Coronavirus prep
Replies
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I also can't see why schools are not considered to be a risk. My assumption is that it is because most children do not get severe illness. This idea ignores teachers and support staff, family members of those teachers and support staff, and family members of students who bring it home after catching from a fellow student. How is that not a concern?!
Agree with all you have said. I'll take a stab at how schools are not considered a risk (although I personally do not agree with that conclusion).
My hypothesis starts with the assumption that the school transmission data available is skewed by disproportionate representation by private schools, I.e.:- more school resources
- less classroom crowding
- vastly fewer special needs kids that might have distancing difficulty or require close contact
- ability to immediately expel/suspend kids who don't follow rules
- comparatively wealthy student body, where wealth correlates inversely to probability of infection (more likely to WFH, less likely to need public transportation or have public facing jobs, less dense living circumstances so better able to isolate within the home)
Hence, in-person school data is overrepresented by kids less likely to show up at school infected. Remote schooling data overrepresented by kids living in conditions where they are more likely to become infected. So while it appears in-person compares favorably to remote schooling, what is really going on is you see the effects of comparing a disproportionately wealthy population to a disproportionately poor one. The outcome has more to do with the risk profiles the groups you are comparing, not whether they attend in-person or remote.
I think you may be on to something. In Israel schools were indeed a severe factor in community transmission, so the idea that children don’t transmit the disease can’t be accurate.
Locally in Memphis, they are claiming schools are not a risk but school sports are a major factor. However, over 65% of our cases, the contact tracing fails to identify where it came from, so how do they know enough about anything to even make remarks like that? Clearly they are missing something when more than half of cases come who knows where.
Thanks, I didn't know what that number was, but it's what I always wonder about when some institution (like gyms or restaurants) claim they haven't had any COVID transmissions at their business/facility. I always think, "not that you know about."
It's much easier to trace transmissions to households, coworkers, or events like weddings and funerals, where you know who was exposed to whom. If you pick it up from a stranger on public transportation, in a bar/restaurant/gym or from an asymptomatic child who brings it home from school where they got it from another asymptomatic child who got it from an adult in their household with a mild case who never got tested and convinced themself it was just a cold or an allergy so they could continue sending their kid to school ... well, those would be the transmissions I would expect to fall into the 65%.
What our county CT has encountered is people unwilling to cooperate. They won’t give information about where they’ve been or who they’ve seen. Makes it really difficult to limit spread.
On campus, the students have to cooperate. And they’ve been really good about following policies and working with the tracers.
On topic of college tracing, one daughter lives in a very small off campus apartment (1 bathroom) with 3 other girls and across the hall from another 4 girls. They lived together last year, and the 8 consider themselves a single living group. They have been in the habit of coordinating their testing. After exposure to another living group, one of the 8 woke with a fever and tested positive. The college health center contact traced the other 7 and administered PCR tests within 3 hours. The results took another hour or so. By that time, the remaining girls were already isolating and had had rapid tests, but it was nonetheless reassuringly fast action.
All the other roommates have tested negative.... except for one. That one had covid in May and received 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in early December (Mass General nurse, first dose was I think on first day vaccine was approved for public). She nonetheless is now testing positive (PCR). Again. Thankfully, she is completely asymptomatic. Not sure if it suggests anything about the vaccine being protective vs. sterilizing, but it is an unusual data point.9 -
Sounds like most NM school districts will be going back to in class learning on a hybrid model at the end of February...not APS though. They just had a vote last night and determined they couldn't effectively manage things across the district. It is the largest school district in the state and actually one of the largest school districts in the country and there have been discussions for years that it needs to be broken up into something more manageable.
Our kids' elementary school was pushing the district to leave it up to individual schools...which I understand from their point of view, but also understand why the district wouldn't want to go down that path and lose control. Our school is a bit of an oddity within the district...we are part of APS, but we are not Albuquerque...we are our own township/village. All other APS schools are either in Albuquerque or unincorporated Bernalillo county...we aren't even in the same county as all other APS schools.
Our school is very small as we are a small community with a total population of about 8,500. The majority of our population is older adults at or near retirement. Our school feels much more like a small private school than the other behemoths in APS. We have also had only three reported COVID cases in our village since last March...I just feel so bad for my kids. They were very excited at the prospect of getting back to class.
The only possible silver lining is that APS is considering sending K, 6, 9, and high school seniors back to in person...doesn't help my kids at all, but at least it's something for others.4 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »Well, coronavirus prep has translated to less winter storm prep needed. Normally the shelves would have been bare and stores mobbed yesterday and the day before, but we must be all stocked up here in Massachusetts.
I placed a grocery order to be delivered a day ahead of the storm, because I hadn't shopped or ordered for four weeks. For the first time since about last May, I encountered a paper goods shortage. Out of a whole page of various brands and package sizes for paper towels, there was only one that wasn't out of stock when I placed my order. And by the time they filled my order, even that option was out of stock. I assumed/hoped it was because of the storm and not a new pandemic shortage.
Yeah, same here. I ordered a bunch of stuff from HD and tried to add toilet paper and they were low, although I'm supposed to get what I ordered (will see). Can stillget a 4-pack at my 7-11 no problem, however.
I did find that the snow is affecting grocery delivery. Instacart is fine, but amazon from WF has been much worse than usual. It's clearly weather-related here.
