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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

#71
The headline is completely wrong. The study shows that infection is the top concern of five times more parents than work or paying bills. The parents most concerned about infection may only be slightly less concerned about work or money.

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

#72
post #12

Worrying about a potentially deadly illness that you can do little about, vs worrying about losing your source of income and having to.. look for another job. I'm definitely more worried about infection, too.

My thought is the fear of additional medical costs due to infection on top of the bills I am expected to pay.

Bankruptcy is usually preferable to death.

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

#73

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…

More kids go to the ICU and die due to the flu.

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

#74
post #48

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…

>Whereas with the pandemic we seemingly are just accepting high death rates

Except the death rates are very low. The risk due to lockdown are greater than this virus.

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

#75

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…

There's a lot of political talking points wrapped up in there.

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

#76

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…

The fear is not death. How about the fact that long term effects are unknown. Or what sort of ongoing medical issues will people have for the rest of their lives? There is people who believe that once you're done with this virus, it is gone from your system and you're back to normal. Certainly that is the case for many, but there are still many more that will continue to suffer from what they are calling now 'long ha…

Sure - but the point/principle still applies. Every day we confront unknown risks that we don't fully understand. But we just keep on living. I think we have enough data for people to evaluate their own personal risk and generally take appropriate personal measures for safety. We can and should make efforts to accommodate those who assess their personal risk to be significant. But when you/others ask schools to close - are you really considering what the short-medium-long term costs of those choices really are? I have personally taken neighborhood kids to pick up free lunches offered by schools while they were shut down - because those kids' parents didn't care to take them and neither cared to help them feed themselves. I've seen working parents leave their young children at home because child care logistics and cost were not acceptable for their circumstances. I know kids down the street that are basically ignored by their parents that are not likely to have a healthy structured school environment they can count on.

I believe these hard to measure costs are enormous but easy to ignore because the affected demographic can't fight for their rights/desires - they can't even vote. And privileged SV folks and internet yuppies are happy to drive this line forward. I have friends who have lost their jobs. I have a cousin who has lost their small business. Not because of COVID - but because of the "cure" for COVID.

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

#78

I wish there was more conversation happening about other countries who have already successfully put kids back at school. That might give confidence to people in North America who feel uncertain about it.

Our response to the virus as adults is so beyond the pale that it's crazy we're even talking about sending kids to school. Many places in the country have higher infection rates than when they were locked down and the current "plan" is to just live with it. Schools that have already opened have resulted in hundreds of kids quarantined as early as the first day.

Over 1,000 people have been dying a day has become the norm. New Zealand just partially shut down again because 4 people became infected.

Talking about successful school openings in other countries is as relevant as talking about magical unicorns at this point.

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

#79

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…

The fear is not death. How about the fact that long term effects are unknown. Or what sort of ongoing medical issues will people have for the rest of their lives? There is people who believe that once you're done with this virus, it is gone from your system and you're back to normal. Certainly that is the case for many, but there are still many more that will continue to suffer from what they are calling now 'long ha…

Thanks for sharing that group! It really helps putting things into perspective.

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

#80
post #43

There is a massive, silent demographic who wants a return to status quo. There was a conference call with the school district the other night. A friend in the district was in awe at how many parents want their children to return to school, are upset about sports, etc. Many people want to look at this as a black and white issue - either you believe social distancing and masks are necessary, or you believe that Bill Ga…

Silent?
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