Steven Singer hears the growing demand to reopen schools in the midst of the pandemic, and he sees an ulterior motive.
The clamor to reopen the schools is not about education or even the lives of children, but freeing their parents to go back to work.
He writes that despite the lack of testing or vaccines, the Trump administration is eager to open up the economy, and reopening schools is central to that goal.
The rich need the poor to get back to work. And they’re willing to put our lives on the line to do it.
What’s worse, they’re willing to put our children’s lives on the line.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to risk my daughter’s life so that the stock market can open back up.
As a public school teacher, I’m not willing to bet my students lives so that the airlines and cruise industry can get back in the green.
Nor am I willing to gamble with my own life even if it means the NBA, NFL and MLB can start playing games and Hollywood can start premiering first run movies again.
There’s still so much we don’t know about COVID-19.
Initial reports concluded that older people were more susceptible to it, but as infections have played out worldwide, we’ve seen that 40% of patients are between 20-50 years of age. Children seem mostly asymptomatic. However, many immunologists suspect they are acting as carriers spreading the virus to the older people with whom they come into contact.
Children have a more difficult time with the constant hand washing and separating themselves at least 6 feet apart recommended by health experts. This is one of the justifications for closing schools in the first place. If we reopen schools too quickly, it could jumpstart another wave of infections.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There is a lot that is unclear about this virus. But one thing that has been clear from the start is that young people, especially children, are such low risk of death that it almost cannot be statistically quantified. We shouldn’t misrepresent this point. We shouldn’t dress up our fear for our own safety as concern about our children’s safety. And we really need to ratchet down the panic.
Flerp,
Boston has reported cases of young children getting the virus. Some now in ICU, some requiring ventilators or intubation.
Millions of children get the seasonal flu every year. Thousands are hospitalized, with many deaths. It is always terrible when any child becomes gravely ill, but there is no dispute that it is extraordinarily and unusually rare for young children to die from COVID-19. For example, see the attached graphic showing death rates by age group in NYC.
If adults are afraid for themselves and other adults, that’s one thing. But we shouldn’t scare people into being afraid for the lives of their children when there is no evidence they’re in grave danger.
You know in all the time I spent in schools as a teacher, I never felt like vast numbers of children were out with the flu. Even so, that is neither here nor there. If they are asymptomatic carriers, which we don’t really know at this point, then they have the potential to spread the disease to plenty of people who are more vulnerable, especially since COVID-19 appears to be far more contagious than the seasonal flu viruses for which we have some protection in vaccines and medications. One thing kids are is very efficient spreaders of infection.
OMG!!! It is likely that children are the main carriers yet few show symptoms or have it explode into the illness. It’s not known yet, but people are working on that piece of the puzzle. Children ARE dying and plenty of middle aged adults, too (parents….who take care of the kids!!). How about this, you write down on a piece of paper 10-15 people that you absolutely love and adore and then look at that list and mark off 1-2 that you wouldn’t mind NOT having in your life anymore. That’s what will happen if everything gets opened up too early and there is a 2nd or 3rd wave. No, we can’t live like this indefinitely, but we are only 1 month into restrictions yet the whiney crowd is complaining that they can’t take it anymore. Yes, this is the USA, but sometimes I think that we have too many freedoms and I think people don’t quite have an understanding of the freedoms they are afforded. In some countries, you can be shot or thrown into jail for not following “the orders”, but the Governors are asking people to follow some rules until more is known and until they can come up with a plan so that MOST people remain safe and death counts decrease.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/21/coronavirus-covid-toes-may-symptom-covid-19-young-people/2994930001/
It’s a logical point. But it has no practical application. Children carry/ spread the virus; children can’t be in school without adults; re- opening schools [unless done very differently] spreads virus to families/ staff/ purveyors [community]. I get your distaste at using smarmy “for the children” sentimental appeal where it doesn’t fit. OTOH, any longtime local teacher has concern for the community, & can’t help thinking about past students– elder siblings or parents of the current crop– & of course, selves & colleagues, whose lives are put at risk if restart is done SOP.
That was (initially) my sole point in posting on this thread. That it is a bald-faced lie to say that children are at serious risk of dying from COVID-19. Singer has said various things in this thread, but notably he has not defended that statement, even though it’s the title and rhetorical core of his post and he has repeated the assertion several times on Twitter. Again, it’s not just “smarmy.” It is an indefensible lie, backed by no evidence. I pointed that out here, and in response, I got comments like, “but children can get COVID-19,” or “but some children has been hospitalized,” or “but here’s a news story about a child that died from COVID-19.” None of which has anything to do with the fact that the risk of children dying from COVID-19 is extremely low to the point of being impossible to calculate. To say the least, it’s frustrating.
There are children who have become sick with coronavirus. The numbers are small.
The Boston Globe wrote about this. I didn’t post it because I didn’t want to be an alarmist. The risk is small but not non-existent.
”Last week, when the state first released data on coronavirus cases by hospital, the numbers seemed almost predictable. Many large hospitals had well above 100 patients; smaller community ones had dozens.
”But one number was striking: Boston Children’s Hospital had seven patients admitted with confirmed or suspected cases of coronavirus, including three in the intensive care unit. The number of COVID-19-positive admissions has since climbed to 13, with three in the ICU as of Sunday.
”In a pandemic perceived as largely sparing the very young from serious illness, a growing number of children infected with COVID-19 in Massachusetts have become so severely ill that they have needed hospitalization — sometimes even ventilators. The sickest of these patients have typically had underlying health conditions.
