~*Official #COVID-19 Thread of Doom*~ Revenge of Omicron Prime

[skillzdadirecta]

8 minutes ago, Jason said:

wat

 

Looking at children as the silent spreaders of SARS-CoV-2

NEWS.HARVARD.EDU

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A new study has found that children infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 were shown to have a significantly higher level of virus in their airways than hospitalized adults in ICUs for COVID-19 treatment.

 

Oh for fucks sake... that's from August and does NOT con tradict what I said one bit... more recent studies have shown REPEATEDLY that young kids don't seem to be transmitting the virus they way older kids do. 

 

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/risk-comms-updates/update39-covid-and-schools.pdf?sfvrsn=320db233_2 dated October.

 

Kids, school, and COVID-19: What we know — and what we don’t | AAMC

WWW.AAMC.ORG

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An emerging body of evidence suggests that young children do not spread the coronavirus easily. Does that mean it’s safe to bring them back to class?

 

Schoolchildren Seem Unlikely to Fuel Coronavirus Surges, Scientists Say - The New York Times

WWW.NYTIMES.COM

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Researchers once feared that school reopenings might spread the virus through communities. But so far there is little evidence that it’s happening.

 

I could LITERALLY keep going but what's the point?  The Data is still being processed but as of RIGHT NOW. It does not seem that Elementary school aged kids and younger are transmitting the virus in the same way High School kids and older are. LOOK IT UP. Jesus...

 

[osxmatt]

This is a thread by me, but this statement by the administrator for Oregon OSHA is just ridiculous.

 

 

[Joe]

2 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Oh for fucks sake... that's from August and does NOT con tradict what I said one bit... more recent studies have shown REPEATEDLY that young kids don't seem to be transmitting the virus they way older kids do. 

 

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/risk-comms-updates/update39-covid-and-schools.pdf?sfvrsn=320db233_2 dated October.

 

Kids, school, and COVID-19: What we know — and what we don’t | AAMC

WWW.AAMC.ORG

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An emerging body of evidence suggests that young children do not spread the coronavirus easily. Does that mean it’s safe to bring them back to class?

 

Schoolchildren Seem Unlikely to Fuel Coronavirus Surges, Scientists Say - The New York Times

WWW.NYTIMES.COM

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Researchers once feared that school reopenings might spread the virus through communities. But so far there is little evidence that it’s happening.

 

I could LITERALLY keep going but what's the point?  The Data is still being processed but as of RIGHT NOW. It does not seem that Elementary school aged kids and younger are transmitting the virus in the same way High School kids and older are. LOOK IT UP. Jesus...

 

This tracks with what Fauci says, too.

[skillzdadirecta]

18 minutes ago, Joe said:

This tracks with what Fauci says, too.

No kidding... I didn't even think this was open for "debate" anymore.

[Ghost_MH]

22 minutes ago, osxmatt said:

This is a thread by me, but this statement by the administrator for Oregon OSHA is just ridiculous.

 

 

 

I can't throw a guillotine at this one. It's just too ridiculous.

[Iculus]

28 minutes ago, osxmatt said:

This is a thread by me, but this statement by the administrator for Oregon OSHA is just ridiculous.

 

 

I totally understand the frustration, but they simply aren't capable of managing the volume. 

 

My wife #Borat-voice works for DGMQ at the CDC. There are roughly 20 people on the primary team. They are responsible for managing all of the quarantine stations in the country. The quarantine stations are responsible for tracking potential transmission events that enter the country through airports, for the most part. During the infancy of the pandemic, Trump made wild claims about testing/contact tracing at all airports. DGMQ said they would need approximately 180k new hires, and it was never mentioned again. 

 

I don't want to compare these folks to healthcare workers,  but they are equally scrambling to manage the impossible workload. 

[Keyser_Soze]

5 minutes ago, Iculus said:

My wife #Borat-voice works for DGMQ at the CDC.

 

[Fizzzzle]

4 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

It's actually the exact opposite. Elementary school kids don't seem to be transmission vectors but restaurants DEFINITELY are. What data are you seeing that says otherwise?

