just to lazy and apathetic to give a fuck?

Here’s the real clear science on this topic based on current peer reviewed science.

THERE IS NO FUCKING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS OF REOPENING SCHOOLS AND COVID 19 TRANSMISSION!

The reason for that is in most countries that have reopened schools lack the data to draw any meaningful conclusions. What data that has been collected shows that in most of those countries the transmission rates are unknown. Some countries that have reopened schools, like Germany, Norway, Israel and Sweden have seen significant increases in transmission rates. Other countries, like Denmark and Norway have not seen a significant change in transmission rates but most countries with data the effect in transmission rates are still unknown. Then there are a lot of countries with no significantly reliable data, like the US, cause the fucking schools haven’t opened and there is no reliable data on transmission rates in schools.

That’s the peer reviewed science. There is no scientific consensus on this issue and to argue that the science is clear on this is an argument from ignorance. In other words the author you cited doesn’t have the first clue what they are talking about, meaning neither do you.

https://globalhealth.washington.edu...HYU1aTGx0RnpsMXlmOEtXSVJqaDJsZ0RJU1BQcVZjZSJ9
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I just love it when scientifically illiterate people, like you, show off their confirmation bias citing partisan politically biased articles.

Why don’t you try something new and unique. How about citing some peer reviewed research actually written by real scientists with real knowledge in public health, epidemiology and virology? Oh you couldn’t possibly do that! It might not support your confirmation bias!

This sort of science illiteracy in the American public just depresses the hell out of me. Is the American public just to fucking stupid to learn science one how it works or just to lazy and apathetic to give a fuck?

Here’s the real clear science on this topic based on current peer reviewed science.

THERE IS NO FUCKING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS OF REOPENING SCHOOLS AND COVID 19 TRANSMISSION!

The reason for that is in most countries that have reopened schools lack the data to draw any meaningful conclusions. What data that has been collected shows that in most of those countries the transmission rates are unknown. Some countries that have reopened schools, like Germany, Norway, Israel and Sweden have seen significant increases in transmission rates. Other countries, like Denmark and Norway have not seen a significant change in transmission rates but most countries with data the effect in transmission rates are still unknown. Then there are a lot of countries with no significantly reliable data, like the US, cause the fucking schools haven’t opened and there is no reliable data on transmission rates in schools.

That’s the peer reviewed science. There is no scientific consensus on this issue and to argue that the science is clear on this is an argument from ignorance. In other words the author you cited doesn’t have the first clue what they are talking about, meaning neither do you.

https://globalhealth.washington.edu...HYU1aTGx0RnpsMXlmOEtXSVJqaDJsZ0RJU1BQcVZjZSJ9
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Yeh bullshit Mott, sorry!! I mean holy fuck even the Guardian agrees.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ays-study-cited-in-pms-push-to-reopen-schools

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ench-boy-did-not-spread-virus-172-people.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...vid-19-to-adults-report-indicates/ar-BB13psyK

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...n-don-t-spread-coronavirus-french-study-shows
 
Althea said:
I see a lot of union bashing, and very little science in your article. Some generalized conjecture, with no calls for a return to school with a guarantee of safety.
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Not only that the editorial board of Issues and Insights is lead by John Merline a conservative member of the Heritage Foundation with utterly no scientific training what so ever. They’re just political polemicist cherry picking their information to confirm their own bias.
 
Grajonca said:
Yeh bullshit Mott, sorry!! I mean holy fuck even the Guardian agrees.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ays-study-cited-in-pms-push-to-reopen-schools

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ench-boy-did-not-spread-virus-172-people.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...vid-19-to-adults-report-indicates/ar-BB13psyK

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...n-don-t-spread-coronavirus-french-study-shows
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Who gives a fuck about those rags. They are not scientifically peer reviewed journals. You’ve only proven me right about the whopping case of confirmation bias going on here.

Deal with it. The science is not clear and their is no scientific consensus on how reopening public schools impacts transmission rates.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Who gives a fuck about those rags. They are not scientifically peer reviewed journals. You’ve only proven me right about the whopping case of confirmation bias going on here.

Deal with it. The science is not clear and their is no scientific consensus on how reopening public schools impacts transmission rates.
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Lol, the Guardian agrees!!!!! THE worlds most respected peer reviewed Medical Journal. Oh wait.

My favorite part of this is that at least the msn article is from three months ago. Which is an eternity in this climate. Ironically, just five days later, the NYT published an article indicating the contrary was true.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/health/coronavirus-children-transmission-school.html

And then he sights the same article, just printed on different websites. They are lazy, stupid, and obnoxious, this Trump cult.