”One such child was a 16-year-old girl admitted last month at Boston Children’s Hospital in serious condition. Staff immediately suspected coronavirus. Her blood oxygen was low, plummeting briefly to 52 percent — a startlingly dangerous level.
”She was also autistic, and couldn’t tolerate a mask on her face to deliver oxygen, so a therapist positioned a tube a few inches away. Still, her oxygen remained too low.
”A team swiftly brought the girl, feverish and suffering from pneumonia, up to the intensive care unit. Doctors tried a BiPAP machine to deliver oxygen, then intubated her with a ventilator. Seventy-two hours after admission, the test results came in: a confirmed case of COVID-19.
”It was a phenomenon that is still relatively unusual: a child descending into life-threatening illness from the coronavirus.
“They have the full range of severity of illness that one sees in adults,” said Dr. Michael Agus, division chief of medical critical care at Boston Children’s Hospital. “However it is a far, far smaller number.”
”According to state data, of the 38,077 confirmed coronavirus cases in Massachusetts as of Sunday, only 899 — or 2.4 percent — involved people age 19 or younger. Across the United States, fewer children than adults have suffered such symptoms as cough, fever, or shortness of breath, and relatively few children have been hospitalized with COVID-19, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control report on the coronavirus disease among children.
”Three children with COVID-19 are reported to have died in the United States, according to the April 6 CDC study. No children with COVID-19 have died in Massachusetts, according to state data.
“Children are intriguingly resistant to developing critical illness,” said Dr. Jeffrey Burns, chief of critical care at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Why do they get infected apparently as easily as anyone else, but why are they resistant to critical illness?” It’s still a mystery, he said.
”Still, rare severe cases do occur. Boston Children’s Hospital had admitted a total of 15 children with COVID-19 by last Thursday, as well as four patients age 18 or older, according to a spokesperson. Most of the children have been school-age to teenage, and the youngest is 7 weeks old. At any given time, the hospital has two to four COVID-19 patients in the ICU, and one or two on a ventilator, Agus said.”
For those of us that are both in the classroom and the high-risk group, beginning school again, even in the fall is a thing that gives one pause. I probably lean more toward getting things back to normal quicker than Singer, but there have to be safety provisions. We would need constant testing of students. That will certainly not be in place this year due to the lack of testing. I am not sure it will be in place by next fall or ever. Will anybody be willing to invest in the public health?
Thank you for being straight-up. My husband and I are 70. I am in a different position: my income as a PT PreK Span enrichment “special” has always been just a small supplement– husband tho technically retired, works on PT for his firm (at the moment working almost FT from home, as online is more labor-intensive to meet deadlines). But… it’s a thing that has made life sweet for me for 20 yrs; I still get new clients; & giving up IRL interaction w/ tykes would be a bitter pill.
Nevertheless when my agent blithely asked last wk whether I’d still do summer camp if a client re-opened, my inner reaction was “no way in hell.” I put her off, doubting any PreK’s would get enough takers to do camp. [Safe social distancing for 3/4yo’s?]. But immediately I had to wonder about September– or anytime sans vaccine. This work may already have ended for me.
Steven Singer isn’t a medical doctor or a scientist, but he evidently likes to play one. What he wrote here is a disgrace. At some point, the economy has to reopen. More than 20 million Americans have already acknowledged losing their jobs. Soon they will lose their health insurance, houses, etc. Obviously this shutdown cannot go on forever. Does Mr. Singer feel qualified to be the one to decide when it reopens? I don’t believe New York schools should reopen this year for several reasons, including due to those like Mr. Singer who will create panic among all facets of the school community. He needs to stay in his house and be quiet until this is over.
“Does Mr. Singer feel qualified to be the one to decide when it reopens?”
I dunno: do you?
No. But I am not writing nonsense like he is. I am also not accusing those who do want to see the economy open at some point of being in favor of killing school children. When fanatics resort to those kinds of statements and position themselves as the protector of children they lose whatever little credibility they once had.
I’m not sure I can stipulate to your characterization of Mr. Singer’s comments as “nonsense.” I also cannot see my way clear to designating him as a “fanatic.”
You might consider integrating some nuance into your analysis. One aspect of your reply to my comment where we might find agreement is the mildly overheated and even self-righteous (much like your own, incidentally) rhetorical tone he takes.
But his fundamental argument, which I understand as not reopening society, particularly schools, in indecent haste to “save the economy,” well, I guess I’m down with that, as my students like to say.
Are you suggesting that people should not voice their opinion? Do people who live in a free society “stay in their house and be quiet?” Have you expressed the same outrage with the multitudes of protestors in several states demanding that we open up? Or are some opinions worth more than others?
Personally, I’m kind of tired of nefarious motivations automatically assigned to people who disagree with you. Are there people who want schools back in session simply so Wall Street can prosper? Maybe. But there are other, actually valid, reasons to want kids back in school.
First because, as I think we all agree, in-person learning is infinitely superior to this g-d awful “e-learning” thing we’ve got now. My favorite is online PE. I’m not blaming teachers for the awfulness of e-learning, it’s that we’re all stuck at home and that’s the best that can be done.
Second, and much more importantly, is children’s mental health. Humans are hard-wired to be social creatures, children most of all. Children also need to move and run and engage in whole body play, particularly with other children. I personally am watching my usually brilliant, vivacious 11 year old wither away to a shell of herself and I don’t know what to do about it.