You're right. I was operating under some old data.

[Spork3245]

There’s the not-so talked about issue of states not even testing children unless they have definitive symptoms on top of the fact that children tend to either be asymptotic or barely have symptoms when compared to adults; unless that changed since September.

[Littleronin]

I know the big reason the elementary here is now full distance learning (and the district) is at the start of our outbreak there was student to student transmission in (I believe but am not 100% sure at the moment) a 4th grade classroom. Since that time of course everything in the county has gone to shit and the schools are full distance until after the new year as well as our hospital being locked down one of our stores being shuttered for deep cleaning as 8 of the 10 employees got it and this was before Thanksgiving. 

Oh and the counties largest employer believes that masks should be optional. Which is a powder keg waiting to happen (funny since the base is used for demil of munitions). The last helicopter we heard for the hospital was the day before Thanksgiving (because the surrounding counties will not take patients for care). Since that heli there have been 3 deaths and our hospital is now having to fend for itself to care for those sick with COVID (and any other emergencies). This is a hospital that has 11 staffed bed, and outside of 2 vents, no true ICU capabilities. For a county where nearly 1/2 the population is over 50 this has all the makings of a clusterfuck. 

[Anathema-]

5 hours ago, osxmatt said:

This is a thread by me, but this statement by the administrator for Oregon OSHA is just ridiculous.

 

Isn't OSHA comically under-funded? It reads more like a real assessment of the amount of work it would take relative to the man hours available. 

 

Honestly covid safe health practices are so important and so completely all consuming in the areas of life and work that those safe practices are now demanded in, it seems fair to say that OSHA could never be staffed to the level it would take to ensure compliance. 

[Spork3245]

1 hour ago, Spork3245 said:

There’s the not-so talked about issue of states not even testing children unless they have definitive symptoms on top of the fact that children tend to either be asymptotic or barely have symptoms when compared to adults; unless that changed since September.

I want to follow up on this with clarity and expansion as to what I’m talking about:

My fiancé’s nephew has to go to Mississippi every summer for a month to be with his crappy parents (he lives with his grandparents), he got back to PA the last week of August, given that my fiancé’s father has major heart issues, her mom wanted to get him tested for COVID shortly after returning since the parents think the pandemic is fake and this was when Mississippi was a major hotspot in the country. So, she tried to set-up a testing appointment to know if her husband should isolate from him, but was told that they won’t test kids under 18 unless they have “definitive symptoms” (wat?). Thankfully he never had it, but wtf.

My fiancé’s sister went to either Maine or Vermont, I can’t remember which, for a 2-week trip in mid-August (they live in NJ) - whichever state it was required a negative COVID test before traveling there, however, they were told that kids under 16 didn’t need to be tested, just adults... wut?

Lastly, my friend, her husband, and son, all got it in mid-September. Her kid was doing hybrid learning. They got the positive test on a Monday, his last day physically at school was Thursday. When she called the school to alert them, they asked when he was there last, after hearing it was Thursday they responded with something to the extent of “oh, good! If it’s over 72-hours we don’t need to inform anyone per state (or maybe county?) regulations”. My friend is a Republican and Trump supporter but was pretty “wtf?” about that considering the incubation and potential “spread” period. This is Mercer County NJ. My friend is ~36, her husband is ~38, her son is ~12: she couldn’t get out of bed for more than 10-15 minutes without starting to black out for over a week, her husband had a 104-105 fever for 10 straight days, and it dropped to the 101 range for another 7 or so thereafter... her son? Barely had a sore throat for 2-3 days: she told me if they all didn’t get it, she would have thought her son just had seasonal allergies for a couple days.

 

Now, let’s discuss contact tracing, where I’m assuming this data is coming from... in Gov Murphy’s press conference yesterday, he stated and complained about over 70% of people not answering the phone nor returning calls from contact tracers. That’s not even getting into how few people probably have the state COVID app... and this is NJ where people have been mostly compliant, lord knows how much lower this probably is in the rest of the country.