Bottom line, we don't yet what childrens role is in spreading the virus, but in general, viruses don't care who the carrier is, they spread nonetheless. We know that this week, in the State of Florida, 31% of children tested were positive. Now, given that, and given that long term impacts of this virus may very well be devastating even in mild cases, doesn't it seem rather stupid to just throw open the classroom doors? I think it does, unless you are a knuckledragging moron.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Who gives a fuck about those rags. They are not scientifically peer reviewed journals. You’ve only proven me right about the whopping case of confirmation bias going on here.

Deal with it. The science is not clear and their is no scientific consensus on how reopening public schools impacts transmission rates.
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The evidence is that it is working just fine in other countries who had proper collection and recording of stats.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Who gives a fuck about those rags. They are not scientifically peer reviewed journals. You’ve only proven me right about the whopping case of confirmation bias going on here.

Deal with it. The science is not clear and their is no scientific consensus on how reopening public schools impacts transmission rates.
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You're just being an idiot each of those articles quote real life studies from France, Italy and Australia. So are you saying that children there have different physiology to American children? Here is the results of one study from Institute Pasteur, you've heard of them I presume.


School Children Don’t Spread Coronavirus, French Study Shows
By Marthe Fourcade
23 June 2020, 20:11 GMT+7

School kids don’t appear to transmit the new coronavirus to peers or teachers, a French study found, weighing in on the crucial topic of children’s role in propagating Covid-19.

Scientists at Institut Pasteur studied 1,340 people in Crepy-en-Valois, a town northeast of Paris that suffered an outbreak in February and March, including 510 students from six primary schools. They found three probable cases among kids that didn’t lead to more infections among other pupils or teachers.

The study confirms that children appear to show fewer telltale symptoms than adults and be less contagious, providing a justification for school reopenings in countries from Denmark to Switzerland. The researchers found that 61% of the parents of infected kids had the coronavirus, compared with about 7% of parents of healthy ones, suggesting it was the parents who had infected their offspring rather than the other way around.
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Mott the Hoople said:
Not only that the editorial board of Issues and Insights is lead by John Merline a conservative member of the Heritage Foundation with utterly no scientific training what so ever. They’re just political polemicist cherry picking their information to confirm their own bias.
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Agree. There have been no tests in this country specifically aimed at discerning the ability of children to avoid contracting Covid. Also lost in this discussion, as I've mentioned, is that children under 10 represent a small percentage of students that would be returning to school. All studies (mostly from Europe) cite children under 10.


Meanwhile, in THIS nation.

[h=1]85 infants under age 1 tested positive for coronavirus in one Texas county[/h]
Eighty-five infants under age 1 have tested positive for coronavirus in one Texas county. And local officials are imploring residents to help stop its spread as the state becomes one of the newest hotspots.
Since January, health authorities have identified more than 3.6 million Covid-19 cases throughout the United States. Nearly 140,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In Texas’ Nueces County, where Corpus Christi is located, the number of new coronavirus cases skyrocketed in July after a flattening trend. The virus has infected dozens of babies and local officials are urging people to wear masks and practice social distancing.
​
“We currently have 85 babies under the age of one year in Nueces County that have all tested positive for Covid-19,” said Annette Rodriguez, director of public health for Corpus Christi Nueces County.



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Concart said:
Correct. The situations are not close to equivalent. I'd also add that they opened schools with something similar to CDC guidelines, which the Administration (and therefore Republican states) will simply ignore. They carefully and systematically beat down the virus and carefully reopened. We flung open the doors and hit the accelerator. it worked. For about two weeks. Then we hit the brick wall at 90 mph.
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We can go back to the threads/posts around Memorial Day. '61' is my favorite. We said it then. 'Wait two or three weeks'. Right on schedule, the cases exploded in the states that held super spreader events. Also right on time, is the spike in deaths...typically about 6 weeks from infection.
 
anatta said:
coordinated on the STATE level not the national level you were talkng about
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Um yes. I know. Since there was no Federal level, there is no statement about that. It is an example of what COULD have been done on the Fed level.
What about that do you not get?

ridicuous. once the body is exposed to any virus it develops sero-antibodies.
Of course they "fade" as the infection fades -but the traces- or the ability of cells to now recognize
the next infection still remain in the cells -this is common for any infection. COVID is no different
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Sorry this virus is different and the body does not recognize it after it, 'fades'.

https://www.who.int/news-room/comme...u7CxHajEsHIbTav3dIQlkRb8elhcH9xUaAoNiEALw_wcB

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/studies-report-rapid-loss-of-covid-19-antibodies-67650

You really need to stay up on the science. You are failing at it and general reasoning skills it seems.
 