It would be very unlikely that sending your daughter back to school would endanger *her *life. Children appear to unaffected by the symptoms. Yes, there is most definitely a debate to be had about the safety of staff and faculty, as well as the transmission to other family members because children can be carriers. But we can’t lock up children forever to protect adults – that’s ming-bogglingly cruel to them and short-sighted for our own future.
Many states, including my own, have already cancelled school for the remainder of the school year, and I have no choice but to accept that. But I cannot accept that this will continue until the disease presents no further threat. There is no cure on the horizon. A vaccine is at least 18 months away. There will always be new cases. Somehow we need to balance the risk of the disease against the equally lethal threat of the mental health crisis that is rapidly increasing.
And let’s not pretend the economy is all about “Wall Street”. What do you say to the unemployed bartenders, hairdressers and other service providers who can’t make their rent and who have no health coverage? If either party were seriously addressing those issues, maybe we could continue this longer, but they’re not. The ACA and, worse, COBRA are absolutely not acceptable alternatives to Medicare for All. There should be a lot more than 19 Democrats arguing vociferously for recurring monthly payments to all Americans throughout the crisis.
And anyway, many of “the poor” are indeed working. Who do you think is stocking your grocery shelves and working the Amazon warehouses and doing gig work delivering your pizza? Those workers are already struggling with facing the virus, taking care of their children, and keeping their jobs. We don’t need schools to open so that those people can work, but it would be damn helpful for those people to have somewhere for their children to be for the day while they already are working.
The disease itself is not the only factor here. As I’ve said before, there are three separate crises going on (the disease, the economic fallout and mental/social health), and all three can kill. It’s not just a matter of lives lost, it’s a matter of which lives will be lost and how. Sure, we can prevent thousands of lives being lost to the disease by continuing the shutdown indefinitely. But what if those lives are offset by lives lost to poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, suicide, social unrest, etc.?
Boston reported cases of young children getting the virus, some now in ICU, some intubated.
Well said.
Re: the economy, in addition to the profound impacts that an extended lockdown will have on Americans, there’s this:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-children-un-idUSKBN21Y2X7
dienne77, outstanding comment that reflects the various sides to this very complex issue of when to re-open the economy. I lean toward a conservative approach, but I understand why many people think differently. My wife is a psychologist who has worked for a large employee assistance program for 30 years. She is working 10+ hours every day Monday through Friday because the volume of calls from distraught people has gone through the roof. Your last sentence shows the dilemma our elected leaders are in: “But what if those lives are offset by lives lost to poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, suicide, social unrest, etc.?”
John Webster,
Death is worse.
Diane – is death from COVID-19 worse than death from poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, suicide or social unrest?
COVID 19 is contagious. The others are not. You are sounding like Dr. Phil, who compared the virus to automobile accidents or drowning in swimming pools. One is contagious. The others are not.
Hey, don’t let me stop you if you want to socialize without masks or gloves. You can’t convince me to ignore the risks. I can’t convince you that a pandemic is not like a bad cold season. Go socialize with your friends and do whatever you want. I’m not the police.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/21/coronavirus-covid-toes-may-symptom-covid-19-young-people/2994930001/
Singer’s graphic shows Tennessee opening up in April. this is incorrect. We are done until August 3 as of now.
Perhaps I missed it, but he did not mention the numbers of children who live with their vulnerable grandparents. Among the impoverished, this is a really big deal, as parental dysfunction sees many grandparents, often of advanced age and compromised health condition, are in the business of raising their grandchildren.
Some research suggests that viral load may be a key factor in infectiousness and the severity of the infection. Constant exposure to family members in lockdown will increase viral load.
Walk me thro that one for this dense old lady, will you Flerp? Where’s the viral load for a family in lockdown?
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. With so little knowledge about COVID-19, any view including those of politicians is an educated guess. I agree that many of the politicians particularly in red states have been pushing for the economy to reopen. Each person will have to decide if the risk is worth the reward. Without testing it is difficult to make an informed decision.
Last week I mentioned that a friend and former colleague passed away from the virus in New York. This week her husband and daughter also died. This is a tragedy that I am having a hard time processing. I am taking this virus very seriously. As a retiree, I have the luxury of not being forced to make this difficult decision.
That’s very sad.
Anyone who underestimated the severity of this disease is taking big chances with their own lives and the lives of others.
I am so sorry to hear that, retired teacher. You understand what’s at stake; you’re living it.
Ear to ground via daily JQPublic call-ins to CSPAN’s Wash Jnl show: only a minority, mostly in rural areas &/or knowing no one ill [in a bubble] are poo-pooing/ calling for re-opening now. The vast majority of calls are from self-employed & very-smallbiz owners desperate for govt cash/ loans-grants/ unempl ins so far not in hand.
I have no explanation whatsoever for certain red-state govrs– take FL’s DeSantis, opening up small hands-on biz like massage therapy, hair/ nail salons– crowds are thronging re-opened beaches in Jacksonville. ?! IMO he’s a rogue cannon. Every state should be banning flights to & from FL.
The treatment aspect of the virus is really interesting- it’s evolving as they learn more. My daughter is treating infected people and she thinks the better practice will end up being earlier intervention. She thinks the instructions to stay home and self-treat until you require emergency hospitalization will be changed to efforts to monitor oxygen levels and intervene earlier, before a ventilator is required.
