I have read both your posts on the prayer thread and in this covid thread and I feel your anguish. The boards actions are blatant, willful, disregard for human life. The most vulnerable human life, who not only have no option for a vaccination but now have no universal mask wearing as a protection either. The most precious of human life. The lives you so dearly love and want to protect.
I have written what feels like emotional novels while documenting some of what my daughter, who is an elementary school music teacher, has gone through during the 1.5 years of teaching during covid. She is currently wading through these dark times with insane edicts from a governor in Texas, and a "freedom" loving school district. She was even REQUIRED to attend a mandatory back to school district pep rally in a gym filled with teacher and staff and no mandatory masks. Less than 5% of the staff wore them, she was in the minority. Think Trump rally without the anger or vitriol.
I was shaken to my core when I saw it. The district actually posted a video of it on Facebook, proud of how they were preparing for the the new year. . It angered my daughter, to be required to be there. I was stunned. Pissed off, for her and every single one of her students, all 609, because I knew it would likely be a super spreader situation.
Here is the current situation at her school which has been in session for 7 days. There are 7 documented cases of covid at her school and 114 in the district, 92 of which are students. These are official covid documented cases. There are other cases that are presumptive which are not on the district covid dashboard. In many cases if one student gets covid and a sibling later gets symptoms, the parent choses not get them tested, assuming they are also sick with the virus. These are not counted in the covid dashboard count and there is no category for presumptive cases. A neighboring district does have a presumptive dashboard in addition to the documented covid dashboard and it has about 2 times larger numbers than the documented one.
I am lovingly suggesting you consider all options before making a decision. Perhaps you can homeschool and monitor how things go in your district, returning them when the time is right. Just because they start on Monday, doesn't mean this needs to be your start date. Perhaps some of the concerned parents and you could form a homeschool co-op with strict mask requirements? Stranger things have happened. Wonderful new things happen when we are faced with challenges. Perhaps neighboring districts with mask mandates will allow you to transfer to their district regardless of where you live. They allow this in my state of AZ. Perhaps you can homeschool on your own for a month or 2 or 3 and then transition them back when a vaccination is approved.
Get creative. This is uncharted territory. Make your own rules for what will work best for your family. Ask yourself if giving yourself more time is the answer and see what your body tells you. Ask about the other possible options and see how it reacts.
Trust your response.
I am wrapping you and your children in a blanket of love and will continue to keep all of you in my prayers. I will pray that you figure out a solution you are comfortable with, even if it is just temporary until something else can be worked out. I will pray that good health, strength, peace and love fill you. That angels protect and guide you all.
You are not alone. We love and care about you and will continue to offer any support possible.
I feel so frustrated on your behalf. I went rogue just now and wrote an email (the likes of which I have never before written) to Gov. DeSantis of FL. Jeanne advises against negativity so I tried not to go too low but I am not sure I succeeded.
I have no illusions about affecting him but I hope whatever lowly staffer reads it pauses and reflects. I pride myself on self control so this was out of my usual lane. I read that he is Catholic so I used that frame. Here is what I wrote:
Hi, here are some articles on Covid in Children which may or may not help with your decisions regarding sending your kids to school.
https://raisingchildren.net.au/guides/a-z-health-reference/coronavirus-and-children-in-australia
https://www.mcri.edu.au/covid-19/FAQ
How many kids have been infected so far?
There have been no recorded COVID-19 associated deaths in children under 19 years of age in Australia. Positive cases of COVID-19 recorded for children in Australia include: 2,877 children aged 0-9 years of age and 4,220 children aged 10-19 (as of 17/08/21). Infants, children and young people are proportionally less likely to be infected than adults. However, in countries that have seen large percentages of the population infected, a corresponding large number of children have also been infected and become unwell. For the latest COVID data please refer to health.gov.au.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w
Deaths from COVID ‘incredibly rare’ among children
Studies find that overall risk of death or severe disease from COVID-19 is very low in kids.
A comprehensive analysis of hospital admissions and reported deaths across England suggests that COVID-19 carries a lower risk of dying or requiring intensive care among children and young people than was previously thought.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57766717
The overall risk of children becoming severely ill or dying from Covid is extremely low, a new analysis of Covid infection data confirms.
Data from the first 12 months of the pandemic in England shows 25 under-18s died from Covid.
Those living with multiple chronic illnesses and neuro-disabilities were most at risk, though the overall risk remained low.
The conclusions are being considered by the UK's vaccine advisory group.
This article is from 5 months ago
https://www.longcovidkids.org/
This is about children in poorer countries
But among those requiring lifesaving care in countries still being ravaged by the virus including India, Brazil and Indonesia are children. So why is Covid-19 infecting and affecting children so severely in some countries but not in others, to the point where some countries may forgo vaccinating children for the time being ?
While more research is needed, Marinho says there are several factors playing a role. One is that diagnosis of
Covid-19 in children is coming too late, when children are already severely unwell and treatment is more difficult.
“There is a culture of ‘there is no risk for children’, so physicians don’t think in terms of Covid-19,” she says.
“As well as low access to timely healthcare, there is also poverty and inequalities, and people living in areas and houses with difficulty in social distancing. In poor houses, there are more than four people per room.”
Social distancing outside the home is also difficult, she says. “Members of the family must go out every day for work or searching for a job,” Marinho says. “New Sars-CoV-2 variants also have a higher viral load compared to other variants.” This means people are also more infectious.