Moving on to gyms - it’s being said that they “haven’t been tracing it back to gyms” (not on this forum, that is coming from officials)... but, anecdotally, the majority of people even willing to go to gyms right now are likely those wearing masks begrudgingly and don’t think it’s “that big of a deal”, and, as such, are probably the same people refusing to cooperate with contact tracers - the same may be able to be said about the majority of those sending their kids to school physically. Again, completely anecdotal, but I’d argue those who lean left and are more willing to cooperate with contact tracers are more likely to go out to eat or have a couple friends come over as opposed to going to the gym or physically sending their child to school, thus, it looks like it’s only really spreading from indoor dining.

 

This could be completely wrong, I could be overthinking it - but, from the information available, contact tracing has been politicized, and is potentially operating on incomplete data. I find it difficult to believe that it’s not spreading from/in schools, and that it’s not spreading within gyms.

 

 

[chakoo]

 

Transmission is 100% happening in schools. Here is some data from canada (Note our numbers might not seem large but our covid numbers are small compared to the US).

 

 

[Joe]

11 minutes ago, chakoo said:

 

Transmission is 100% happening in schools. Here is some data from canada (Note our numbers might not seem large but our covid numbers are small compared to the US).

 

 

It’s definitely happening, but at low rates when compared to restaurants, which is why public health officials no longer say they should be closed.

[skillzdadirecta]

27 minutes ago, Joe said:

It’s definitely happening, but at low rates when compared to restaurants, which is why public health officials no longer say they should be closed.

THIS. I don't get why this is so confusing for some .

 

38 minutes ago, chakoo said:

 

Transmission is 100% happening in schools. Here is some data from canada (Note our numbers might not seem large but our covid numbers are small compared to the US).

 

 

 

Those Canadian numbers... have they been linked to an uptick in positivity rates in the communities those schools reside in? Are those number broken down by age and grade level or do they include ALL school aged kids from 5 to 18? (how old are you in Canada when you leave high school?) Do those numbers include colleges?

 

from the European Center for Disease Control:

 

Q & A on COVID-19 in children aged 0 – 18 years and the role of school settings in COVID-19 transmission

WWW.ECDC.EUROPA.EU

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How likely are children to catch and transmit the virus in school settings? When and how will schools be reopened?

 

Quote

 

School outbreaks have not been a prominent feature in the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly due to the fact that the majority of children do not develop symptoms when infected with the virus, or develop a very mild form of the disease.

No evidence has been found to suggest that children are the primary drivers of SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission. However, research has shown that children can become infected, and spread the virus to adults while they are symptomatic.

 

 

They even allow for the fact that they may not be getting a complete picture.

 

Quote

Available evidence suggests that transmission among children in schools is less efficient for COVID-19 than for other respiratory viruses such as influenza. However, this evidence is mainly derived from school outbreaks and relies on the detection of symptomatic cases, possibly underestimating the number of infected, asymptomatic, and potentially infectious, children during such an outbreak.

In summary, where COVID-19 in children has been detected and contacts followed-up, no adult contacts in school settings have been detected as COVID-19-positive during the follow-up period. The conclusion from these investigations is that children in school settings are not the primary drivers of COVID-19 transmission to adults.

 

Again, this isn't "my opinion" or based on my gut feeling or own experience (Although I did spend the summer with my three year old nephew who continued to go to day care while we were quarantining and none of us ever got sick from him). This is what the most recent studies have shown. Ultimately that elementary schools have not been drivers of the pandemic. Can this be proven wrong? Sure. This is a new disease that we know very little about and are STILL learning abiut everyday.

 

[Spork3245]

7 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

THIS. I don't get why this is so confusing for some .

 

 

Those Canadian numbers... have they been linked to an uptick in positivity rates in the communities those schools reside in? Are those number broken down by age and grade level or do they include ALL school aged kids from 5 to 18? (how old are you in Canada when you leave high school?) Do those numbers include colleges?

 

from the European Center for Disease Control:

 

Q & A on COVID-19 in children aged 0 – 18 years and the role of school settings in COVID-19 transmission

WWW.ECDC.EUROPA.EU

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How likely are children to catch and transmit the virus in school settings? When and how will schools be reopened?