That would change the demand on hospitals- many more people would be hospitalized but they won’t be as sick and won’t need extraordinary care and they’ll survive at higher rates.
They’re really learning as they’re going. She’s very hopeful that they’ll get better at treating this quickly because they’re treating so many people in such a short span.
It’s kind of refreshing to talk to practitioners because they all admit they don’t understand the virus yet- unlike all the protesters who are completely convinced it’s just like a seasonal flu 🙂
I read one article that claimed even starting one week earlier with stay at home orders could have saved thousands of lives Hindsight is always the best foresight.
I suspect that your daughter may be right. One of the problems seems to be that people’s oxygen levels have declined so slowly, they are functioning at what appears to be an okay level. When they are finally admitted to the hospital, oxygen levels are so low they would normally be unconscious. I heard it compared to being at the top of Mt. Everest. At that point, there are no reserves. I suspect that may be behind the reports of people being sent home either dying at home shortly thereafter or being admitted too late to do much.
I sometimes think NYC might be a bad example because they really did have an overwhelmed health care system so did a kind of triage where they instructed people to not seek care until they were at death’s door. That won’t be the treatment going forward.
Health care providers just need time to figure it out and “flatten the curve” bought them some time, in addition to relieving pressure on health care systems.
They know exactly what to do for flu because they’re so familiar with it- this one they don’t understand yet.
I just think people in general are bad at handling uncertainty so we’re all very anxious and we’ll be less anxious as we understand it better. But that takes time. Screaming and yelling and insisting the virus must conform to economic factors or a political timeline probably isn’t helpful, long term, and to me seems like an irrational reaction to a scary situation. I know we all want to return to normal. I don’t think the virus cares what we want.
I don’t know if it’s true in other places but we regularly have schools close here during serious flu outbreaks. They close because so many students are absent and they’re small school systems. We had two close for periods just this past winter due to flu. My son’s school has never closed due to flu but that’s because he’s in the largest system in this area. I wonder if those small school systems know more about what happens to students when the school has to close for X number of days.
Never seen that in NYC. Don’t remember that happening growing up in the Midwest, either.
Schools across Middle Tennessee and Kentucky regularly close during the flu season. In recent years, we have lost more days to sickness than to snow. As absentee begins to exceed 20%, schools often close and undergo deep cleaning. Such outages would no doubt be a part of going back to school next August with the Covid still around.
Now that you mention it, I do vaguely remember a day or two off to stop the spread of the flu. After I ended up in the hospital with complications from the flu, I started taking the flu vaccine every year.
Over the yrs I often heard older teachers remembering the “good old days” when schools were closed for a week in Feb– a quasi-quarantine during which schools were deep-cleaned/ sanitized. Tho it was before widespread flu vaccinations, they found less illness passed around then than now, when there’s just a day or two off around Pres Day wkend.
Governor Murphy of NJ has suggested that the children should wear face masks whenever they return to school and he’s not for rushing things. Having kids wear face masks for hours at a time is just unrealistic. They will have to take them off to blow their noses or to eat lunch, for example. Normally they eat lunch shoulder to shoulder in the cafeteria or all-purpose-room (gym/cafeteria/theater). Who will supply the masks which will have to be changed every day, I assume. What will happen in the crowded classrooms of 30 or more kids? Under normal times, crowded classrooms can be breeding grounds for germs, colds and the flu. We need more testing and every school will need a nurse, at the least. The children will not be able to maintain the same level of personal care and hygiene at school as they do at home, e.g., hand washing, availability of facial tissues or handkerchiefs. I agree, the present situation is intolerable but so is going back to school too soon and causing a 2nd or 3rd wave of infections.
There are going to be second and third waves of infections, no matter what. The virus isn’t going away. The question is can we ensure that our hospital systems can deal with it in a way that doesn’t shut down all other elective procedures. (Consider:
How many people will die of cancer over the coming years because of cancers that would have been detected in screenings that never happened because of the shutdown?)
as always, it will be outsiders making their unrealistic decisions about how kids must be treated
I am actually quite shocked by many of the commenters here.
No one likes being under quarantine. No one likes having schools closed. If I could press a button and make this all magically go away, I’d do so in a second. I’d love to get back to teaching my classes in person. I hate all this distance learning crap. But that’s reality and you need to find a way to cope with it.
We need to keep these kids safe. We need to keep ourselves safe. Yes, most kids are asymptomatic. But they are carriers. We would be foolish to ignore that fact. My whole point is that we should not reopen schools until it is safe to do so. The fact that that statement is controversial at all is a sad statement on America in 2020.
Yes, nothing is ever 100% safe, but that doesn’t mean the idea of safety is a lie. There are metrics that have been proposed of when it would be safe to reopen schools. In my article, I mention the “National Coronavirus Response: Roadmap to Reopening” which concludes that we need to continue social distancing including school closures until cases peak and we see sustained declines in new cases for 14 days. That is a good minimum standard, and we’re not there yet. Having widespread Coronavirus testing would also be an important metric, not to mention a vaccine.
We can disagree about which is the best metric to use, but any talk about reopening schools or the country without reference to some metric of safety is irresponsible. It is being fostered by billionaires who are funding the Tea Party Trumper terrorists strutting through the streets with their guns, swastikas and anti-Semitic signs. That anyone here would willingly side with these fools corrodes my faith in humanity.