I'm thinking that a shortage must be localized, whether storm-related or otherwise. Here (mid-Michigan) Costco was heavily stocked with the full range of paper products, many brands/types, when I was there on Friday 1/29. (We didn't get major snow in our forecast over the weekend.) I was in two other stores, one of the WF, the other a similar local store. For sure the latter had paper products, but I don't remember being in that aisle in WF.
I haven't noticed a shortage in actual stores (I haven't looked at Costco), just when trying to include it in a curbside pickup order from a specific HD. So I don't know how much there's an actual shortage here vs maybe a small increased demand that the store was unprepared for pre snow.1 -
Just got toilet paper this morning at the grocery store.(it’s snowing here today, again, below zero temperatures on the way, some white out conditions out here in the country) They were well stocked with paper products (Minnesota). Actually, the store seemed well stocked with everything. They had a lot of displays set up with snacky type things. I’m assuming for the Super Bowl. This is the first time I’ve seen a good supply of paper products since the problems began last year.5
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I also can't see why schools are not considered to be a risk. My assumption is that it is because most children do not get severe illness. This idea ignores teachers and support staff, family members of those teachers and support staff, and family members of students who bring it home after catching from a fellow student. How is that not a concern?!
Agree with all you have said. I'll take a stab at how schools are not considered a risk (although I personally do not agree with that conclusion).
My hypothesis starts with the assumption that the school transmission data available is skewed by disproportionate representation by private schools, I.e.:- more school resources
- less classroom crowding
- vastly fewer special needs kids that might have distancing difficulty or require close contact
- ability to immediately expel/suspend kids who don't follow rules
- comparatively wealthy student body, where wealth correlates inversely to probability of infection (more likely to WFH, less likely to need public transportation or have public facing jobs, less dense living circumstances so better able to isolate within the home)
Hence, in-person school data is overrepresented by kids less likely to show up at school infected. Remote schooling data overrepresented by kids living in conditions where they are more likely to become infected. So while it appears in-person compares favorably to remote schooling, what is really going on is you see the effects of comparing a disproportionately wealthy population to a disproportionately poor one. The outcome has more to do with the risk profiles the groups you are comparing, not whether they attend in-person or remote.
I think you may be on to something. In Israel schools were indeed a severe factor in community transmission, so the idea that children don’t transmit the disease can’t be accurate.
Locally in Memphis, they are claiming schools are not a risk but school sports are a major factor. However, over 65% of our cases, the contact tracing fails to identify where it came from, so how do they know enough about anything to even make remarks like that? Clearly they are missing something when more than half of cases come who knows where.
Thanks, I didn't know what that number was, but it's what I always wonder about when some institution (like gyms or restaurants) claim they haven't had any COVID transmissions at their business/facility. I always think, "not that you know about."
It's much easier to trace transmissions to households, coworkers, or events like weddings and funerals, where you know who was exposed to whom. If you pick it up from a stranger on public transportation, in a bar/restaurant/gym or from an asymptomatic child who brings it home from school where they got it from another asymptomatic child who got it from an adult in their household with a mild case who never got tested and convinced themself it was just a cold or an allergy so they could continue sending their kid to school ... well, those would be the transmissions I would expect to fall into the 65%.
What our county CT has encountered is people unwilling to cooperate. They won’t give information about where they’ve been or who they’ve seen. Makes it really difficult to limit spread.
On campus, the students have to cooperate. And they’ve been really good about following policies and working with the tracers.
On topic of college tracing, one daughter lives in a very small off campus apartment (1 bathroom) with 3 other girls and across the hall from another 4 girls. They lived together last year, and the 8 consider themselves a single living group. They have been in the habit of coordinating their testing. After exposure to another living group, one of the 8 woke with a fever and tested positive. The college health center contact traced the other 7 and administered PCR tests within 3 hours. The results took another hour or so. By that time, the remaining girls were already isolating and had had rapid tests, but it was nonetheless reassuringly fast action.
All the other roommates have tested negative.... except for one. That one had covid in May and received 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in early December (Mass General nurse, first dose was I think on first day vaccine was approved for public). She nonetheless is now testing positive (PCR). Again. Thankfully, she is completely asymptomatic. Not sure if it suggests anything about the vaccine being protective vs. sterilizing, but it is an unusual data point.
Do PCR test actually test for the presence of the virus, or do they test for antibodies? If the latter, could it just be detecting the immune response from the vaccine?1 -
There was a really good, in-depth interview of Fauci by Terry Gross, broadcast today, that I found super interesting. (I admit it may've been more history-interesting, politics-interesting, or character-revealing-interesting, as opposed to Covid-interesting . . . but OK, whatever. 😉😆).
Text summary and full audio available here:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/04/963943156/fauci-on-vaccinations-and-bidens-refreshing-approach-to-covid-19
IMO, it's a really interesting insight into the character of Fauci, as a human. Also, some tidbits about Covid response, so arguably on topic?8 -
The nursing home at the end of my street has 87 confirmed cases in a facility with 90 patients. First death occurred tonight.26
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There is a nursing home a few miles from me that hasn't had a single covid case until a few weeks ago. No one has died which is strange. There is a 105 year old lady I know there that tested positive but almost no symptoms and doing ok.10
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I also can't see why schools are not considered to be a risk. My assumption is that it is because most children do not get severe illness. This idea ignores teachers and support staff, family members of those teachers and support staff, and family members of students who bring it home after catching from a fellow student. How is that not a concern?!
