I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control • Hacker News Board

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#171

Post by armchairhacker » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:39 PM UTC

blondin wrote: post #115

armchairhacker wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not even that the virus is not necessarily serious: all of these precautions are basically useless. Many people are spreading covid but are completely asymptomatic, and tests are limited so they aren’t getting tested. Omicron is also extremely contagious, spreading despite masks and other sanitation protocols. It’s too late and too contagious: if you’re not 100% isolating in your home you will get Omicron. Maski…

well, umm, did the lockdown in Quebec happened before or after the cases started increasing?

After. And i do think it will slow the spread. But cases will increase as long as people go to essential jobs and use essential services.

Omicron is one of the most contagious viruses known to man. It managed to spread everywhere despite countries initially closing their borders to SA, to the point where most people know relatives who are positive ~1 month in, whereas the original strain took much longer even in regions with few precautions. It has spread to a base in Antarctic despite extremely strict containment protocols. The only country I know of which has still managed to quarantine the virus is China, and even they are having some issues in the Xi’An province.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#172

Post by bonzini » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

Jiejeing wrote: post #170

bonzini wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since vaccinated people can have and transmit the virus, it is not helping at all (the stated goal being to annoy the non-vaxxed people to death and nothing else). This is a very partial view. Vaccinated people can have the virus and transmit it, but they will have it less, transmit it less, and anyway have lesser symptoms if they catch it from someone else. The third is why a vaccine pass helps the healthcare syst…

This was a partial view, yes, the viral charge is lessened when the vaccine comes into play, which is a good thing, but it does not help much that much the several hundred thousand people for whom the vaccine is useless, nor the ones who got scammed with a fake vaccine pass (and are now in limbo since they can enter places where the pass is required but not get protected). Instead of a stupid pass, make the vaccine m…

The virus is not going away and will be able to mutate forever, yet sooner or later we'll have to go back to normality (though I hope that some degree of masking and remote working will remain).

Vaccination is the only way to get there as fast as possible, but even if you make it mandatory you would have to check it somewhere for people to actually get the vaccine. Even if you add a 100 euro/month fine, there are plenty of people that have been spending more than that in tests to go to work.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#173

Post by deegles » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #163

danielvaughn wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another long term (and equally hidden) consequence is the loss of critical educational development in children. We adults can toss off 2 years because it's just a drop in the bucket to us, but 2 years for a child represents a potentially staggering setback in their mental development.

I agree with you, but I think it overstated the value of schooling as the only source of this development. There are so many free online education sources it is truly amazing, and yet for some reason our society’s answer to the pandemic was to have Zoom school at home which no one is happy with, rather than embrace different delivery methods that are actually engaging. Khan Academy, Duolingo, etc etc. I don’t think m…

Yes, thankfully 100% of kids have access to their own computer, sufficient internet access, an environment free of stress or distractions, and the focus and internal motivation to be an successful auto-didact in the absence of adult supervision… /s

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#174

Post by mrkramer » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

I think the main question is how much are we willing to sacrifice of our lifestyle? People die every day of various reasons alcohol, drugs, strokes, car accidents etc. COVID is imminent danger to the people with underlying conditions and they should practice maximum precautions(distance, masks etc. plus Vitamin D intake). Other people should carry on living. COVID is coming to endemic soon.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#175

Post by voisin » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

deegles wrote: post #173

voisin wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but I think it overstated the value of schooling as the only source of this development. There are so many free online education sources it is truly amazing, and yet for some reason our society’s answer to the pandemic was to have Zoom school at home which no one is happy with, rather than embrace different delivery methods that are actually engaging. Khan Academy, Duolingo, etc etc. I don’t think m…

Yes, thankfully 100% of kids have access to their own computer, sufficient internet access, an environment free of stress or distractions, and the focus and internal motivation to be an successful auto-didact in the absence of adult supervision… /s

Almost all of your concerns are the same in the scenario of Zoom home school.

Internal motivation is needed for success in learning no matter what delivery mechanism is utilized. Having a teacher in a box on a screen is not going to change whether a student has internal motivation.

Auto-didact is not the same as having an app teach and guide through levels of learning any different than having a teacher lead it.

I feel like your comment is a knee jerk, disingenuous reaction rather than honest consideration of alternatives to the false dichotomy of “in class school” and “zoom school”, but whatever floats your boat.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#176

Post by sofixa » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

gabxla wrote: post #132

lozenge wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are saying "just have positive people attend school and don't bother testing contacts", then you're not just advocating to give all the kids COVID at the same time, but also all their parents and their parents' contacts - in a very short space of time. So basically the entire population? Why then are you only looking at the number of children that have died of COVID?