Stay safe and stay sane. The only thing more viral than COVID-19 is ignorance.
“My whole point is that we should not reopen schools until it is safe to do so. The fact that that statement is controversial at all is a sad statement on America in 2020.”
It’s not a controversial statement; it’s a meaningless statement that depends on what you mean by “until it is safe to do so.”
You now say that “[w]e can disagree about which is the best metric to use, but any talk about reopening schools or the country without reference to some metric of safety is irresponsible.” But in your post, you complain that some people (Trump and “plutocrats”) “want to reopen schools as soon as possible – even if it isn’t 100% safe.”
Is that your metric of safety? “100% safe”? If so, teachers better retire or prepare for years of online instruction, because no epidemiologist thinks COVID-19 is going to disappear without a vaccine that may take anywhere from one year to several years.
Finally, the suggestion that children are at serious risk of dying from COVID-19 flies in the face of all known data. To make that assertion is ignorant, or, less charitably, a lie. COVID-19 is not “just the flu,” but for children, the seasonal flu is much more dangerous.
We have to take this virus seriously. No intelligent person would suggest lifting all safety precautions immediately. But we cannot use “100% safe” as a safety metric.
We cannot promote panic simply because we’re afraid. We have to look at data honestly and critically. We have to look at how different regions are being affected differently and enact sensible policies. We have to consider the far-reaching economic costs of the policies we enact, and weigh those, because those costs have immense impacts on families in America and around the world.
FLERP, I admit I muddied the waters with a reference to “100%” safety, but to be honest I never expected any rational reader to take that literally. If you do, it’s obviously ridiculous. As a Philosophy major in college, I was always taught to take the writer’s words charitably – to assume he or she was making the strongest possible version of the argument and THEN to tackle it. Unfortunately in today’s soundbite “gotcha” culture, we do just the opposite. We construct the most obvious strawman version of what someone says, destroy it and then crow about how smart we are. It makes me sad.
As to the economy, people come first. Money comes second. Any rational government can do things to safeguard people from unrestrained capitalism. The fact that our government is not doing enough is not a condemnation of humanism. It is a condemnation of our government. We need to demand more. THAT is what we should be protesting about, not that we should reopen the country before there is any indication it is safe.
I would hope you also didn’t mean for anyone to take literally the suggestion that children are at serious risk of death from COVID-19. Because that is literally not true, based on all available data.
The country will never be “safe.” The question is when it is “safe enough” and what that means. And the answer to that question will differ depending on what state you’re in, and what area within that state.
Finally, I’ll agree to disagree about the notion that “money” and “people” are ultimately separate issues, partly for the reasons that Dienne and I have mentioned above. But I’ll hope that’s largely a semantic argument, and I’ll try to bow out of this thread where I’ve already commented too many times.
I totally agree with you. There is so much about COVID-19 we do not yet understand. Opening the economy too soon may lead to a new wave of infections. Without tests available there is no way to design a reasoned plan that will protect the health of people. China opened in tiers based on clinical evidence. We have no such data because we have no such resources or clear policies. People are all ages are dying here including some children.
I think what people are saying here is that staying in quarantine is not safe and becoming increasingly more dangerous. Your admonition to “stay safe and stay sane” requires us to think about the relative risks of various activities as we move forward.
I don’t agree.
The best way to avoid exposure to the virus, especially if you live in an urban area as Steven does (Pittsburgh) and as I do (NYC) is to follow the advice of experts in epidemiology, like Dr. Fauci.
Of course, you live in Kansas, so you may want to mingle and not worry. Where I live, everyone is wearing masks and gloves. But you don’t need to. So I encourage you to resume your customary life. Where you live, it may be safe.
Diane, again, you’re only focusing on the virus. Yes, the best way to stay safe from the virus is to stay away from other people. No one disputes that.
But what’s the best way to stay safe from domestic violence when you are quarantining with your abuser? What’s the best way to stay safe from homelessness when you’ve lost your job because of the virus and you can’t make your rent? What’s the best way to stay safe from suicide when you are severely depressed because of confinement and isolation? What’s the best way to stay safe from civil unrest when the boiling point is reached and thousands of scared, unemployed, uninsured people facing bills and eviction start massing in the streets?
Why can you not accept that there are multiple factors affecting our safety right now? FLERP! and I are not saying to ignore the disease, but you certainly seem to be saying to ignore everything else.
There are many horrible repercussions of this pandemic. Joblessness, bankruptcy, poverty. If all the warnings of public health officials are ignored, we could have a death toll of hundreds of thousands of people. There are no good choices.
The total brushoff (or at best, gestural acknowledgment) that these concerns get among the vast majority of commenters must be (and is, I can vouch) alienating to any reader who is grappling with severe depression and anxiety, loss of income, the loss of health insurance, the threat of (or already realized) financial ruin, domestic and child abuse, and suicidal thoughts. I am dealing with some of these issues. Some of my closest friends are dealing with them. Some of my pro bono clients are dealing with them. The overall tenor of the comments here suggest to me that most commenters are not dealing with any of these things. Some may have a lot of money in the bank. Others may have what they assume are iron-clad job protection or retirement benefits. Few if any seem to have young children. It makes for an interesting demographic study, for sure.
FLERP,
We ALL want the economy to restart. We ALL want to survive and be healthy. I don’t think you should question anyone’s motives. I understand your concerns.
I think we do agree.