Micawber said:
Online ed. in my limited experience since, (spring semester for kids canceled) punts it to the parents, but it is better
by far than nothing, because it kept us focused on a schedule of assignments to make the boy do, be it reading, math or art
each day. Without the lesson plan and teacher interaction we would not have made him do that regular work.

So it isn't optimal, but its certainly not a waste like some here are saying. And you still get to compare how you child is doing with other children.
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I'm working for two teachers right now. Have been for months. Let's not forget that this round of online study was brought on overnight. They have now had months to plan for a curriculum that entails dealing with students in the best possible way.

My customers were online for more than 8 hours/day during the shutdown, holding classes and then high level meetings.
 
Concart said:
Lol, the Guardian agrees!!!!! THE worlds most respected peer reviewed Medical Journal. Oh wait.

My favorite part of this is that at least the msn article is from three months ago. Which is an eternity in this climate. Ironically, just five days later, the NYT published an article indicating the contrary was true.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/health/coronavirus-children-transmission-school.html

And then he sights the same article, just printed on different websites. They are lazy, stupid, and obnoxious, this Trump cult.

Bottom line, we don't yet what childrens role is in spreading the virus, but in general, viruses don't care who the carrier is, they spread nonetheless. We know that this week, in the State of Florida, 31% of children tested were positive. Now, given that, and given that long term impacts of this virus may very well be devastating even in mild cases, doesn't it seem rather stupid to just throw open the classroom doors? I think it does, unless you are a knuckledragging moron.
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Yes. I mentioned that in passing. Old news, for an ever evolving virus.
 
Darth Omar said:
It’s a novel virus so we don’t know enough about the virus and kids but we know herd immunity is out lol?
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Do you live in the world of all or nothing LAUGH OUT LOUD? Can't walk and chew gum? Can't understand that there can be discoveries along the way? Like people do not get any long term immunity, they can get reinfected and based on amount it can get worse? ALL Has been discovered. The full effects are to still being discovered that does not mean one waits until the entire city burns to figure out if a cow knocked over the lantern. Chicago learned that the hard way. -Chicago reference-

Yeah you really are that stupid.

This late in the game, I think we know enough to say kids are resistant to it. Kids aren’t some sort of black hole we know nothing about—they are part of our population; they go around with their parents; they’ve even been sequestered with infected people. They just don’t get the COVID often and when they do their symptoms are almost always mild to nearly non-existent.
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Fucking over your head isn't it. It's not about the kids dumb ass it's about the spreading and no, there is early evidence that kids can spread it and I already gave examples from other countries. That you are too lazy is YOUR predetermined and ignorant arrogance.

It can’t be that we have all this data on deaths from COVID and somehow *we’re not knowing* the risks for kids—apart from anecdotes, kids are absent from the data.
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Thanks to a shitty Fed response from Cult 45 we never were able to gather the data let alone get enough practical tests for the adults so really you have no clue wtf you're talking about and using pathetic parsed information to support the agenda of murdering fellow US citizens. That makes you complicit in evil.

And speaking of what we don’t know: we don’t know the downstream effects of having kids out of school for multiple semesters. Apart from only being partially educated nearly all instances, kids are being separated from their peers and missing out on social development. Older kids in particular, will likely be susceptible to substance abuse since they have so much idle time on their hands. They are being deprived of sports and extracurricular activities.
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No shit. Welcome to the new world barney, shits' changed. It's called a fucking pandemic. In our case the Cult 45 roll out pandemic where we stick our head up our ass and blame someone else and let everyone continue to die and say it's political if you don't like it. Yeah that's what evil does.

How many of their parents will be forced to quit a job since they can’t afford to pay child care 12 months out of the year. Parents rely on schools to ‘watch their kids’ so they can be free to work. It’s been the American way for generations. That will effect women, primarily.
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Yeah like every other developed country except this one, people are getting paid until it passes. Here it's called socialism. Well except for the most massive socialist hand out in the history of the united states that was passed out to all the big box corporations by dear leader n chief cult45, that's not socialism, amirite? No that's what sane democratic governments do, when they ask citizens to stay home, they cover their costs until it passes but here people have been so indoctrinated by the robber baron class to hate themselves and each other that they think it's great to go out and kill themselves and each other thinking lol they too will be a billionaire, when they won't.

