Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk • Hacker News Board

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#131

Post by hellofunk » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #118

nickysielicki wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In spite of the common idea that schools and young children are germ factories that make adults sick, there's a recent article from the American Academy of Pediatrics that shows children are very rarely the index case for COVID. It's much more likely that she would give it to them, than that they would give it to her. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2020/07...

"Children aren't typically the family index case during lockdown" doesn't really tell us much about non-lockdown spread.

But all the evidence from European countries tells us a lot about non-lockdown spread following a proper lockdown.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#132

Post by hellofunk » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

steve76 wrote: post #91

hellofunk wrote: post #40

Well it is definitely true that having schools fully open does not contribute to much greater risk if the community already has the virus under control as this has been widely demonstrated by many European countries where infection rates continued to decrease, hospitalizations and deaths decreased, even as schools fully opened. But in those countries, they actually did the responsible thing and had a full uncompromis…

Today the same people saying we messed up the lock down cheered a mob which just burnt down the city.

I don’t see anyone out there with widespread praise of the violence you are talking about.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#133

Post by yboris » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

A protest sign I saw is an apt response to the situation:

"Why should we go to school if you won't listen to the educated?"

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#134

Post by sixothree » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #82

leetrout wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong statement: dumb kids are better than dead kids.

There are 74 million children CDC says that 1.7% of COVID cases belong to children. [2] Among children, CDC says 1.8% of cases required hospitalization. [2] >>> 74000000*0.017*0.018 A dumb kid is better than a dead kid, I agree. But are 74M dumber kids worth less than 25000 ICU visits in the entire country? [1]: https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/number-of-children [2]: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm69…

There are plenty of examples of distance learning working well. Assuming it is a failure seems willfully blind to me.

This spring we rushed into something unexpected. We've had time to improve. But it seems that instead of focusing on improvements people are focused on their agenda.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#135

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

Teachers' unions are among the most powerful unions left in the country. If there ever was a time for them to flex that power, it's now: In the middle of a raging worldwide pandemic, they are actually being asked to risk dying for their jobs and risk having their classrooms turn into petri dishes sending infected children back to infect their families. If that's not enough to motivate collective action, what is?

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#136

Post by yboris » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

doopy-loopy2 wrote: post #34

leetrout wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong statement: dumb kids are better than dead kids.

Deaths in children are essentially 0

Children are some of the best disease vectors. In many schools, they easily come in contact with 100 other children.

When the child is sick with a disease, they bring it home. Now the parents are exposed.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#137

Post by hysan » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

leetrout wrote: post #124

hysan wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if they didn’t, they’d get pushback from teachers unions demanding schools provide masks (and soap, sanitizer, etc.). What most of America does not realize is how little money American schools on average spend on school supplies. Most teachers pay out of pocket for the majority of school supplies (on top of their already low pay). So as with most things that make no sense, it’s enforceable because there are p…

My wife is a teacher so I understand the situation intimately. I do not see how saying "no one is allowed to wear as mask" as a policy is OK when someone can provider their own PPE.

I get it too. I used to teach, albeit in a different country. Several of my aunts, uncles, and cousins are teachers too. My answer was more geared towards everyone else who had the same question you had but can't see how upper management would logically justify such a response.

The crux of your question, though, is an ethical one and I think everyone knows the answer - it's not OK.

Sadly, money often trumps ethics in America and my response was an explanation as to why that happens. You will also see the very same people trot out ethics as justification for their actions when it benefits them (case in point, one reason for re-opening schools).

Your comment and question is a great one that everyone should be wondering. The next step is to get people to understand why the illogical is happening and who are making those decisions. That will point people towards confronting the right people in power with the right arguments to push for change.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#138

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #131

ceejayoz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Children aren't typically the family index case during lockdown" doesn't really tell us much about non-lockdown spread.

But all the evidence from European countries tells us a lot about non-lockdown spread following a proper lockdown.

Sure, but right now, we've got the Georgia governor suing Atlanta to forbid a "proper" lockdown and masking, and an anti-masking political movement.

"It doesn't spread in European schools" doesn't really help us very much in evaluating what'll happen in America right now.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#139

Post by benmmurphy » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

sl1ck731 wrote: post #14

_ea1k wrote: post #6

I feel like there is too much emphasis on these and not enough on the ones that earnestly want to go back to work. There should be a balance here, as we really do need a lot of students to have access to schools in the fall. Remote learning doesn't work for everyone and leaves a lot of people behind. The overall consequences of another lost semester may be far worse than the consequences of reopening.

I would prefer every student to be held back 1 semester from graduating high school than 1 more dead (if that were a possibility, but you get the point). I don't even understand how its possible to prefer sending kids back over one semester. Of course I think the bigger issue is its just parents that want kids out of the house for a multitude of reasons including getting back to their own work.

I presume kids die in accidents at school at the moment. if 1 kid dies a year falling down steps at school should all schools be forced to be only 1 level? there needs to be a sensible look at the cost and benefits and zero deaths should not be a a hard requirement.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#140

Post by gremlinsinc » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

collegecamp293 wrote: post #80

devalgo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? There are hundreds of nurses and doctors who have gotten sick and that's when wearing full PPE. Do you think teachers and kids are going to be wearing PPE in class?? This is a troll comment.

What are the odds of a nurse and doctor with full PPE dying from COVID?

Over 800 healthcare workers have died since this began. https://khn.org/news/lost-on-the-frontline-health-care-worke...

It takes time and effort to create new ventilators, masks, ppe's, etc... but it takes like 20-30 years to create a new doctor or nurse, they're in limited supply - the more we lose the harder this virus will be to defeat long-term.

Likewise the hit to public schools if we lose janitorial, bussing, teaching, and food-working staff MANY of which skew older.

If a school system in a rural town doesn't have enough workers to bus kids, clean up the school, serve lunch, or teach (there's already a teaching shortage because it's a shit job that doesn't pay what it's worth), then schools will be defunkt before long anyways.

What do we do then? It'll be decades before we can replace all those teachers, so we'll have to speedily move to online teaching... what then do we do about parents who need school as daycare so they can provide?

We're beginning to see how intertwined everything in society is, and it's all seemingly crashing down and most people don't even see it happening... it's just a a flu... it'll be over soon.... someone said on FB yesterday that it'll go away as soon as the election is over the only reason it's so big is because of the election....

No. December the election will be behind us, flu season will be upon us, and the 3rd wave will decimate us worse than this one is. Because it'll be cold, we'll be inside, Christmas will come and families will get tired of quarantine again and it's the perfect storm for another explosion of cases.