Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought • Hacker News Board

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#11

Post by dripton » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #9

HarryHirsch wrote: post #4

It's common experience that children bring home all sorts of sniffles from school, there's a noticeable uptick in upper respiratory tract infections when the new school years starts in the fall. Many of these are caused by coronaviruses. With that in mind, the push to start school is based on wishful thinking, not on clinical evidence.

The push to start school is based on the perceived economic necessity (arguably a cost-benefit analysis), of providing childcare for parents of children between the ages of 5 and 17.

I hope most 17-year-olds don't need babysitters. We can probably split the difference some on this between elementary school (where the babysitting really is kind of economically important) and the older kids.

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#12

Post by rimliu » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #2

It's good to have independent confirmation, but to my recollection, a months-old German study already reported high viral loads in the respiratory tracts of asymptomatic infected children. The idea that children don't spread COVID much has always been grounded more in wishful thinking than evidence.

There are studies stating the opposite. They are not that popular in the popular media, because people don't like their "intuition" to be wrong". Not to mention, that the title is misleading.

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#13

Post by threatofrain » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

dripton wrote: post #11

nickff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The push to start school is based on the perceived economic necessity (arguably a cost-benefit analysis), of providing childcare for parents of children between the ages of 5 and 17.

I hope most 17-year-olds don't need babysitters. We can probably split the difference some on this between elementary school (where the babysitting really is kind of economically important) and the older kids.

> I hope most 17-year-olds don't need babysitters.

From a national perspective of producing competitive individuals in an increasingly international landscape? Yes, they do. They need at least a few hours of their day coached by an institution to direct their energies towards their studies.

Otherwise Khan Academy would already solve 85% of the problems, because it is closely aligned to state curricula.

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#14

Post by dripton » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #13

dripton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope most 17-year-olds don't need babysitters. We can probably split the difference some on this between elementary school (where the babysitting really is kind of economically important) and the older kids.

> I hope most 17-year-olds don't need babysitters. From a national perspective of producing competitive individuals in an increasingly international landscape? Yes, they do. They need at least a few hours of their day coached by an institution to direct their energies towards their studies. Otherwise Khan Academy would already solve 85% of the problems, because it is closely aligned to state curricula.

That's education, not babysitting. I totally agree that high school is important, but it should be geared more for teaching than for supervision. While elementary school does both.

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#15

Post by Reedx » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

dripton wrote: post #11

nickff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The push to start school is based on the perceived economic necessity (arguably a cost-benefit analysis), of providing childcare for parents of children between the ages of 5 and 17.

I hope most 17-year-olds don't need babysitters. We can probably split the difference some on this between elementary school (where the babysitting really is kind of economically important) and the older kids.

I hope most 13 year olds don't need babysitters.

At that age you're fully capable of staying home by yourself and following online instruction, at minimum.

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#16

Post by amelius » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

rimliu wrote: post #12

civilized wrote: post #2

It's good to have independent confirmation, but to my recollection, a months-old German study already reported high viral loads in the respiratory tracts of asymptomatic infected children. The idea that children don't spread COVID much has always been grounded more in wishful thinking than evidence.

There are studies stating the opposite. They are not that popular in the popular media, because people don't like their "intuition" to be wrong". Not to mention, that the title is misleading.

> There are studies stating the opposite

This is true for many subjects of interest (e.g. climate change), but of importance are the quality of the studies and where scientific consensus is going.

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#17

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #4

It's common experience that children bring home all sorts of sniffles from school, there's a noticeable uptick in upper respiratory tract infections when the new school years starts in the fall. Many of these are caused by coronaviruses. With that in mind, the push to start school is based on wishful thinking, not on clinical evidence.

I think there's some schools that are doing a real cost-benefit analysis. It's going to be a gigantic, overbearing social problem when we get to 2022 and realize all the most disadvantaged students are a year behind. I know many people don't think that's worth the cost, but you have to acknowledge that some decisionmakers do.

The schools that opened up, did minimial distancing, and then shut down because they detected cases? Yeah, they were clearly in the wishful thinking camp.

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#18

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

dripton wrote: post #14

threatofrain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope most 17-year-olds don't need babysitters. From a national perspective of producing competitive individuals in an increasingly international landscape? Yes, they do. They need at least a few hours of their day coached by an institution to direct their energies towards their studies. Otherwise Khan Academy would already solve 85% of the problems, because it is closely aligned to state curricula.

That's education, not babysitting. I totally agree that high school is important, but it should be geared more for teaching than for supervision. While elementary school does both.

[deleted]

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#19

Post by lbeltrame » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

This study does not prove that children are more infectious.

The paper only tested for viral RNA, not for infectious virus. Given that some people are clinically recovered but still have RNA in the throat, and that presence of viral RNA may not equate with live virus (see a Nature paper from two months ago), this is a rather severe limitation.

Note that they may as well be: but you can't infer this from these results.

Re: Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought

#20

Post by brandon272 » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

It's baffling to me that there has ever been much of a question over whether kids can get and spread the virus to begin with.

Many people seem to have taken the "kids are less impacted when infected" and converted it to a "kids can't get infected" or "kids don't spread the virus" conclusion.

The provincial government where I live was recently excoriated for coming up with one of the weakest back-to-school plans in the country, which effectively suggested the status quo with next to no supports or funding for schools to deal with COVID-19 unless and until outbreaks start occurring.

From what I can tell based on the policy and subsequent public statements made by the officials, they seemed to have been operating under the assumption that kids can't be infected or are less likely to be infected with COVID-19.

The lack of critical thinking on display when it comes to this virus, especially by policymakers, is one of the most disturbing facets of this pandemic. I really get the impression that many are not putting in an effort to maintain even a baseline level of up to date knowledge on this evolving situation. It's distressing when you see people espousing opinion based on outdated information from 4 months ago.