“Brazil needs more tests for Covid-19, without testing and tracking cases and controls, the virus cannot be controlled and will continue spreading around the country,” she says. “The risk is new mutations.”
In Indonesia, the Indonesian Paediatrician Association (IDAI) said official figures that suggest 28 children have died from Covid are an underestimate, and the number is closer to 160. The ADAI chairman, Dr Aman B Pulungan, told the ABC in June, “It proves that it is not true that the under-18 age bracket is not susceptible to Covid-19”.
In India, not only have children been left orphaned due to the high Covid-19 death rate, but the devastating second wave is seeing more children infected. While child mortality is still low overall, they are being hit more severely.
paediatric pulmonologist working in Bangalore, Dr Srikanta JT, says during the previous wave of Covid there might be one child a week with Covid.
“But according to data from most [health] centres in India and our own data collated over [the] last few months, the second wave seems to be impacting children quite significantly with numbers gradually increasing, with almost 12 to 15 positive cases a day,” he tells Guardian Australia. These include young children and adolescents.
An american article
Coronavirus cases among children are rising at a time when the highly infectious delta variant is advancing across the United States at a rapid clip.
New state-level data analyzed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association shows that children accounted for roughly 15% of all newly reported COVID-19 cases across the nation for the week ending on Aug. 5.
Nearly 94,000 child cases of COVID-19 were recorded during that period, a 31% increase over the roughly 72,000 cases reported a week earlier. In the week before then, there were 39,000 new child cases.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association said that new coronavirus cases in children have been increasing since July after a period of decline in the early summer.
"This virus is really tracking the unvaccinated," said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases at Stanford University. "Because children under 12 are not able to be vaccinated, we're just seeing the same increase in infections in that group because [the delta variant] is so infectious."
Parents are searching for answers
One big question for parents — whether delta is making kids sicker than previous strains — still has no clear answer.
But the numbers appear to show that severe illness, hospitalization and death are rare in children infected with the coronavirus.
In states where data was available, less than 2% of all child COVID-19 cases required hospitalization and 0.00% to 0.03% were fatal.
"I'm not seeing any patterns that suggest the virus is more virulent or more serious or more severe in children than it was before this variant appeared," Maldonado added.
Regards to all
@raincloud Ha ha ha! I loved your letter. I was day dreaming the other day that he would run into that women who yelled at his predecessor Rick Scott when Scott wandered into a Starbucks one day with his staff: Woman-calls-governor-an-ass-hole-at-Starbucks.
One child death from covid is too many, if masks could have prevented it.
The data is still pouring in on the Delta variant, but it does show kids getting it and though rare, kids have died from it. And while kid deaths are rare so far, if they are unmasked, they can bring it home to more vulnerable parents and elderly.
https://www.popsugar.com/family/is-covid-delta-variant-more-dangerous-for-kids-48478237
From this article:
Of course, children have been susceptible to COVID all along: more than 4.5 million children have been diagnosed with it up until now, which accounts for 14.6 percent of all cases, according to the latest data from the American Academy of Pediatrics. However, the AAP also documented 180,000 new cases of COVID infections among children in the past week alone, totaling more than 22 percent of all weekly cases. Considering that an early-summer decline led to just 38,000 cases the third week of July, that's a four-fold increase in the span of a month. Although children are much less likely than adults to develop severe COVID-19 or die from the virus, these numbers are on a startling, exponential upswing.
"This may be the most dangerous time during the pandemic so far for our children," Dr. Diego Hijano, a pediatric infectious disease expert at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Yet despite a dramatic surge in cases, medical professionals can't point to any hard evidence that the Delta variant is actually more dangerous for kids. Hijano, who specializes in infectious diseases in children and conducts research into the spread of respiratory viruses among pediatric populations, dissects what we know – and what we might never understand – about the new coronavirus strain that is reaching more kids than ever before.
I was day dreaming the other day that he would run into that women who yelled at his predecessor Rick Scott when Scott wandered into a Starbucks one day with his staff: Woman-calls-governor-an-ass-hole-at-Starbucks.
I can do it if she's not available. That Starbucks is not far from my house.
@ana that’s great. Start practicing! It will be therapeutic. And maybe DeSantis will hear you in his mind.
Our dear friend, who is also a pediatrician, said that pediatric ICUs all over the US are full. I have not read any articles that substantiate that assertion but he is not an alarmist. My sparkling, bright, mischievous 5 year-old granddaughter starts public kindergarten in two weeks; it is hard to be sanguine.
New and concerning news for the south.
Several hospitals in Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Louisiana are struggling with oxygen scarcity. Some are at risk of having to use their emergency reserve supply or risk running out of oxygen imminently, according to state health officials and hospital consultants.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/29/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html
School board meetings all over around here are having these vitriolic, ignorant wars over masking, even while our numbers shoot back up and people care less than ever. Thankfully, the local district changed it's earlier "recommended masking" ruling to "required masking" for elementary and middle school. Sadly, I foresee the high school numbers going crazy within the first couple of weeks of the term.
So thankful that my daughter is at a charter school that is requiring masking, has fewer than 500 students, and is nearly fully vaccinated, based on anonymous family surveys.
I understand, in my head, why there a fight. I will never understand, in my soul, how we got here, and how people have become so cruel and malleable.