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An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

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Re: An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

#11

Post by DuskStar »

RickJWagner wrote: post #7

Bill Gates disagrees. https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/bill-gates-says-school...

But Bill Gates is only a good person to listen to when he agrees with the current political zeitgeist - otherwise he's a billionaire monopolist who should thus be ignored.

Honestly, I'd love to hear what circumstances people would accept opening schools in. Would "COVID is 10x less deadly than chicken pox for children under 15" be enough, if there was some way to protect teachers? What about "less deadly than driving to school for a year"?

Re: An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

#12

Post by crooked-v »

DuskStar wrote: post #11
RickJWagner wrote: post #7

Bill Gates disagrees. https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/bill-gates-says-school...

But Bill Gates is only a good person to listen to when he agrees with the current political zeitgeist - otherwise he's a billionaire monopolist who should thus be ignored. Honestly, I'd love to hear what circumstances people would accept opening schools in. Would "COVID is 10x less deadly than chicken pox for children under 15" be enough, if there was some way to protect teachers? What about "less deadly than driving…

How about 'after successfully reducing new infections to almost zero', like many other countries? There are many solutions here other than 'shrug and give up' as the current federal government and many state governments have done.

Re: An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

#13

Post by foogazi »

DuskStar wrote: post #10
foogazi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you come here to peddle that BS? What is the point? Here is a clear example of the federal government siding against state’s lockdown mandates https://www.vox.com/covid-19-coronavirus-us-response-trump/2... “ The Justice Department is pressuring state and local officials over lockdown orders The DOJ is questioning the legal authority of top officials in California and Illinois to extend stay-at-home orders.”

Well, when someone seems to be claiming that "everything would be fine if Trump wasn't a fuckup", I try to push back with "even if Trump wasn't a fuckup, there's enough other breakage in the way to prevent things from going perfectly". Trump messed up - that's kind of what he does. But with current US politics, there genuinely may not have been any set of actions Trump could have taken that would have both limited US…

To your edit: yes that’s what I meant

You keep bringing politics into this - I think it’s ridiculous that you consider impeachment a threat while Republicans control the Senate

The federal government has taken unscientific actions during a pandemic risking people’s lives

Re: An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

#14

Post by DuskStar »

foogazi wrote: post #13
DuskStar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when someone seems to be claiming that "everything would be fine if Trump wasn't a fuckup", I try to push back with "even if Trump wasn't a fuckup, there's enough other breakage in the way to prevent things from going perfectly". Trump messed up - that's kind of what he does. But with current US politics, there genuinely may not have been any set of actions Trump could have taken that would have both limited US…

To your edit: yes that’s what I meant You keep bringing politics into this - I think it’s ridiculous that you consider impeachment a threat while Republicans control the Senate The federal government has taken unscientific actions during a pandemic risking people’s lives

And I continue to not deny that the federal government has continually failed. Instead, I've been saying that they're not the only ones to have failed, and that they're not always the ones with the most control. (Federalism is still a thing)

Further, impeachment only requires the House - conviction takes the Senate. And honestly, if Trump was enacting martial law, or anything similar, I don't think it would be too hard to get a few Republican senators to flip.

Really though, I brought up "what could he do without being impeached again" as a decent metric for "how much could he do before some cities and states told him to fuck off and stopped enforcing things". Incidentally, this would have almost certainly have gotten him reelected. Can you imagine the optics of "the states that followed Trump's lockdown orders were fine, while the ones that told him to fuck off have hundreds of thousands of dead"? (But this still wouldn't satisfy the hypothetical of "as good as Taiwan/SK", despite being better for the country and better for Trump personally)

Re: An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

#15

Post by DuskStar »

crooked-v wrote: post #12
DuskStar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Bill Gates is only a good person to listen to when he agrees with the current political zeitgeist - otherwise he's a billionaire monopolist who should thus be ignored. Honestly, I'd love to hear what circumstances people would accept opening schools in. Would "COVID is 10x less deadly than chicken pox for children under 15" be enough, if there was some way to protect teachers? What about "less deadly than driving…

How about 'after successfully reducing new infections to almost zero', like many other countries? There are many solutions here other than 'shrug and give up' as the current federal government and many state governments have done.

