I’ve worked 250+ hours on the Covid floor at work and another few hundred in the ER where you’re unknowingly exposed often. My wife has worked dozens of hours on the Covid floor at her work. I feel like everyone in my house has had it already or been exposed plenty. 

posted by kizer permanente

Literally everyone I know than can work remotely is working remotely Or they’re choosing not to. Every past place I’ve worked has people working remotely who are able to still. You act like everyone’s just back to it. That’s not the case. Hell I teach labs at a college and I’m there 2 days a week instead of 5.. It’s not back to normal. It’s not full speed ahead. 

There are a lot of jobs that can't work remotely. Teaching is one. If a teacher is high risk, they can stay remote. But schools should be open with kids there. Is there a risk of transmission?  Of course. A lot of people face that everyday. But acting like school is a uniquely risky environment is not right. 

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

There are a lot of jobs that can't work remotely. Teaching is one. If a teacher is high risk, they can stay remote. But schools should be open with kids there. Is there a risk of transmission?  Of course. A lot of people face that everyday. But acting like school is a uniquely risky environment is not right. 

posted by kizer permanente
They can tho. 

Yes, they literally can - that's not what I meant. I mean that they can't do the job effectively that way. Teaching kids has to be in person if it's going to be effective. 

What moron in charge thought the age for wearing a mask should start at 2? No, my 2.5 year old is not putting a mask on, you can try, but it’s not gonna happen. 

posted by iclfan2

...my 2.5 year old is not putting a mask on, you can try, but it’s not gonna happen. 

But would he wear a mask for halloween?

And, yes, I'm trolling.

posted by iclfan2

What moron in charge thought the age for wearing a mask should start at 2? No, my 2.5 year old is not putting a mask on, you can try, but it’s not gonna happen. 

posted by gut

But would he wear a mask for halloween?

And, yes, I'm trolling.

Ha she wouldn’t even do that. She won’t let anything be on her face for more than 2 seconds. We’ve tried to get her to wear a Covid mask but she just screams and rips it off. 

In other news, Nick Saban tested 3 negatives after his 1 positive. Same thing happened with the Colts.  Are the rapid tests more likely to give false positives? 

posted by iclfan2

Are the rapid tests more likely to give false positives?

Good question.  Depends on which test.  Abbot's rapid test was reportedly only 70-85% accurate, but just released a White House study claiming 95% accuracy on identifying positives if taken within 7 days of symptoms appearing.

But based on the number of people who test positive and then test negative, it seems like the test might be biased toward false positives to reduce false negatives.  I'd just confirm with an antigen test a month later.

Possibly related, I think I've seen where covid tests might be far too sensitive and falsely tagging recovered people as "active" cases, or returning a positive on people with far too low levels of virus to infect anyone OR have immunity.

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

Yes, they literally can - that's not what I meant. I mean that they can't do the job effectively that way. Teaching kids has to be in person if it's going to be effective. 

Listen... I was in this spot earlier this year. My son had kindergarten and half a first grade and was sent home. His second half of first grade was worthless. I had to home school essentially. So now he starts 2nd grade virtually, and it’s not good. He’s not used to sitting in front of a computer and not with anyone. The first 2 weeks were miserable. He was crying nearly daily. But guess what... he adapted. So did every other kid in his class. Now he’s thriving. This semester he was put on the accelerated program. It went from being miserable bc it was something new, to ok no problem after he got used to it. If you would have told me that 2 months ago I’d have agreed with you. Can’t work.  I’ve seen it work personally though. 

posted by kizer permanente

If you would have told me that 2 months ago I’d have agreed with you. Can’t work.  I’ve seen it work personally though.

Yet another example of how Covid is going to radically transform the economy, in good ways.

Education will be some form of a hybrid model, I think.  Some kids will require more in-person instruction, and that may change throughout their years.  Others will thrive with virtual lessons (which could be a game-changer leveling the education field, especially for inner city kids).

But the other critical pieces are difficult to do remotely - socialization, nutrition and physical fitness.  If you get some efficiencies from more remote/AI instruction, perhaps those resources can provide for sports and other physical fitness programs which would also facilitate socialization.

So what did they decide about Saban? Did he have a false positive then? 

posted by kizer permanente
They can tho. 

If you think remote learning is effective, then you don't have any kids that have had to do it last Spring or currently.

It is terribly ineffective and the kids are suffering because of it.

Teaching is not effective when done remotely, about every study that has ever been done shows this, that in person teaching is far superior to anything that has been tried remotely.

posted by kizer permanente

Listen... I was in this spot earlier this year. My son had kindergarten and half a first grade and was sent home. His second half of first grade was worthless. I had to home school essentially. So now he starts 2nd grade virtually, and it’s not good. He’s not used to sitting in front of a computer and not with anyone. The first 2 weeks were miserable. He was crying nearly daily. But guess what... he adapted. So did every other kid in his class. Now he’s thriving. This semester he was put on the accelerated program. It went from being miserable bc it was something new, to ok no problem after he got used to it. If you would have told me that 2 months ago I’d have agreed with you. Can’t work.  I’ve seen it work personally though. 

Anecdotal, all studies say remote learning is not as effective as in person.

this was literally just you ...

You obviously don’t have kids doing it!!!!!

Oh you do.... anecdotal!!!!

Lol 

posted by jmog

Anecdotal, all studies say remote learning is not as effective as in person.

It literally just started a couple months ago and you’re telling me they have studies on it.

So are you full of shit all the time or just when you feel the need to be right? 