Ever.

Too much of this mitigation looks ONLY at the virus and not at the unintended consequences of the mitigation itself and the country has paid a hefty price for it. Millions have lost their jobs, many businesses are gone and will never come back. Trust me when I say we are only beginning to see the social costs to all of that.
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Plenty have looked at the other costs, You haven't. You choose to ignore that the responsibility of a modern government is to take care of it's population during crisis. This government has chosen to ignore it's own people.

This is the result. A country with the largest death toll on earth.

Time to stop the bleeding. Let the kids go back to school. No more gambling with and/or playing political games with their lives and futures.
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Everything you said and think is wrong and ignorant on about fifteen thousand levels. You are on the wrong side of reality. You are apart of an evil cult and are too blind to see it.
 
crowonapost said:
Um yes. I know. Since there was no Federal level, there is no statement about that. It is an example of what COULD have been done on the Fed level.
What about that do you not get?



Sorry this virus is different and the body does not recognize it after it, 'fades'.

https://www.who.int/news-room/comme...u7CxHajEsHIbTav3dIQlkRb8elhcH9xUaAoNiEALw_wcB

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/studies-report-rapid-loss-of-covid-19-antibodies-67650

You really need to stay up on the science. You are failing at it and general reasoning skills it seems.
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that only applies to asymptomatic cases. even SARS only lasts a year. and Virus mutate -
we're not sure yet but Corona looks to be able to mutate quickly
You dont have to be all birdbrained about it. a decent conversation is fine with me
 
Sailor said:
Worth a read. Shows the crookedness of the teachers unions and how they are driving these school closures. Not science.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/17/the-science-is-very-clear-schools-should-reopen-in-fall/
...
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Texas isn't a liberal state and whether or not the schools open is up to our State government. I have no doubt they are basing their decisions on science, not election politics.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/16/dallas-county-schools-closed-september-texas-coronavirus/
Dallas County health officials announced Thursday that all public and private schools in the county must keep their classrooms closed through Sept. 7, according to a press release from Dallas County Health and Human Services.

The mandate, which prohibits schools from reopening for “on-campus, face-to-face instruction” through Labor Day, is just the latest in a series from local health officials since Texas announced schools had to reopen classrooms last week. Public health experts say opening school buildings in areas where the coronavirus is spreading quickly will exacerbate the virus’ impact.

Some of the largest urban and suburban school districts in the state, including thee 155,000-student Dallas Independent School District, will be required to keep their classrooms closed as a result of this order. Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa told local reporters earlier this week that he was considering alternatives, including pushing the start date later than Aug. 17, to prepare for fall during the virus’ surge.

After the Texas Education Agency said last week it is requiring public schools to offer in-person instruction five days per week to all students who want it, El Paso and Laredo health officials were among the first to issue mandates keeping local schools entirely virtual through August.



https://abc13.com/is-my-childs-school-closed-texas-closures-reopenings-ken-paxton/6322352/

Texas attorney general says religious private schools 'need not comply' with local health orders to close
By REESE OXNER, The Texas Tribune

While local health officials have the authority to keep school districts closed for in-person instruction through the fall, Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a letter to schools Friday that private religious schools are free to decide for themselves whether to reopen.

Last week, the state's education agency released an order requiring schools to open their buildings to in-person instruction five days a week for all students who want it. Following backlash, on Friday, Texas officials said school districts will be allowed to delay on-campus instruction for at least four weeks, and ask for waivers to continue remote instruction for up to four additional weeks in areas hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

On Wednesday, TEA officials confirmed that school districts wouldn't be penalized for barring students on campuses if local health officials mandated that schools stay closed, as long as remote instruction is offered.

Already, local health officials in counties, including Dallas and El Paso, have issued mandates barring in-person classes for public and private schools in their jurisdictions at least through August and in some cases to the end of September.

However, Paxton, in an opinion, said imposing these mandates on private religious schools would violate the U.S. and Texas Constitutions and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Religious services have already been exempted from Gov. Greg Abbott's state-wide masking order.

"There are robust constitutional and statutory protections unique to religious individuals and communities, specifically including religious private schools," Paxton said in the letter. "In accordance with the protections granted by the First Amendment and Texas law, this guidance allows religious private schools to determine for themselves when to reopen free from any government mandate or interference."

On Friday, Texas education officials said schools can keep classrooms closed for longer than what was to be initially allowed.
 
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