That is what Sweden has done. It now has a slightly lower cumulative death rate than locked-down Austria. It has a far lower cumulative death rate than the U.S.: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat... It also has a far lower cumulative death rate than locked-down individual states like NY or Massachusetts.

You should compare apples to apples. Not all societies are alike, and there are huge variances in population density, temperatures, style of living, etc. between different countries ( e.g. places where people share food and ear with their hands vs places where most people live alone in houses vs places where whole extended families share the same house, etc. etc.). Sweden fared drastically worse than its neighbours which are IMHO the most apt comparisons. It has 7 times the death rate of Norway.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#177

Post by tzs » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #135

tzs wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the ~25% of US adults that are not vaccinated? As far as I know they are at least as likely as vaccinated adults to have school age children. Even taking into account that they probably have a higher chance of homeschooling, that still leaves a lot of kids in public schools whose parents are not vaccinated. Are you in the "they've had enough time to get vaccinated, so if they haven't done so yet let them g…

We’ve made the vaccine free, and widely available. If there were still people waiting weeks to get a vaccine they want to take then I can see an argument why we should all suffer serious injury (like what’s happening at this school) to try to give people more time. There is no endpoint where SARS-CoV-2 is over. The strains will keep coming and Covid is endemic. My personal experience is that each time you get COVID i…

The endpoint is when enough of the people who refuse to get vaccinated have gotten it enough times that their hospitalization rates are as low as those of vaccinated people, so that those of us who are vaccinated can get decent treatment if we get a serious injury or non-COVID illness.

Omicron looks like it has a good change to get us to that point.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#178

Post by eigenrick » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

axby wrote: post #169

eigenrick wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is that public policy is based around two flawed notions that omicron has brought to light: 1. The vaccines will become decreasingly relevant, unless we can provide technology to update vaccines as quickly as they mutate. Even then, it'll be like flu vaccines. They'll help, but won't stop the spread. 2. Barring some technological breakthrough, Covid will never go away. We'll all contract it. Then it…

> The vaccines will become decreasingly relevant, unless we can provide technology to update vaccines as quickly as they mutate. Even then, it'll be like flu vaccines. They'll help, but won't stop the spread. Interesting, I haven't been following the pandemic as closely as I used to, but I was under the impression that the existing mRNA vaccines still work fairly well against new variants (including omicron), but tha…

I'm not a virologist, but I interpret "omicron has a likelihood of 88% to escape current vaccines" as being rather ineffective. I've not found similar stats for Delta or other, but the authors of this paper seem to indicate that current vaccines aren't great against omicron.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jcim.1c01451#

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#179

Post by parkingrift » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 4:48 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #128

parkingrift wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they’ll go home to their vaccinated parents. What edge case are you trying to solve by remaining in a state of hysteria?

What about the ~25% of US adults that are not vaccinated? As far as I know they are at least as likely as vaccinated adults to have school age children. Even taking into account that they probably have a higher chance of homeschooling, that still leaves a lot of kids in public schools whose parents are not vaccinated. Are you in the "they've had enough time to get vaccinated, so if they haven't done so yet let them g…

>Are you in the "they've had enough time to get vaccinated, so if they haven't done so yet let them get COVID" camp?

That's a harsh way of putting it, but yes. Fundamentally, the argument seems to be that kids will bring it home to vulnerable populations. Those vulnerable populations have had a year to get vaccinated and boosted. It is difficult to live in NYC without being vaccinated. I don't think it is wise or prudent to make policy decisions to protect some extreme minority of people who outright refuse preventative medical treatment.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#180

Post by parkingrift » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 4:56 PM UTC

soneil wrote: post #168

parkingrift wrote: post #74

Quoted post unavailable.

The single biggest issue I'm seeing in the original post is 40% of teachers being out. All the talk of being corralled into study hall is the fallout from this 40% figure. With this, it really does't matter if zero children 5-18 have died of covid - the school still can't operate correctly with half of its staff missing. Solving "sending children to school" without solving "having teachers available" results in zero…

>The single biggest issue I'm seeing in the original post is 40% of teachers being out. All the talk of being corralled into study hall is the fallout from this 40% figure.

The reason teachers are out is because of the absurd quarantine rules.

If you are fully vaccinated, but not boosted, you are required to quarantine for 5-10 days if you were exposed to someone with "confirmed or suspected COVID-19." At present the rate of boosters across the adult population is around 20%.

Can you imagine how often a teacher is exposed to someone with a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19? I'm not trashing on teachers specifically here. It's human nature.

TLDR... 40% of the teachers aren't out sick with COVID-19. The quarantine rules are taking a problem and turning it into a catastrophe.

It honestly seems as if our quarantine rules in NYC are based on best available data from April 2020.