If society wanted to reduce the chances of covid-19 transmission to the lowest possible levels, we would have a stricter quarantine. As we have seen, workers at food processing plants, grocery stores, and shipping warehouses at at risk of infection, yet we keep those places open because we think that closing them would make us less safe than keeping them open. Do you agree that such an extreme quarantine would be too costly to the country?
It looks like Allegheny County and Pittsburgh are actually doing rather well and might reach his goal of sustained reductions in new cases shortly if they have not already done so. The county of 1.2 million people has just over 1,000 confirmed cases and the highest number of confirmed cases in a day was March 30 when they reported 76 cases. On April 1 there were 55 cases, April 6 there were 41, April 14 there were 39, and the preliminary count from the most recent available date is April 18 with 13 cases. (all figures from the Allegheny County Health Department website: https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Health-Department/Resources/COVID-19/COVID-19.aspx
When people wear masks and gloves and limit interaction, the rate of infection declines. If they abandon those practices, the rate of infection will increase. I prefer to get medical advice from epidemiologists, not economists.
As I said before, you live in Kansas. Don’t wear gloves or masks. Socialize with your friends. Do whatever you want.
And if no one went to work at a food processing plant, a grocery store, or a shipping warehouse the rate of infection would decline even more than just wearing masks or gloves. Do you think we should enforce this stricter quarantine or do you think that would be too costly?
Meat processing plants have become hot spots for the virus.
The owners are closing them not to be safe or compassionate but because 40-50% of their workers are infected.
The owners are closing these plants, not because they are compassionate, but because 40-50% of their workers have the virus.
I don’t have the slightest idea that anyone has come up with this absurd argument. It just doesn’t make any sense. Making bipolar extreme comparisons (with such a sloppy term like a “severe quarantine.”) in an attempt to normalize economy vs.human life (and death) dichotomy as a rational view in this pandemic(especially if you live in its epicenter or ground zero) is beyond me.
If anyone here believes it’s okay for parents to send their kids to school now, while the nation is yet to flatten the curve, you should try sending them to Fukushima and have them stay nearby its crippled nuclear reactors for a year. Yeah, it’s been 9 years, but they still have a fatally high radiation out there. You certainly have no chance to survive in a no man’s land without a fatigue and mask.
Yeah, it’s just like that. You will have a high chance of getting infected if you are trapped in a cluster of people. Even Tokyo or Seoul is not safe.
Ever saw a group of people getting trapped inside the Diamond Process and other cruises? It’s just like that. Still don’t care? That’s top management’s decision. But no one should be responsible for making their business a petri dish.
Ken,
Let me clarify what I mean by a more extreme quarantine. It is not complicated. It is simply having the government close more businesses and restrict travel more than has already occurred.
It is clear that food processing plants, for example, need to be closed by government order in order to protect the people working there. I would add anyone that it might be prudent to ban any travel outside of the county of residence, so no production should move from one county to another. This will emphasis the saving of human life by reducing the infection rate over the any economic activity. It would, of course, cause some pain in cities where there would be food shortages, some severe, but it would be small price to pay. Right?
TE,
Fortunately the intelligent leaders in our country, who unfortunately are not at the federal level, listen to medical experts, not economists. I assume that since you are living in Kansas, you take a perverse pleasure in thinking that people who live in cities might starve. That’s already happening in impoverished countries. Are you gleeful yet?
Yeah, no half measures for TE. Don’t look at what has been successful in countries that “beat” the curve. Can we move food safely from one location to another? Of course we can. Should meat packing plants be doing more to protect their workers? Obviously! How about those migrant workers out picking crop? Does anyone care if they die? These are complex issues that we need to think about, but presenting false choices as the only/logical alternatives does nothing to advance the discussion. There are examples from around the world that can inform our decisions. I don’t hear anybody talking about what has worked (i.e. hasn’t killed massive #s of people) elsewhere and why. Lots of hand wringing and outrage neither of which is an effective problem solving technique. There isn’t going to be a perfect solution where we all go dancing off into the sunset in gleeful gratitude. There are going to be a lot of wounds to patch and graves to dig no matter what we do.
Dr. Ravitch,
As I said before, we agree: some of the things we could do to slow the infection rate in the population, like closing down food production facilities and transportation networks, are just too costly so we should not do them. Other things, like wearing a mask and gloves, are not very costly at all so we should wear masks and gloves.
The world is filled with trade offs and the relative merits of the different things we might choose change over time.
More reasonable than your previous caustic remarks about letting cities starve.
TE,
I’m sorry. Can you name one country in the world where national leaders emphasize economic leaders’ advice than doctors advice. I can’t see any except for Brazil. No one but a clueless, moronic dictatorial leader like Trump or Jair Borsonarlo. Even a pro-business Japanese leader Shinzo Abe lets his Health Ministry take charge–instead of economic ministry and corporate lobbyists.
Your overgeneralization flies nowhere. Contrary to what you believe, many business leaders seem to be aware that having their employees infected at the consequence of mandatory work is more than offsets to debts incurred by the shutdown of operation.
Dr. Ravitch,
I am not the one that is arguing to close the food production and distribution network down, it is Steven and the orthodox posters whose argument leads to that conclusion. Steven says that we should only do an activity if it is “100% safe”, but lets be charitable and interpret that as “very safe”. The posters here have argued that it is illegitimate to consider the cost of not doing the activity, with one going so far as to wish death to another poster for discussing the cost of all the things we are currently not doing.