Agree with all you have said. I'll take a stab at how schools are not considered a risk (although I personally do not agree with that conclusion).
My hypothesis starts with the assumption that the school transmission data available is skewed by disproportionate representation by private schools, I.e.:- more school resources
- less classroom crowding
- vastly fewer special needs kids that might have distancing difficulty or require close contact
- ability to immediately expel/suspend kids who don't follow rules
- comparatively wealthy student body, where wealth correlates inversely to probability of infection (more likely to WFH, less likely to need public transportation or have public facing jobs, less dense living circumstances so better able to isolate within the home)
Hence, in-person school data is overrepresented by kids less likely to show up at school infected. Remote schooling data overrepresented by kids living in conditions where they are more likely to become infected. So while it appears in-person compares favorably to remote schooling, what is really going on is you see the effects of comparing a disproportionately wealthy population to a disproportionately poor one. The outcome has more to do with the risk profiles the groups you are comparing, not whether they attend in-person or remote.
I think you may be on to something. In Israel schools were indeed a severe factor in community transmission, so the idea that children don’t transmit the disease can’t be accurate.
Locally in Memphis, they are claiming schools are not a risk but school sports are a major factor. However, over 65% of our cases, the contact tracing fails to identify where it came from, so how do they know enough about anything to even make remarks like that? Clearly they are missing something when more than half of cases come who knows where.
Thanks, I didn't know what that number was, but it's what I always wonder about when some institution (like gyms or restaurants) claim they haven't had any COVID transmissions at their business/facility. I always think, "not that you know about."
It's much easier to trace transmissions to households, coworkers, or events like weddings and funerals, where you know who was exposed to whom. If you pick it up from a stranger on public transportation, in a bar/restaurant/gym or from an asymptomatic child who brings it home from school where they got it from another asymptomatic child who got it from an adult in their household with a mild case who never got tested and convinced themself it was just a cold or an allergy so they could continue sending their kid to school ... well, those would be the transmissions I would expect to fall into the 65%.
What our county CT has encountered is people unwilling to cooperate. They won’t give information about where they’ve been or who they’ve seen. Makes it really difficult to limit spread.
On campus, the students have to cooperate. And they’ve been really good about following policies and working with the tracers.
On topic of college tracing, one daughter lives in a very small off campus apartment (1 bathroom) with 3 other girls and across the hall from another 4 girls. They lived together last year, and the 8 consider themselves a single living group. They have been in the habit of coordinating their testing. After exposure to another living group, one of the 8 woke with a fever and tested positive. The college health center contact traced the other 7 and administered PCR tests within 3 hours. The results took another hour or so. By that time, the remaining girls were already isolating and had had rapid tests, but it was nonetheless reassuringly fast action.
All the other roommates have tested negative.... except for one. That one had covid in May and received 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in early December (Mass General nurse, first dose was I think on first day vaccine was approved for public). She nonetheless is now testing positive (PCR). Again. Thankfully, she is completely asymptomatic. Not sure if it suggests anything about the vaccine being protective vs. sterilizing, but it is an unusual data point.
Do PCR test actually test for the presence of the virus, or do they test for antibodies? If the latter, could it just be detecting the immune response from the vaccine?
PCR detects rna, not antibodies. I looked this up, and a positive PCR without new symptoms within 90 days of initial infection is more likely to be ongoing shedding of rna from the first infection than a new infection. This RNA is not considered to be “replication competent”, in other words it’s busted bits of dead virus, and doesn’t cause disease.10 -
stevehenderson776 wrote: »The nursing home at the end of my street has 87 confirmed cases in a facility with 90 patients. First death occurred tonight.
That's so sad.
Hopefully they can pull through. A single home here has accounted for 85% of our district's total deaths, they've been in outbreak since November. There have been outbreaks at five or six other facilities but they've been managed much better with no spread and no deaths. 7 -
Found out my brother's Covid-19 has advanced to pneumonia. He's on steroids for now.32
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kshama2001 wrote: »
Reminds me of when I was online dating and got a bad feel about someone. He said, "Google me." Well, I'm a little more sophisticated than that and Florida's public records are quite searchable, so I was easily able to find a record of two domestic violence convictions, two different women, years apart.
And if you right click on the photo in Chrome, you can search for it elsewhere on the internet. 😃3 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I also can't see why schools are not considered to be a risk. My assumption is that it is because most children do not get severe illness. This idea ignores teachers and support staff, family members of those teachers and support staff, and family members of students who bring it home after catching from a fellow student. How is that not a concern?!
Agree with all you have said. I'll take a stab at how schools are not considered a risk (although I personally do not agree with that conclusion).
My hypothesis starts with the assumption that the school transmission data available is skewed by disproportionate representation by private schools, I.e.:- more school resources
- less classroom crowding
- vastly fewer special needs kids that might have distancing difficulty or require close contact
- ability to immediately expel/suspend kids who don't follow rules
- comparatively wealthy student body, where wealth correlates inversely to probability of infection (more likely to WFH, less likely to need public transportation or have public facing jobs, less dense living circumstances so better able to isolate within the home)
Hence, in-person school data is overrepresented by kids less likely to show up at school infected. Remote schooling data overrepresented by kids living in conditions where they are more likely to become infected. So while it appears in-person compares favorably to remote schooling, what is really going on is you see the effects of comparing a disproportionately wealthy population to a disproportionately poor one. The outcome has more to do with the risk profiles the groups you are comparing, not whether they attend in-person or remote.