And if that's the minimum you're willing to accept, that's fine! I'd also be ok with evidence showing kids don't die at more than 1 per million and also don't spread the disease to others. (This implicitly values a year of in-person education at a millionth of the life of a child. Arguably this is far too low, considering that we pay thousands of dollars for a year of education and almost every statistical measure of the value of life is under $10 million. If the difference in education is worth more than $100, that would put the acceptable deaths at at least 1 per 100,000)

If you're looking for case studies... Well, Sweden is the one everyone seems to be eyeing.

Re: An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

#16

Post by yokaze »

DuskStar wrote: post #11
RickJWagner wrote: post #7

Bill Gates disagrees. https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/bill-gates-says-school...

But Bill Gates is only a good person to listen to when he agrees with the current political zeitgeist - otherwise he's a billionaire monopolist who should thus be ignored. Honestly, I'd love to hear what circumstances people would accept opening schools in. Would "COVID is 10x less deadly than chicken pox for children under 15" be enough, if there was some way to protect teachers? What about "less deadly than driving…

The problem is less for the children, but the social environment they live in. And that doesn't end at the teachers or their parents.

To my knowledge, the grand-parents have a much greater role in child-care in Spain and Italy, than in Germany and Sweden. To complicate matters, closing all schools and kindergardens even increased their importance, as parents still had to work somehow. Probably, closing the schools _might_ have even made things worse, as someone has to take care of them.

But that is not necessarily an argument in favour of opening them again. It shows, how children, while largely unaffected, have potentially a huge impact on the spread of the virus.

Re: An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

#17

Post by scarface74 »

DuskStar wrote: post #6
crooked-v wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an obvious optimal solution at the start of all of this, which is the same thing many other countries did: have a national lockdown for 1-2 months or so with everyone paid to stay home so that total number of new cases drops very low, then remove the lockdown and use comprehensive contact tracing and testing to quickly respond to new outbreaks. Instead the federal executive branch acted in a worse than usel…

> while various state governors refused to do anything because acting sensibly contradicted their political beliefs. Aaand yet all the worst outbreaks early on were in the bluest parts of blue-or-purple states, and were under the control of Democrat mayors and governors. Who are also the ones with real authority, incidentally. Now, the red parts of the map aren't exactly doing well right now either - but let's not pr…

And in GA where the governor sued the Atlanta mayor among others for trying to implement stricter policies.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/georgia-mask-mandate-lawsuit-k...

Re: An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

#18

Post by DuskStar »

scarface74 wrote: post #17
DuskStar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while various state governors refused to do anything because acting sensibly contradicted their political beliefs. Aaand yet all the worst outbreaks early on were in the bluest parts of blue-or-purple states, and were under the control of Democrat mayors and governors. Who are also the ones with real authority, incidentally. Now, the red parts of the map aren't exactly doing well right now either - but let's not pr…

And in GA where the governor sued the Atlanta mayor among others for trying to implement stricter policies. https://www.foxnews.com/media/georgia-mask-mandate-lawsuit-k...

Yeah, that's a fuckup! But that's also not relevant for NYC.

Look, some Republican governors fucked up (and continue to fuck up) for political reasons. But some Democrat governors, including Andrew Cuomo (governor of NY) have also fucked up, and it's hard to blame that entirely on the Republicans.

As far as I can tell, only Washington state and California really did well at the beginning of the pandemic in the US. (And even then, California's not doing fantastic now)

Re: An Arizona superintendent on safely reopening schools: 'It's a fantasy'

#19

Post by scarface74 »

DuskStar wrote: post #18
scarface74 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in GA where the governor sued the Atlanta mayor among others for trying to implement stricter policies. https://www.foxnews.com/media/georgia-mask-mandate-lawsuit-k...

Yeah, that's a fuckup! But that's also not relevant for NYC. Look, some Republican governors fucked up (and continue to fuck up) for political reasons. But some Democrat governors, including Andrew Cuomo (governor of NY) have also fucked up, and it's hard to blame that entirely on the Republicans. As far as I can tell, only Washington state and California really did well at the beginning of the pandemic in the US. (A…

A fuck up implies a mistake. Suing a mayor who is trying to take action to protect her city is malicious.
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