Lets apply this to food production and distribution. I think it is obvious to all that food production and distribution is not “very safe” from covid-19. Since we are not allowed to consider the cost of not doing food production and distribution, we are done. Because it is not “very safe”, we should not do it.
I would like to think that if the orthodox posters were actually making these decisions instead of writing about decisions on the internet, they would consider both the risk of the activity and the cost of not doing the activity in making the decision.
I think you are misinterpreting what others are writing, as you so often do, in order to score a rhetorical point.
Did Steven Singer say that grocery stores and pharmacies should be closed down? Did he say that supply lines for food should be shuttered? I missed that. Did anyone else say it?
No.
What is your point?
I should have learned by now never to get into an argument with you, TE, because you never concede that you were wrong and you keep repeating whatever you said until the other person gives up in exhaustion. You must be some teacher.
Dr. Ravitch,
I do not believe I am miss reading what the posters here say. Steven, for example, says “That’s because neither of you have addressed the real question – what metric of safety should we accept?”. I take that to mean a single metric, not different metrics for different activities that have different values to society. Do you think he actually means that we should have different standards for safety from infection for different activities, depending on the cost to society of not undertaking those activities? I don’t see how you can read his statement that way.
As for the illegitimacy of taking the cost of prohibiting activities into account, we can look at GegB’s reply to FLERP!’s comments. FLERP! suggests that we should take the costs of prohibiting activities into account. GregB responds “you are a fucking idiot” and “I take great joy when this virus kills people like you” among other statements. I read GregB’s post to mean that there is so much uncertainty about the impact of the virus that there are no limits to the sacrifices that society should make in order to reduce the infection rate. Do you read his comment differently? Again, given the frequent use of the word “moron” in GregB’s post, I don’t see how you can understand his comment as anything other than a claim that no sacrifice is too great to reduce transmission rates.
Neither commenter said that food supplies to cities should be cut off for the sake of safety. As I said before, you make assertions and keep restating them until everyone else gets tired of answering. That is why you are in moderation.
TE, either you are on the spectrum and find understanding and following the nuances of language and social interactions difficult, or you are purposely disingenuous. GregB’s response left me so sad that his disgust with some of the discourse has led him to leave the site on such a note. He had been a voice of reason; that he no longer believes he has anything productive to contribute here is disturbing. If you had been following the development of his outburst, you might show yourself capable of adding to the conversation more often in the eyes of other participants.
Speduktr,
There are many things we can do to rearrange our practices to reduce the transmission rates of the virus. Some, like no longer shaking hands, are easy, costless, and can be done quickly. Others, like changing the food production and distribution process are difficult, will take a long time, and will greatly reduce the amount of food making it through the system. We might see significant food shortages and we might never reach Steven’s requirement that it be “safe”.
I am all for nuanced thought about this. We face a huge number of trade offs between reducing the transmission rates of the virus and the other goals of society, including the other ways that people might die. The first step, however, is to acknowledge that there are trade offs to be made. The reaction to FLERP!’s and Dienne77’s posts suggested to me that orthodox posters here do not see that there are trade offs.
I talked about food production and distribution in an attempt to point out that society is already trading off higher viral transmission in exchange for food flowing to the cities. GregB may think this is moronic, but I suspect most citizens believe this is a reasonable trade off to make.
Thank goodness the crucial decisions are made (mostly, not including the dotard) by doctors trained in epidemiology, not by economists who look at life as a cost-benefit trade off.
I like this quote from Mark Twain that was shared with us a long time ago by a poster I dearly miss: “By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.” Thanks, KrazyTA.
Dr. Ravitch,
Please feel free not to respond to my posts. I only respond directly to you when you have directly commented on something I have posted. I think it would be helpful if Steven would comment and say that the current level of safety is high enough for the folks working in food production and distribution to go to work and expose themselves to the virus, but not high enough for teachers to go to work and expose themselves to the virus.
Speduktr,
I was sad that GregB was disgusted with the idea that we should not make every sacrifice in order to reduce transmission of the viras. I am sure that he, like everyone else who posts and reads this blog, is not making every sacrifice to reduce transmission. It is the balancing that is important.
Perhaps Peter Singer, the well known advocate for the poor around the world and animal rights advocate can be more persuasive. See his article here:https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/when-will-lockdowns-be-worse-than-covid19-by-peter-singer-and-michael-plant-2020-04
“That anyone here would willingly side with these fools corrodes my faith in humanity.”
Sigh. You do understand that it is possible to agree with someone on certain points without necessarily “siding” with them, right? For instance, I believe you were and are opposed to Common Core? Is that because you’re “siding with” people who think Common Core is a Commie plot to turn our kids gay? Of course not. You have other reasons and you tread very carefully about agreeing with certain people about Common Core, but nonetheless, you still align with them in general opposition.
FLERP! and I have explained our points about why the disease itself is not the only consideration. We both come down on the side of opening things up sooner than later even if we are not completely “safe” from the disease (because we never will be) because other factors are equally or maybe even more important. Does that mean we agree on certain points with the gun-toting, swastika-wearing nut jobs? Yes, just like you agree with those same people on certain points about Common Core. Does it mean we “side with” them? I think you know the answer to that.