I think you may be on to something. In Israel schools were indeed a severe factor in community transmission, so the idea that children don’t transmit the disease can’t be accurate.
Locally in Memphis, they are claiming schools are not a risk but school sports are a major factor. However, over 65% of our cases, the contact tracing fails to identify where it came from, so how do they know enough about anything to even make remarks like that? Clearly they are missing something when more than half of cases come who knows where.
Thanks, I didn't know what that number was, but it's what I always wonder about when some institution (like gyms or restaurants) claim they haven't had any COVID transmissions at their business/facility. I always think, "not that you know about."
It's much easier to trace transmissions to households, coworkers, or events like weddings and funerals, where you know who was exposed to whom. If you pick it up from a stranger on public transportation, in a bar/restaurant/gym or from an asymptomatic child who brings it home from school where they got it from another asymptomatic child who got it from an adult in their household with a mild case who never got tested and convinced themself it was just a cold or an allergy so they could continue sending their kid to school ... well, those would be the transmissions I would expect to fall into the 65%.
What our county CT has encountered is people unwilling to cooperate. They won’t give information about where they’ve been or who they’ve seen. Makes it really difficult to limit spread.
On campus, the students have to cooperate. And they’ve been really good about following policies and working with the tracers.
On topic of college tracing, one daughter lives in a very small off campus apartment (1 bathroom) with 3 other girls and across the hall from another 4 girls. They lived together last year, and the 8 consider themselves a single living group. They have been in the habit of coordinating their testing. After exposure to another living group, one of the 8 woke with a fever and tested positive. The college health center contact traced the other 7 and administered PCR tests within 3 hours. The results took another hour or so. By that time, the remaining girls were already isolating and had had rapid tests, but it was nonetheless reassuringly fast action.
All the other roommates have tested negative.... except for one. That one had covid in May and received 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in early December (Mass General nurse, first dose was I think on first day vaccine was approved for public). She nonetheless is now testing positive (PCR). Again. Thankfully, she is completely asymptomatic. Not sure if it suggests anything about the vaccine being protective vs. sterilizing, but it is an unusual data point.
Do PCR test actually test for the presence of the virus, or do they test for antibodies? If the latter, could it just be detecting the immune response from the vaccine?
It detects for the virus. And the virus needs to be at levels which can be detected. I’m testing twice a week and my labs always come back “no virus detected” not “negative.”
I don’t know if the PCR tests can also be used for antibodies. Ours aren’t. We’re also doing saliva tests now. Don’t know about that one for antibodies, either. I always thought it was a separate test. I could definitely be wrong! 😃3 -
rheddmobile wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I also can't see why schools are not considered to be a risk. My assumption is that it is because most children do not get severe illness. This idea ignores teachers and support staff, family members of those teachers and support staff, and family members of students who bring it home after catching from a fellow student. How is that not a concern?!
Agree with all you have said. I'll take a stab at how schools are not considered a risk (although I personally do not agree with that conclusion).
My hypothesis starts with the assumption that the school transmission data available is skewed by disproportionate representation by private schools, I.e.:- more school resources
- less classroom crowding
- vastly fewer special needs kids that might have distancing difficulty or require close contact
- ability to immediately expel/suspend kids who don't follow rules
- comparatively wealthy student body, where wealth correlates inversely to probability of infection (more likely to WFH, less likely to need public transportation or have public facing jobs, less dense living circumstances so better able to isolate within the home)
Hence, in-person school data is overrepresented by kids less likely to show up at school infected. Remote schooling data overrepresented by kids living in conditions where they are more likely to become infected. So while it appears in-person compares favorably to remote schooling, what is really going on is you see the effects of comparing a disproportionately wealthy population to a disproportionately poor one. The outcome has more to do with the risk profiles the groups you are comparing, not whether they attend in-person or remote.
I think you may be on to something. In Israel schools were indeed a severe factor in community transmission, so the idea that children don’t transmit the disease can’t be accurate.
Locally in Memphis, they are claiming schools are not a risk but school sports are a major factor. However, over 65% of our cases, the contact tracing fails to identify where it came from, so how do they know enough about anything to even make remarks like that? Clearly they are missing something when more than half of cases come who knows where.
Thanks, I didn't know what that number was, but it's what I always wonder about when some institution (like gyms or restaurants) claim they haven't had any COVID transmissions at their business/facility. I always think, "not that you know about."
It's much easier to trace transmissions to households, coworkers, or events like weddings and funerals, where you know who was exposed to whom. If you pick it up from a stranger on public transportation, in a bar/restaurant/gym or from an asymptomatic child who brings it home from school where they got it from another asymptomatic child who got it from an adult in their household with a mild case who never got tested and convinced themself it was just a cold or an allergy so they could continue sending their kid to school ... well, those would be the transmissions I would expect to fall into the 65%.
What our county CT has encountered is people unwilling to cooperate. They won’t give information about where they’ve been or who they’ve seen. Makes it really difficult to limit spread.
On campus, the students have to cooperate. And they’ve been really good about following policies and working with the tracers.