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

Teachers are no different then all the other professions that are going out and interacting with others currently. They risk their lives driving to school every morning just like the rest of us do. There are tens of thousands of them back in the classroom and they're not "dying".  They're not heading off to the front lines on the battlefield. If individually they are high risk, exceptions are being made at every single open school I've read about. 

At my school we have a 70 year old and heavy art teacher. She hasn’t missed a day of school. I consider her pretty unhealthy. We have a technology teacher who is very very obese (dangerously)....very diabetic and severe heart issues and breathing difficulties. She’s missed just one day.

School is going. We have zero current cases yet our county has turned red and everyone going apeshit. 1 case and schools canceling many sporting events and shutting down schools to clean and everything else.

posted by Ironman92

At my school we have a 70 year old and heavy art teacher. She hasn’t missed a day of school. I consider her pretty unhealthy. We have a technology teacher who is very very obese (dangerously)....very diabetic and severe heart issues and breathing difficulties. She’s missed just one day.

School is going. We have zero current cases yet our county has turned red and everyone going apeshit. 1 case and schools canceling many sporting events and shutting down schools to clean and everything else.

School feels like school. It’s great quite honestly. IMO the best start to the year in many years. These kids DO NOT WANT VIRTUAL....they yearn for what school gives them. High school is different but the high end kids say they aren’t getting anywhere near as much virtually...they want to be there.

That is a nice report. My daughter's school is like this - humming along with all protocols and practices in place.  My sister's boys go to a school outside of Chicago - one of the best public school systems in the country - they've been virtual since March and it is terrible. Kids hate it and are depressed. 

posted by Ironman92

At my school we have a 70 year old and heavy art teacher. She hasn’t missed a day of school. I consider her pretty unhealthy. We have a technology teacher who is very very obese (dangerously)....very diabetic and severe heart issues and breathing difficulties. She’s missed just one day.

School is going. We have zero current cases yet our county has turned red and everyone going apeshit. 1 case and schools canceling many sporting events and shutting down schools to clean and everything else.

School feels like school. It’s great quite honestly. IMO the best start to the year in many years. These kids DO NOT WANT VIRTUAL....they yearn for what school gives them. High school is different but the high end kids say they aren’t getting anywhere near as much virtually...they want to be there.

Same here. School district I’m in are going back hybrid this coming week (two days school, three at home). They had been all five at school. The county went from orange to red or something. According to the dashboard DeWine tweets out, there’s been 312 cases since 9/30, in a county with population of nearly 170K. Just ridiculous. 

posted by kizer permanente

Listen... I was in this spot earlier this year. My son had kindergarten and half a first grade and was sent home. His second half of first grade was worthless. I had to home school essentially. So now he starts 2nd grade virtually, and it’s not good. He’s not used to sitting in front of a computer and not with anyone. The first 2 weeks were miserable. He was crying nearly daily. But guess what... he adapted. So did every other kid in his class. Now he’s thriving. This semester he was put on the accelerated program. It went from being miserable bc it was something new, to ok no problem after he got used to it. If you would have told me that 2 months ago I’d have agreed with you. Can’t work.  I’ve seen it work personally though. 

I am happy for your kid, because this sucks for every kid, but you are once again using your own anecdotal experience to prove your point.  Aren't you a teacher?  Also, do you think every kid in the country has the resources your kid has?  

posted by like_that

I am happy for your kid, because this sucks for every kid, but you are once again using your own anecdotal experience to prove your point.  Aren't you a teacher?  Also, do you think every kid in the country has the resources your kid has?  

I’ve only been doing it for a year now. I was in private industry for the rest of my career. 

There’s obviously benefits of in person learning especially for my classes since they’re labs. That’s why I’m in 2 days a week since there’s some labs that’s aren’t great to do online. We did them online for the remainder of spring semester last year via virtual lab software though, so it can be done. But there are labs that’s are computer/software/ programming based that remain virtual. There hasn’t been a drop off in delivery period. They’ll remain virtual until there’s a vaccine. Most education isn’t hands on like mine though. There’s not many reasons why they can’t be delivered virtually. The technology we have available now to deliver education is light years better than what people associate with the University of Phoenix degree they got 20 years ago. The school systems are providing the technology. The cities are providing solutions like dedicating wings of the library and such for children who don’t have acceptable internet. I don’t think it’s perfect and will be better to go back in person once the pandemic is under control, but for now, to try to limit community spread, I think the schools and cities are doing a great job. 

Europe is going up again (proving lockdowns don’t work), and in the US hospitalizations are also going up. The good news is that deaths are nowhere near as prevalent as the first wave, but the uptick is not good. 

Covid hospitalizations in the U.S. are steadily rising; an objective measure of increasing disease burden around the country. pic.twitter.com/lkfUrVogfq

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) October 18, 2020

This quote feature is messed up, but another good follow:

Unlike the first wave this Spring, and the second wave this Summer...we are seeing universal increase in hospitalizations in all regions of the country right now. My guess is this is truly a seasonal variation.

In any case...its bad. pic.twitter.com/lyFlyFreib

— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) October 18, 2020

This thing is going to work it's way through the population regardless of what we do.  Our measures are, and have always been, to ensure hospitals are not overwhelmed. Beyond that, we don't "control" a virus. It does it's thing until prospective hosts are too few to promulgate it. 

The bulk of adult education is now some form of "remote learning". Are there studies that show a median age below which such learning isn't effective?

There is no way that online schooling is effective.  It doesnt work for 95% of students.

How are special ed, IEP kids getting any interventions?  How are elementary kids learning when literally nobody is teaching them?

How about HS kids that are already checked out and just playing school to graduate?  They get up at 2pm and the by that time their PLP teachers day is over and they were trying to contact them at 10am for remote teaching.

Teaching HS would be a 2nd shift job.