 

 

They even allow for the fact that they may not be getting a complete picture.

 

 

Again, this isn't "my opinion" or based on my gut feeling or own experience (Although I did spend the summer with my three year old nephew who continued to go to day care while we were quarantining and none of us ever got sick from him). This is what the most recent studies have shown. Ultimately that elementary schools have not been drivers of the pandemic. Can this be proven wrong? Sure. This is a new disease that we know very little about and are STILL learning abiut everyday. If and when it is I'll go with whatever the new information tells us. 

 

 

That's kind of the issue, though, right? Kids have very little symptoms, and they are spreading it. There's, again, also the issue of the vast majority of people not cooperating with contact tracers, and incredibly weird "rules" (at least in NJ and PA) in regards to testing children and even notifying others if a child comes down with the virus while attending school, which all potentially skews the data of where outbreaks/cases are actually stemming from.

[Joe]

2 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

That's kind of the issue, though, right? Kids have very little symptoms, and they are spreading it. There's, again, also the issue of the vast majority of people not cooperating with contact tracers, and incredibly weird "rules" (at least in NJ and PA) in regards to testing children and even notifying others if a child comes down with the virus while attending school, which all potentially skews the data of where outbreaks/cases are actually stemming from.

Why are the contact tracers so easily able to trace back outbreaks to restaurants then?

[Spork3245]

1 minute ago, Joe said:

Why are the contact tracers so easily able to trace back outbreaks to restaurants then?

 

Read my giant post above from 4-hours ago. Murphy stated, just yesterday, cooperation is below 70%.

[Joe]

1 minute ago, Spork3245 said:

 

Read my giant post above from 4-hours ago. Murphy stated, just yesterday, cooperation is below 70%.

Right but it’s the same for all public places.

[Spork3245]

Just now, Joe said:

Right but it’s the same for all public places.

 

So, you didn't read my post?

[skillzdadirecta]

9 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

That's kind of the issue, though, right? Kids have very little symptoms, and they are spreading it. There's, again, also the issue of the vast majority of people not cooperating with contact tracers, and incredibly weird "rules" (at least in NJ and PA) in regards to testing children and even notifying others if a child comes down with the virus while attending school which all potentially skews the data of where outbreaks/cases are actually stemming from.

It's not just about contact tracing though... they can track the effects of schools opening and correlate that data with the positivity rates in a given area. Like what was done in Spain (Who do EXTENSIVE contract tracing by the way)

 

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56842/what-the-research-says-about-school-reopening-and-covid-19-transmission

 

Quote

Enric Álvarez at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya looked at different regions within Spain for his recent co-authored working paper. Spain's second wave of coronavirus cases started before the school year began in September. Still, cases in one region dropped three weeks after schools reopened, while others continued rising at the same rate as before, and one stayed flat.

Nowhere, the research found, was there a spike that coincided with reopening: "What we found is that the school [being opened] makes absolutely no difference," Álvarez told NPR.

Spain does extensive contact tracing, so Álvarez was also able to analyze how much schools are contributing to the spread of the coronavirus. Álvarez said his research suggests the answer is: not much. He found that, for all the students and staff who tested positive, 87% of them did not infect anyone else at the school. They were single cases.

 

Asymptomatic transmission definitely happens... but you are at your MOST contagious when you are symptomatic and since children tend to be less symptomatic, the thinking is they aren't transmitting the virus at the same rate as older kids and adults. 

 

I was skeptical when I first started hearing this as well... we started reporting on this about a month or so ago, but the data is what the data is and if we're going to "trust the science" then we should "TRUST THE SCIENCE"... even when it goes against our own preconcieved notions.

[Spork3245]

1 minute ago, skillzdadirecta said:

It's not just about contact tracing though... they can track the effects of schools opening and correlate that data with the positivity rates in a given area. Like what was done in Spain (Who do EXTENSIVE contract tracing by the way)

 

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56842/what-the-research-says-about-school-reopening-and-covid-19-transmission

 

 

That article makes more sense with info coming from non-idiot countries like ours and is what I was looking for.