On topic of college tracing, one daughter lives in a very small off campus apartment (1 bathroom) with 3 other girls and across the hall from another 4 girls. They lived together last year, and the 8 consider themselves a single living group. They have been in the habit of coordinating their testing. After exposure to another living group, one of the 8 woke with a fever and tested positive. The college health center contact traced the other 7 and administered PCR tests within 3 hours. The results took another hour or so. By that time, the remaining girls were already isolating and had had rapid tests, but it was nonetheless reassuringly fast action.
All the other roommates have tested negative.... except for one. That one had covid in May and received 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in early December (Mass General nurse, first dose was I think on first day vaccine was approved for public). She nonetheless is now testing positive (PCR). Again. Thankfully, she is completely asymptomatic. Not sure if it suggests anything about the vaccine being protective vs. sterilizing, but it is an unusual data point.
Do PCR test actually test for the presence of the virus, or do they test for antibodies? If the latter, could it just be detecting the immune response from the vaccine?
PCR detects rna, not antibodies. I looked this up, and a positive PCR without new symptoms within 90 days of initial infection is more likely to be ongoing shedding of rna from the first infection than a new infection. This RNA is not considered to be “replication competent”, in other words it’s busted bits of dead virus, and doesn’t cause disease.
We don’t retest cleared positive people until 90 days have passed for that reason.4 -
I was listening to TWIV, and they are not sure the British and South African variants are as worrisome as the press is suggesting.
They said there is now evidence the British variant has been in the US since November, and we didn't realize because we simply aren't tracing and sequencing the virus as much as other countries. And even though that means it has been here for 2-3 months, it is still a relatively small portion of our cases, so is clearly not spreading unusually quickly here. They noted this variant was sequenced and spreading quickly in Britain around the same time that compliance with safety regulations was plummeting, so the increased spread was quite possibly from behavior, not the variant.
As far as the South African variant, they said it is too early to tell whether the variant is what is causing the lower success percentage of the vaccines. It's important to remember that different populations have different immune health, stuff like poor quality diet, parasitic infections, genetic differences affect how responsive a persons immune system is. For example, countries with tropical climates have more people with chronic parasitic infections, and over time that can take your immune strength down a peg. South Africa has a higher per capita percentage of people who are HIV positive than other developed countries, and if a higher percentage of trial participants were HIV positive that would reduce the efficacy of the vaccines in their studies. And they reminded that even if the current vaccines have the lower percentage success with the SA variant, they will still dramatically slow the spread and the mRNA vaccines could be able to be updated within a couple of months to correct the weakness.
My brother's in-laws got the call from the health dept and got there first shot. I'm hopeful that means my parents will get the call sooner rather than later, though it took them a week or so to get online and register.
I got a packet in the mail that my county has made safety improvements to the courthouse, so they are resuming trial juries in March and I am in the pool for March for grand jury duty. Not thrilled about that.10 -
Personally, I found this rather appalling as the term “essential employee” has been left open to interpretation. That and the shifting directions on who to vaccinate.
https://apple.news/ApkRhyC0dRLKdXs-4jrDVog2 -
Just a pessimistic note on the British variant. It was first identified in September in Kent and the surge came four months later in January. This is why there are cautionary watches on March for the US.3
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Personally, I found this rather appalling as the term “essential employee” has been left open to interpretation. That and the shifting directions on who to vaccinate.
https://apple.news/ApkRhyC0dRLKdXs-4jrDVog
That's vile. 👎1 -
@MikePfirrman Prayers for your brother. I hope that he recovers quickly and regains good healthy.7
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rheddmobile wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I also can't see why schools are not considered to be a risk. My assumption is that it is because most children do not get severe illness. This idea ignores teachers and support staff, family members of those teachers and support staff, and family members of students who bring it home after catching from a fellow student. How is that not a concern?!
Agree with all you have said. I'll take a stab at how schools are not considered a risk (although I personally do not agree with that conclusion).
My hypothesis starts with the assumption that the school transmission data available is skewed by disproportionate representation by private schools, I.e.:- more school resources
- less classroom crowding
- vastly fewer special needs kids that might have distancing difficulty or require close contact
- ability to immediately expel/suspend kids who don't follow rules
- comparatively wealthy student body, where wealth correlates inversely to probability of infection (more likely to WFH, less likely to need public transportation or have public facing jobs, less dense living circumstances so better able to isolate within the home)
Hence, in-person school data is overrepresented by kids less likely to show up at school infected. Remote schooling data overrepresented by kids living in conditions where they are more likely to become infected. So while it appears in-person compares favorably to remote schooling, what is really going on is you see the effects of comparing a disproportionately wealthy population to a disproportionately poor one. The outcome has more to do with the risk profiles the groups you are comparing, not whether they attend in-person or remote.
I think you may be on to something. In Israel schools were indeed a severe factor in community transmission, so the idea that children don’t transmit the disease can’t be accurate.
Locally in Memphis, they are claiming schools are not a risk but school sports are a major factor. However, over 65% of our cases, the contact tracing fails to identify where it came from, so how do they know enough about anything to even make remarks like that? Clearly they are missing something when more than half of cases come who knows where.
Thanks, I didn't know what that number was, but it's what I always wonder about when some institution (like gyms or restaurants) claim they haven't had any COVID transmissions at their business/facility. I always think, "not that you know about."
