I’m personally happy that the CDC had discussions with education professionals when developing school attendance guidelines.
We don’t know if they did that; we only know they talked to union officials. 
Also, at the same time CDC was letting AFT rewrite their guidelines, several researchers say CDC misinterpreted the data & results of their studies, including at least one the CDC itself published, resulting in “harmful policy.”
That highlights the challenge with COVID restrictions: When deciding to close businesses/schools, you have to decide whether the restrictions will do more harm than good.
The entire question about how to handle the schools is a fascinating thought experiment: there’s harm in closing/virtualizing schools. Does the benefit of impeding disease transmission outweigh that harm?
Even objective armchair quarterbacks will have valid differences in opinion.
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My kids wore masks, and were exposed to kids with COVID, and they never caught COVID. It was very rare in my district to have a quarantined student develop COVID - almost all of the kids who did have COVID caught it from outside of the school, usually from a parent.
We did have some stupid parents who caught COVID and sent in their kids to school anyway.
Well, if you weren’t testing your kids weekly, then you don’t know whether or not they had COVID. Could have been asymptomatic.
Thanks, I guess?
some interesting and somewhat unexpected guidance from my school came out this week. We already knew they would have a 5 day in person option (already had that last year). But now they are saying there is no mask requirement at the school anymore, for anyone. However, the bus company is a private company contracted by the school that is classified by the state as public transport. Public transport requires everyone to wear a mask at all times, no matter what.
So masks on the bus, no option. Then no mask needed when you get to school.
just when I think nothing can surprise me anymore. its like reading instructions on a oven mitts that say “wear oven mitt to remove hot pan from oven. Then remove mitts and place head in oven”
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It’s much harder to provide social distance on a bus than in a classroom.
Pretty sure masks won’t be required on school busses around here next month, but Mr aj is planning to wear one. (He’s a bus driver.)
we require masks on public transit here, but not in bars or restaurants and there isn’t much social distancing in those places anymore. i’m not sure this is much different.
yeah, it’s a bit hypocritical, but for some reason i appreciate the masks on public transit where it’s less of a nuisance than in social environments.
although, the non-vaccinated are required to wear masks in nyc everywhere, so i assume kids under 12 in school will still have to wear them.
Im pretty happy the kids dont have to wear masks in school. but a little upset they still need them for the bus. The no mask rule in school is also likely a precursor to the highly anticipated vaccine rules; I was afraid they would hold the mask rules hostage to make kids get vaccinated.
fwiw, every adult they interact with around here is vaccinated. So risk of kids spreading covid is not zero, but greatly reduced.
Im more worried about the 1000 other colds they are going to give me now… kids barley got sick last year with all the rules in place. Usually each kid gets sick 3 or 4 times through the school year.
The difference is that public transit is not optional for many.
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I am guessing Delta will increase the spread more than 19-24% this fall.
neither is bars and restaurant for the staff. they need a job. i’m not sure there is a huge difference here.
My kids won’t be going to school in person in the fall if there isn’t a mask mandate in place. They can exempt vaccinated teachers, but every single kid in my kids’ school won’t be vaccine-eligible and I’ll be appalled if they do away with the mandate.
well, traditional public transport in the city is a little different than school buses out here in the stix. Many parents drop kids off at school, so it really does becomes optional for many.
this is why I was so surprised to see the mask rules lifted. Kids here are effectively zero % vaccinated . Schools so often lean towards more safe options.
adult vaccination rates are pretty good here though, and really high among the people I interact with.
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Fair enough.
Keep in mind that masking has become a form of a political litmus test as much as…perhaps even more than…a public health measure.
It also bears mentioning that even with Delta the long-term risk to the young is still fairly low, and even with vaccine hesitancy in the US, we may have achieved the point where COVID is unlikely to overwhelm our medical system (at least unless/until mutation outpaces vaccine efficacy). That opens the door to the question of how much can/should the government infringe on personal preference?
I personally wish that we would keep masking the norm. But my inner libertarian is extremely uncomfortable with the idea of government mandates to that effect when there isn’t something like “we have to do this or our hospitals won’t be able to keep up with demand” justifying the intervention.
I lean libertarian too, but I’m not sure that the right for an unvaccinated person to spread Covid germs trumps all else.
Especially for something mandatory like public school. I think saying that only vaccinated teachers/staff/kids can remove their masks is an OK rule. 