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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

#271
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealand has just had to quarantine 1/3 of their population, again, because of 4 cases. Until the virus is contained everywhere you will yo-yo between closing everything and opening it. Unless we build a wall around every developing country this will be going on for years. The economy can bounce back from one quarantine, can it bounce back from 12?

They didn't "have" to do that and most places aren't yoyoing around, they're over it already and bumping along the noise floor of cases. NZ leadership has chosen this illogical and self-destructive path because they don't understand risk or data or, apparently, economics.

>They didn't "have" to do that and most places aren't yoyoing around

Most places aren't anywhere near zero cases a day. Both Australia and New Zealand were and have had to go back to higher lockdowns because there were breaches.

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

#272
post #122
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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. I think that's assuming that death is the only thing you have to worry about with this disease, and that if you don't die…

I think a bigger problem is fear mongering like this without providing sources or data to back it up. People have become distrustful in general because frankly it's exhausting figuring out what is true and what isn't.

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

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think all it really does is that it highlights the difference between those who have children and those who do not. As a parent, I couldn't care less about the monetary impact of COVID-19 beyond the basics to survive and the years have taught us to be very frugal when we need to be. Meanwhile, the thought of sending my kids back to school in two weeks has me sleepless (again). We have already seen different evidenc…

My kids are going back to college in a couple days. They're adults! They're sharing an apartment this semester! And I'm a wreck. It's hard for me to fathom how this story is even news. What would be shocking is if the numbers had come in any closer between infection and work.

My oldest daughter left for college yesterday, living in a dorm. She's only 10min away, but between having her move out and worrying about COVID, I'm a basket case. I expect the campus to shut down in a month when cases numbers balloon, but I hope I'm wrong and they keep things under control.

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

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>mostly because covid requires certain measures in order to be eradicated I thought we were flattening the curve... What makes you think this can be eradicated? Source?

If a virus cannot transmit itself at all it will eventually die off completely as it cannot reproduce.

Lockdowns only cannot eliminate this coronavirus. You'd have to also eliminate the virus from bat populations, or eliminate bats, else it will jump back into humans.

The most likely outcome for this is that it becomes endemic, another variant of the common cold, like the several others that already exist.

The 1968 flu killed 1-4 million people, in a world with half as many people. This is nothing unusual, diseases happen, part of being human, shocking news headlines to the contrary.

> The first thing to remember is that we haven't been successful at eradicating many viruses at all. Really the lone exception is smallpox, but many of these viruses exist not only in the human population but in animal populations.

> And then the expectation I have is that this virus will actually become the next common cold coronavirus. What we don't know with these common cold coronaviruses is if they went through a similar transition period.

> So, say something like OC43, which is a common cold coronavirus that was originally from cows. It's been historically reported that there was an outbreak associated with the transition of this virus from cows to humans that was very severe disease, and then after a few years, the virus became just the common cold.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2020/08/09/900490301/covid-19-may-never-...

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

#276
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no proof that children will not have long term health impacts that could reverberate for the rest of their lives. There are signs of chronic health repercussions for adults who have been infected. There is no telling yet what we can expect for children as they grow.

You literally cannot prove a negative.

you can look at available data about chronic inflammation in people who have survived the initial infection. You can also look at data that a small number of kids are showing acute autoimmune reactions leading to severe illness and in a small number of cases death. You can then say, “we don’t know fully yet how big to expect this to be, but we should not risk exposing children to potentially life long health complications until we do.” Easy to reason through.

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is zero evidence that a suppression strategy with lockdown will work. And as you said in your other comment the pandemic is not over yet so pulling data from other countries isn't helpful. As to evidence... "One in four young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 say they've considered suicide in the past month because of the pandemic, according to new CDC data that paints a bleak picture of the nation's mental…

Why is everybody going on about 'the lockdown'. There is exactly one city in the world that had a complete lockdown, that's Wuhan, China. Every other place had at best a partial lockdown with a ton of exemptions and a large amount of leeway for emergencies and other edge cases. As for the suicide factor, yes, there is a chance of increased numbers of suicides, no for now there is no proof that such an increase is act…

you really want to spend time arguing about the word lockdown? and your second paragraph reads like you had a stroke.

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

#278
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids are going back to college in a couple days. They're adults! They're sharing an apartment this semester! And I'm a wreck. It's hard for me to fathom how this story is even news. What would be shocking is if the numbers had come in any closer between infection and work.

My oldest daughter left for college yesterday, living in a dorm. She's only 10min away, but between having her move out and worrying about COVID, I'm a basket case. I expect the campus to shut down in a month when cases numbers balloon, but I hope I'm wrong and they keep things under control.

You should strongly encourage your daughter to commute from home, since her college is only 10 minutes away. Students will take precautions during classes which will limit the spread, but in the evenings when they return to their dorms, they will let down their guards and the inevitable will happen. COVID spreads easily in dorms.

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

#279
post #54
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Parents simply will not abandon their small child, home alone for the day, to go to work. Not going to happen.

If that’s their only option, they will end up homeless, with their child.

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

#280
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My oldest daughter left for college yesterday, living in a dorm. She's only 10min away, but between having her move out and worrying about COVID, I'm a basket case. I expect the campus to shut down in a month when cases numbers balloon, but I hope I'm wrong and they keep things under control.

You should strongly encourage your daughter to commute from home, since her college is only 10 minutes away. Students will take precautions during classes which will limit the spread, but in the evenings when they return to their dorms, they will let down their guards and the inevitable will happen. COVID spreads easily in dorms.

There's also the potential that they bring it home, causing the op to get sick/die. I'm a little more afraid of dying early, not because I want to live, but because : A. I don't want my kids to grow up w/out a dad, and B. I don't want to miss the important things in life. C. I'm hoping their chance of serious illness is less, but if I were wrong, I'd wish for death quickly afterwards.

I'm also sure things are easier when you have a parent to lean on for support, when a crisis comes up. (Lots of those on the horizon)...i'd rather be here to help them w/ that.

So part of me feels me living is important to their survival (mine are It'd be a hard decision to weigh, but I'd probably have a family council discuss the pros and cons and call a vote or something.

Basically commute or dorms, they can still catch it. At least in dorms maybe they don't infect older more vulnerable people or family members. Honestly, I'd probably teach them to code and say, hey work w/ dad till this is over then go to college :).

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