It's much easier to trace transmissions to households, coworkers, or events like weddings and funerals, where you know who was exposed to whom. If you pick it up from a stranger on public transportation, in a bar/restaurant/gym or from an asymptomatic child who brings it home from school where they got it from another asymptomatic child who got it from an adult in their household with a mild case who never got tested and convinced themself it was just a cold or an allergy so they could continue sending their kid to school ... well, those would be the transmissions I would expect to fall into the 65%.
What our county CT has encountered is people unwilling to cooperate. They won’t give information about where they’ve been or who they’ve seen. Makes it really difficult to limit spread.
On campus, the students have to cooperate. And they’ve been really good about following policies and working with the tracers.
On topic of college tracing, one daughter lives in a very small off campus apartment (1 bathroom) with 3 other girls and across the hall from another 4 girls. They lived together last year, and the 8 consider themselves a single living group. They have been in the habit of coordinating their testing. After exposure to another living group, one of the 8 woke with a fever and tested positive. The college health center contact traced the other 7 and administered PCR tests within 3 hours. The results took another hour or so. By that time, the remaining girls were already isolating and had had rapid tests, but it was nonetheless reassuringly fast action.
All the other roommates have tested negative.... except for one. That one had covid in May and received 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in early December (Mass General nurse, first dose was I think on first day vaccine was approved for public). She nonetheless is now testing positive (PCR). Again. Thankfully, she is completely asymptomatic. Not sure if it suggests anything about the vaccine being protective vs. sterilizing, but it is an unusual data point.
Do PCR test actually test for the presence of the virus, or do they test for antibodies? If the latter, could it just be detecting the immune response from the vaccine?
PCR detects rna, not antibodies. I looked this up, and a positive PCR without new symptoms within 90 days of initial infection is more likely to be ongoing shedding of rna from the first infection than a new infection. This RNA is not considered to be “replication competent”, in other words it’s busted bits of dead virus, and doesn’t cause disease.
Thanks for the info.0 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I also can't see why schools are not considered to be a risk. My assumption is that it is because most children do not get severe illness. This idea ignores teachers and support staff, family members of those teachers and support staff, and family members of students who bring it home after catching from a fellow student. How is that not a concern?!
Agree with all you have said. I'll take a stab at how schools are not considered a risk (although I personally do not agree with that conclusion).
My hypothesis starts with the assumption that the school transmission data available is skewed by disproportionate representation by private schools, I.e.:- more school resources
- less classroom crowding
- vastly fewer special needs kids that might have distancing difficulty or require close contact
- ability to immediately expel/suspend kids who don't follow rules
- comparatively wealthy student body, where wealth correlates inversely to probability of infection (more likely to WFH, less likely to need public transportation or have public facing jobs, less dense living circumstances so better able to isolate within the home)
Hence, in-person school data is overrepresented by kids less likely to show up at school infected. Remote schooling data overrepresented by kids living in conditions where they are more likely to become infected. So while it appears in-person compares favorably to remote schooling, what is really going on is you see the effects of comparing a disproportionately wealthy population to a disproportionately poor one. The outcome has more to do with the risk profiles the groups you are comparing, not whether they attend in-person or remote.
I think you may be on to something. In Israel schools were indeed a severe factor in community transmission, so the idea that children don’t transmit the disease can’t be accurate.
Locally in Memphis, they are claiming schools are not a risk but school sports are a major factor. However, over 65% of our cases, the contact tracing fails to identify where it came from, so how do they know enough about anything to even make remarks like that? Clearly they are missing something when more than half of cases come who knows where.
Thanks, I didn't know what that number was, but it's what I always wonder about when some institution (like gyms or restaurants) claim they haven't had any COVID transmissions at their business/facility. I always think, "not that you know about."
It's much easier to trace transmissions to households, coworkers, or events like weddings and funerals, where you know who was exposed to whom. If you pick it up from a stranger on public transportation, in a bar/restaurant/gym or from an asymptomatic child who brings it home from school where they got it from another asymptomatic child who got it from an adult in their household with a mild case who never got tested and convinced themself it was just a cold or an allergy so they could continue sending their kid to school ... well, those would be the transmissions I would expect to fall into the 65%.
What our county CT has encountered is people unwilling to cooperate. They won’t give information about where they’ve been or who they’ve seen. Makes it really difficult to limit spread.
On campus, the students have to cooperate. And they’ve been really good about following policies and working with the tracers.
On topic of college tracing, one daughter lives in a very small off campus apartment (1 bathroom) with 3 other girls and across the hall from another 4 girls. They lived together last year, and the 8 consider themselves a single living group. They have been in the habit of coordinating their testing. After exposure to another living group, one of the 8 woke with a fever and tested positive. The college health center contact traced the other 7 and administered PCR tests within 3 hours. The results took another hour or so. By that time, the remaining girls were already isolating and had had rapid tests, but it was nonetheless reassuringly fast action.
All the other roommates have tested negative.... except for one. That one had covid in May and received 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in early December (Mass General nurse, first dose was I think on first day vaccine was approved for public). She nonetheless is now testing positive (PCR). Again. Thankfully, she is completely asymptomatic. Not sure if it suggests anything about the vaccine being protective vs. sterilizing, but it is an unusual data point.
Do PCR test actually test for the presence of the virus, or do they test for antibodies? If the latter, could it just be detecting the immune response from the vaccine?
It detects for the virus. And the virus needs to be at levels which can be detected. I’m testing twice a week and my labs always come back “no virus detected” not “negative.”