 

1 minute ago, skillzdadirecta said:

but the data is what the data is and if we're going to "trust the science" then we should "TRUST THE SCIENCE"

 

My issue was with the data potentially being skewed via what I stated: lack of cooperation with contact tracers as well as ridiculously different standards for testing with children under a certain age (on top of not notifying anyone of a positive case within the school if the child wasn't there within 72-hours of a positive test).

[skillzdadirecta]

 

5 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

That article makes more sense with info coming from non-idiot countries like ours and is what I was looking for.

 

The two studies that I have cited repeatedly here are International studies and didn't come from the US... I also linked that article from the European CDC earlier.

[Spork3245]

5 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

 

The two studies that I have cited repeatedly here are International studies and didn't come from the US... I also linked that article from the European CDC earlier.

 

The tracing in Europe hasn't been politicized like it has here (not to mention masks), so the ones that focused on Europe as whole without the US didn't quell my concerns.

 

EDIT: Clarification; the breakdown of beyond contact tracing in the kged link is what helps.

[Joe]

Murphy won’t close N.J. schools yet. He’s not alone in his decision.

WWW.NJ.COM

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Other states have yet to shut down schools as COVID-19 cases soar.

 

NJ had 192 confirmed in school transmitted cases total two weeks ago. Insanely low number.

[Jason]

Anyhow, the reason we're keeping restaurants open and closing schools is because without federal assistance the states are forced to make shit decisions to try to keep some tax revenue going. Schools are important but how do pay to keep them open when you're going broke and the feds aren't helping. 

[Joe]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

Anyhow, the reason we're keeping restaurants open and closing schools is because without federal assistance the states are forced to make shit decisions to try to keep some tax revenue going. Schools are important but how do pay to keep them open when you're going broke and the feds aren't helping. 

 

Is anyone closing schools besides NYC? And they're reopening anyway.

[Jason]

Just now, Joe said:

 

Is anyone closing schools besides NYC? And they're reopening anyway.

 

I'm pretty sure Los Angeles is only open for in person for kids with special needs. 

[Jason]

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

It looks like Canada will be very slow in getting vaccines.  Current estimates have no vaccines in Canada this year, with only 6 million doses (enough to vaccinate 3 million people) by March, and will only have enough doses to vaccinate 50%+ of population by SEPTEMBER 2021.

 

UK and US will have 10 million doses in December.

 

Trudeau has blamed this on lack of vaccine manufacturing capability in Canada (which is incorrect, we can manufacture vaccines, just not the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines).  UK is importing those 10 million doses from Belgium....

The US....

 

[mclumber1]

3 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

It looks like Canada will be very slow in getting vaccines.  Current estimates have no vaccines in Canada this year, with only 6 million doses (enough to vaccinate 3 million people) by March, and will only have enough doses to vaccinate 50%+ of population by SEPTEMBER 2021.

 

UK and US will have 10 million doses in December.

 

Trudeau has blamed this on lack of vaccine manufacturing capability in Canada (which is incorrect, we can manufacture vaccines, just not the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines).  UK is importing those 10 million doses from Belgium....

The US....

 

 

America first!

[Spork3245]

15 minutes ago, Joe said:

 

Is anyone closing schools besides NYC? And they're reopening anyway.

Robbinsville school district switched to 100% remote last week, actually. I’m unsure if this is for all of Mercer County.

[AbsolutSurgen]

2 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

America first!

Trump is an idiot, but at least his administration had an early plan around vaccines.  Canada may not be at the back of the line, but we sure as hell aren't at the front.

[MarSolo]

I just don’t understand how grocery stores aren’t an even bigger spreader of the virus than restaurants?

 

Most restaurants and bars in Philly are getting eaten alive by the shutdowns, meanwhile, grocery stores, which have NO SOCIAL DISTANCING, NO CART WIPE DOWNS, literally nothing but mask wearing (and even that they’re doing a shit job of enforcing with customers) is being done to mitigate any spread.

[Jason]