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Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

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Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#51

Post by bendotero »

umvi wrote: post #30
roland35 wrote: post #19

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

> Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

But that's one of the biggest unknowns. While children are at far lower risk of dying, according to data we have, we still don't know about long term health effects and we're finding out new information all the time. And much of that new information doesn't seem great.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#52

Post by rwcarlsen »

I've personally heard from several tens of parents that they are primarily worried about the economic and social affects of all these so-called safety measures governments and communities are taking. Just because it's easy to measure cases and deaths and hard to measure lost human connection, depression, children being left in environments of neglect, delayed/paused innovation and economic growth, etc. doesn't mean that those costs are less than the loss of life incurred from not being "safe". I would rather my children (and I have 5) grow up not being told they need to be afraid of everything. I would rather they grow up being able to learn with and interact with their peers face to face. And I am absolutely willing to sacrifice possibly a few years of extra time I could have my grandparents around for that. My grandparents are also happy to make that sacrifice so their grandchildren and great grandchildren can grow up in a better world.

We all will die. Can't let a fear of dying prevent us from living.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#53

Post by gdubs »

roland35 wrote: post #19

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

People put a lot of weight in early studies from countries that didn’t see outbreaks in schools. My problem with those studies has been: 1) Community spread in those areas was very low. 2) Kids were/are not being tested at anywhere near the same rate as adults. 3) We really have no idea whether there are long term effects in asymptomatic individuals.

Regarding both 2 and 3, kids seem to be largely asymptomatic. That would explain the lower testing rates. People are generally not going to go have their kid swabbed if there’s no apparent reason to do so. But given that asymptomatic adults might have long term negative effects, it seems pretty cavalier to just assume kids won’t. Hopefully they don’t, but we really don’t know.

This type of thinking often gets dismissed as “alarmist”, however a bit of alarm (and an abundance of caution) over a rapidly spreading novel virus is warranted.

(This is my armchair analysis. I’m not a health expert.)

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#54

Post by kazen44 »

sneak wrote: post #37
roland35 wrote: post #19

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

It’s impossible to force a parent into the choice between working a life-threatening job interacting with the public or eviction so long as they have a child at home. The parent will not abandon the child home alone to go to work, no matter how big the stick. School being effectively state subsidized working hours daycare, it must resume before low wage workers can once again be coerced back into risking their lives…

> It’s impossible to force a parent into the choice between working a life-threatening job interacting with the public or eviction so long as they have a child at home

Impossible? definitely not. (i would argue this is the exact issue many people in the US face today).

highly immoral and with a total disregard to one's decency or life? absolutely.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#55

Post by gjs278 »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #52

I've personally heard from several tens of parents that they are primarily worried about the economic and social affects of all these so-called safety measures governments and communities are taking. Just because it's easy to measure cases and deaths and hard to measure lost human connection, depression, children being left in environments of neglect, delayed/paused innovation and economic growth, etc. doesn't mean t…

I would have preferred we did nothing and let the old people die too. they suck up all the money and housing.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#57

Post by buhhh »

umvi wrote: post #30
roland35 wrote: post #19

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

> I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different species when it comes to covid. Well, it's not that surprising when you have a disease whose harm factor is a function of your age. The vast majority of covid deaths are the elderly. The tiniest minority of covid deaths are young children. Their ability to spread to adults is their biggest risk factor, not the disease itself.

Are you confusing harm with death rates? It's a novel virus and we still do not know the long term health impacts of it.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#58

Post by gjs278 »

birken wrote: post #48
miketery wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about risk. Humans are terrible at understanding probability. There must be a threshold where it becomes ok to take on the risk (e.g. driving a car everyday for most Americans). So where is that threshold? Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions? It might be…

> Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions? Then we'd actually put real effort into controlling it so we could go back to life as normal even with the virus not fully eradicated. The problem with all of these simple "risk profile" analyses is that we as a country are b…

> Then we'd actually put real effort into controlling it so we could go back to life as normal even with the virus not fully eradicated.

ok now imagine the virus lives on surfaces for 5+ years and never dies. now what? you can’t eradicate this virus by quarantining, someone, and it only takes one, is going to spread it somehow.

now answer with that in mind. “we would just fix it” is a cop out, we can’t fix it.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#59

Post by rwcarlsen »

gjs278 wrote: post #55
rwcarlsen wrote: post #52

I've personally heard from several tens of parents that they are primarily worried about the economic and social affects of all these so-called safety measures governments and communities are taking. Just because it's easy to measure cases and deaths and hard to measure lost human connection, depression, children being left in environments of neglect, delayed/paused innovation and economic growth, etc. doesn't mean t…

I would have preferred we did nothing and let the old people die too. they suck up all the money and housing.

You perhaps were being sarcastic, but there is truth in the statement. And while it is unpleasant, I think it is an aspect of this pandemic that is worth considering - not necessarily in an of itself, but perhaps as a way to begin discussing our culture's unhealthy view of prolonging life at all costs. I don't want to spend my last days/weeks/months slowly rotting in a hospital bed.

Re: Parents are 5X as Worried about Infection and School than Work and Paying Bills

#60

Post by Eric_WVGG »

miketery wrote: post #34
roland35 wrote: post #19

Yeah this is definitely not surprising to the least! Even if I was laid off I am more worried about my children having long term health effects (or worse) than missing a few bills, and that is before considering how flexible lenders are claiming to be (I've gotten emails from all my major bills about covid related help they can provide). I am just so confused why some people are acting like kids are a different speci…

It's all about risk. Humans are terrible at understanding probability. There must be a threshold where it becomes ok to take on the risk (e.g. driving a car everyday for most Americans). So where is that threshold? Another way to think about it is, what do we do if we learn that the pandemic will not end for the next 10 years? What activities do we allow and under what new mode of operation / conditions? It might be…

I think this is textbook confirmation bias. When you have two seemingly equivalent theories (the threat of C-19 is serious vs overblown), you select the one that is more convenient for your worldview.

Mr. and Mrs. Applecart both have full-time jobs and four children; they don't have time to home-school and wouldn't know how if they did. Their lives would be more functional if the threat is overblown, so they believe the threat is overblown.

Mrs. and Mr. Bandersnatch work in the mining industry. If scientists are correct, the fossil fuel industry is going to lead to climate collapse within about twenty years. Their livelihoods depend on oil extraction. They have a vested interest in being skeptical of scientific authority.

As someone else here pointed out, the study doesn't seem to factor economic security. I bet you would find a very strong correlation between economic security and willingness to keep children at home that would cross political lines.

(yes, I know, confirmation bias cuts both ways)

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