I don’t know if the PCR tests can also be used for antibodies. Ours aren’t. We’re also doing saliva tests now. Don’t know about that one for antibodies, either. I always thought it was a separate test. I could definitely be wrong! 😃
Not covid-specific, but in many cases the medical tests for some disease/infection/condition is actually testing for the immune response, not for the disease itself. I can't think of specific examples, but I know I've heard of cases where such testing yielded false negative results because of an undiagnosed immuno-compromised individual. Of course, the question is whether I heard that on a medical drama like "House" or in an account of a real-world event.
Anyway, that was why I asked. Nothing specific to covid.0 -
Personally, I found this rather appalling as the term “essential employee” has been left open to interpretation. That and the shifting directions on who to vaccinate.
https://apple.news/ApkRhyC0dRLKdXs-4jrDVog
Yeah, when you consider that places that were so lax in their hiring and vaccine-handling oversight that they allowed hundreds of doses to be destroyed by their employees continued to receive vaccines, this seems like a crazy enforcement policy (yes, I know that was Wisconsin and Florida, not Georgia, but it still seems absurdly inconsistent)
Even the DPH official they interview admits it wasn't deliberate, while trying to use weasel words to imply it was deliberate. "almost a deliberate manner." So, almost. Meaning not actually.
4 -
Personally, I found this rather appalling as the term “essential employee” has been left open to interpretation. That and the shifting directions on who to vaccinate.
https://apple.news/ApkRhyC0dRLKdXs-4jrDVog
Yeah but I also don't really agree with the consensus that teachers should be on the first priority list. I don't know why say a 32 year old teacher is a higher priority than a 62 year old factory worker, or postal sorter, or delivery person. I really think that they should be prioritizing by age and health, and not occupation (besides health care I guess where they are directly exposed to high doses.) Especially since people in those occupations are more likely to be members of low income vulnerable communities, which have been hit particularly hard.
It must be hard though to have to make those calls, because no matter who is left to the end you know at least someone in that group is going to die. There is also a mask mandate here so any teacher and all of their students are masked the same as every other workplace where you can't distance.7 -
A friend sent this to me for my brother. I'm not sure if my SIL will do it but I'm pushing her to. My brother can't be beyond 10 days symptomatic in order to qualify. He does qualify on all the rest of the criteria. This is the same antibody cocktail that Trump received. The only cost, assuming you qualify, is from the hospital -- but not for the drug. I had no idea this was available until a friend of mine told me that his high risk brother got it.
https://combatcovid.hhs.gov/i-have-covid-19-now/monoclonal-antibodies-high-risk-covid-19-positive-patients?fbclid=IwAR1KX492pGJxg2p07_bA_N_1oHtHQBxxTsX0eo4mj5cL_tlJFlOne5qjhEo8 -
Personally, I found this rather appalling as the term “essential employee” has been left open to interpretation. That and the shifting directions on who to vaccinate.
https://apple.news/ApkRhyC0dRLKdXs-4jrDVog
Yeah but I also don't really agree with the consensus that teachers should be on the first priority list. I don't know why say a 32 year old teacher is a higher priority than a 62 year old factory worker, or postal sorter, or delivery person. I really think that they should be prioritizing by age and health, and not occupation (besides health care I guess where they are directly exposed to high doses.) Especially since people in those occupations are more likely to be members of low income vulnerable communities, which have been hit particularly hard.
It must be hard though to have to make those calls, because no matter who is left to the end you know at least someone in that group is going to die. There is also a mask mandate here so any teacher and all of their students are masked the same as every other workplace where you can't distance.
I kind of agree with this. Particularly the people that have been working on site, not virtually, the whole time. Grocery stores, Target, Wal-Mart, pharmacies, etc, and of course front line health care workers. My husband is an essential worker who’s been working the whole time. Late 60’s, cancer survivor that currently has a very slow growing cancer at the site of the previous cancer that is not treatable. They are monitoring it every three months for changes. It’s kind of hard to understand why teachers are given priority over any other essential workers, many of whom could be exposed daily for this past year.17 -
Personally, I found this rather appalling as the term “essential employee” has been left open to interpretation. That and the shifting directions on who to vaccinate.
https://apple.news/ApkRhyC0dRLKdXs-4jrDVog
Yeah but I also don't really agree with the consensus that teachers should be on the first priority list. I don't know why say a 32 year old teacher is a higher priority than a 62 year old factory worker, or postal sorter, or delivery person. I really think that they should be prioritizing by age and health, and not occupation (besides health care I guess where they are directly exposed to high doses.) Especially since people in those occupations are more likely to be members of low income vulnerable communities, which have been hit particularly hard.
It must be hard though to have to make those calls, because no matter who is left to the end you know at least someone in that group is going to die. There is also a mask mandate here so any teacher and all of their students are masked the same as every other workplace where you can't distance.
I'll throw in my $0.02 as the spouse of an educator and an employee of a manufacturing firm (although I work in the office, I have been in 10+ of our manufacturing facilities as well as those of other companies).
In a school you have much closer contact than any manufacturing facility I have been in. In the factory my current office is attached to there are few if any workstations where people are closer that 15 feet or so to each other (large parts). If they are closer together there is generally less movement and plexiglass between workers, along with masks, is a practical solution. Most manufacturing faculties have very good ventilation due to the fact many are not air conditioned and/or to remove smells/contaminants from the manufacturing process.
Regarding masks. A manufacturing, retail worker, etc. can be told to wear masks or face dismissal. Sure kids are told to wear masks, but remember there are "normal" kids teachers have to tell to keep their fingers our of their noses on a regular basis, not to mention what the behavior disordered/special needs kids do. Good luck keeping masks on properly.
So bottom line, IMO, teachers generally have a better chance of being in close contact (15 minutes of exposure, less than 6ft distance) than the other occupations mentioned.
Again just by $0.02 from having some first hand and close second hand knowledge of the environments mentioned.11 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »Personally, I found this rather appalling as the term “essential employee” has been left open to interpretation. That and the shifting directions on who to vaccinate.
https://apple.news/ApkRhyC0dRLKdXs-4jrDVog
Yeah but I also don't really agree with the consensus that teachers should be on the first priority list. I don't know why say a 32 year old teacher is a higher priority than a 62 year old factory worker, or postal sorter, or delivery person. I really think that they should be prioritizing by age and health, and not occupation (besides health care I guess where they are directly exposed to high doses.) Especially since people in those occupations are more likely to be members of low income vulnerable communities, which have been hit particularly hard.
It must be hard though to have to make those calls, because no matter who is left to the end you know at least someone in that group is going to die. There is also a mask mandate here so any teacher and all of their students are masked the same as every other workplace where you can't distance.
I'll throw in my $0.02 as the spouse of an educator and an employee of a manufacturing firm (although I work in the office, I have been in 10+ of our manufacturing facilities as well as those of other companies).
In a school you have much closer contact than any manufacturing facility I have been in. In the factory my current office is attached to there are few if any workstations where people are closer that 15 feet or so to each other (large parts). If they are closer together there is generally less movement and plexiglass between workers, along with masks, is a practical solution. Most manufacturing faculties have very good ventilation due to the fact many are not air conditioned and/or to remove smells/contaminants from the manufacturing process.
Regarding masks. A manufacturing, retail worker, etc. can be told to wear masks or face dismissal. Sure kids are told to wear masks, but remember there are "normal" kids teachers have to tell to keep their fingers our of their noses on a regular basis, not to mention what the behavior disordered/special needs kids do. Good luck keeping masks on properly.
So bottom line, IMO, teachers generally have a better chance of being in close contact (15 minutes of exposure, less than 6ft distance) than the other occupations mentioned.
Again just by $0.02 from having some first hand and close second hand knowledge of the environments mentioned.
Fair enough. We have had huge outbreaks in the Amazon facility, and the postal facility here. Like hundreds of cases, with several deaths. I have yet to hear of a large outbreak in a school, or any deaths of teachers in my area. We do have a hybrid model going on here in schools where kids are divided into cohorts and alternate days in class and online, and can opt out of in person and do online exclusively if they prefer. So perhaps the distancing is better here (<<I don't have kids in school so I can't confirm the exact situation - just what I hear on the news). I don't see why kids can't be taught to wear masks, you have a point about special needs kids, that would be an issue. But any worker who has contact with the general public or multiple co-workers is also at the mercy of those people's adherence to protocols. And school children are probably a lot easier to "manage" in that regard than "covid deniers" who think it isn't that bad and their personal "freedom" to cough all over you, or have a NYE party during the stay at home order (<<my coworker) is being infringed upon.
It's a *kitten* decision to have to make all around and everyone will have their opinion about who should be "first in line". At the end of the day I guess every person who gets vaccinated is one step closer to the end of this nightmare, regardless of who they are.6 -
MikePfirrman wrote: »A friend sent this to me for my brother. I'm not sure if my SIL will do it but I'm pushing her to. My brother can't be beyond 10 days symptomatic in order to qualify. He does qualify on all the rest of the criteria. This is the same antibody cocktail that Trump received. The only cost, assuming you qualify, is from the hospital -- but not for the drug. I had no idea this was available until a friend of mine told me that his high risk brother got it.
https://combatcovid.hhs.gov/i-have-covid-19-now/monoclonal-antibodies-high-risk-covid-19-positive-patients?fbclid=IwAR1KX492pGJxg2p07_bA_N_1oHtHQBxxTsX0eo4mj5cL_tlJFlOne5qjhEo
This is on the News in Italy today. We will be producing this cocktail to use against COVID.4 -
MikePfirrman wrote: »A friend sent this to me for my brother. I'm not sure if my SIL will do it but I'm pushing her to. My brother can't be beyond 10 days symptomatic in order to qualify. He does qualify on all the rest of the criteria. This is the same antibody cocktail that Trump received. The only cost, assuming you qualify, is from the hospital -- but not for the drug. I had no idea this was available until a friend of mine told me that his high risk brother got it.
https://combatcovid.hhs.gov/i-have-covid-19-now/monoclonal-antibodies-high-risk-covid-19-positive-patients?fbclid=IwAR1KX492pGJxg2p07_bA_N_1oHtHQBxxTsX0eo4mj5cL_tlJFlOne5qjhEo
Local news reports here recently that the supply of monoclonal antibody doses is high (a stockpile), but the uptake very low.
There seem to be multiple problems: It apparently does the most good early (before many people seek health care, let alone hospitalization), people don't know about it or know it's available or know how to get it, and other such communications/logistics stuff.7 -
Dr. Oz (I know people think he's a quack) was talking about those monoclonal antibodies the other day and he said everyone should try to get them if they have Covid, especially if they meet the qualifications.2
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