Dienne, there is very little positive argument to what you or FLERP are saying here. You pick at this, you peck at that but my main argument is untouched. That’s because neither of you have addressed the real question – what metric of safety should we accept? Granted it’s a hard question to answer and perhaps it allows multiple interpretations. However, I attempted to look at a few of them in my article. What do the two of you think of those metrics? Are any of them acceptable? Are any parts of them worth preserving? Is there some other metric we should consider that I have overlooked? Addressing that would be a serious discussion. Instead we get claims that safety doesn’t exist. (Facepalm.)
And now we have Teaching Economist bringing down the level of discourse further – Sometimes trying to stay safe makes you less safe. Okay, so we should never try!? (Facepalm.)
Dienne, my opposition to Common Core exists at the same time as Tea Partiers, yes, but it is almost entirely distinct. The terrible and inauthentic arguments offered here about the inability for anything to be safe is, in fact, in line with the neoNazi, neofacist protesters. It is anti-intellectual. It is deeply political. It is contrarian. It is irresponsible. I have nothing more to say.
It’s useless to continue talking because you can’t seem to hear what I’m saying. The virus is not the only source of suffering and death we need to worry about. The longer the quarantine goes on, the higher the greater suffering and death from economic and mental/social health factors. It’s not like we can shut people in their houses, protect them from the virus and everything is magically safe. There are dangers of being quarantined too, and until you can address those, we’re just talking past each other.
Here is my comment on Steven’s original post —
It’s not just about the schools and the children. The current pandemic has exposed a deeper principle at work — it has brought the corporate masters and their minions to the very point of articulating what they don’t often dare to say —
❝Concentrating wealth in the hands of the ruling classes presupposes an acceptable level of mortality in the ruled masses.❞
Exactly. Our economy doesn’t need restarted. It needs to be rebuilt. Our hyper competitive, individualist, profit over people based economy is what rendered us unprepared for a crisis such as this. We need a foundation of care, security, and the right of all people to have their human needs met, unconditionally. Anything less will bring us right back to this point. A point where we are all getting a taste of what it’s like to live in fear of insecurity. A fear the marginalized have been living with over the last few hundred years. But, I guess we never have time to humor those sorts of conversations, because when the economy is open, families will be back to working 3-4 jobs a piece just to barely make ends meet.
It also highlights the failure of employer based health coverage. Lot’s of people that lost coverage or never had it at all will be handed a gigantic bill. One woman already received a hospital bill for about $37,000 dollars. How do people pay these bills if they are making minimum wage?
cx:Lots
See what going back to school in Demark looks like. They are honoring the social distancing rule. The big implication for the social distancing rule is that class sizes many need to be much smaller. These students are not wearing masks. These are older students.
I cannot imagine how every classroom in every school can be set up for social distancing, or how special educations students who require aides can participate in classes. There are different needs for “self-contained classrooms, and schedules that move students from room to room for varied subjects.
In the upper grades, teachers and administrators will need to be engaged in monitoring halls and stairs for social distance in addition to the pacing the students as they enter classrooms.
School architecture makes a difference. For example, most high schools have side-by-side lockers for students. Separate cafeterias will need scheduling, seating and time in line adjustments. It is easy to make generalizations about re-opening schools, but there are a many implications in doing so beyond picking up students and delivering them back home. In fact, more busses and/or redesigned schedules are probably necessary–if the social distancing concept is still mandated or recommended.
Concerns about student welfare need to be extended to teachers and all other staff, in addition to people who are parents or caregivers of students.
https://fullframe.edweek.org/2020/04/20/in-denmark-students-go-back-to-school-6-feet-apart/
Denmark has reduced the stats on the pandemic as seen here
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/denmark/
See what going back to school in Demark looks like. They are honoring the social distancing rule. The big implication for the social distancing rule is that class sizes many need to be much smaller. These students are not wearing masks. These are older students.
I cannot imagine how every classroom in every school can be set up for social distancing, or how special educations students who require aides can participate in classes. In the upper grades, teachers and administrators will need to be engaged in monitoring halls and stairs for social distance in addition to the pacing the students as they enter classrooms.
School architecture makes a difference. Think of side-by-side school lockers, and who cafeteria schedules, lines, and furnishings will need to be modified for the social distancing. Think also of all of the staff in every school and who will be in charge of disinfecting surface, wiping handles on doors, checking temperatures, and so on. This is to say that reopening school when the threat of pandemic is still with us is not as “simple” as many seem to think.
https://fullframe.edweek.org/2020/04/20/in-denmark-students-go-back-to-school-6-feet-apart/
Denmark has reduced the stats on the pandemic as seen here
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/denmark/
From NBC News: Two first responders in Detroit who lost their young daughter to the coronavirus hope their grief can be used to warn others to take the pandemic seriously.
Skylar Herbert, 5, was a little girl who loved to dance and dreamed of being a pediatric dentist one day. She was bubbly and feisty and never let fear stop her from trying something new, her parents said.
She is believed to be the youngest person in Michigan to have died after testing positive for the coronavirus.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/it-s-coming-you-detroit-5-year-old-dies-coronavirus-n1188376
A crisis can lead to positive change
I for one was not feeling much support before Friday the 13th. It was testing season, we had lost a teacher to burn-out. Her class was closed and folded into ours with all those concomitant headaches and tasks that management (even with past experience) did not foresee. Even now my Google Classroom is kind of messy because there was a “zombie section” that I had to shut down, but not all kids have joined their new one.
The tests were due to be horrendous. Dinged up chromebooks, anxious kids, apathetic teachers, and an office that seems focused on attendance numbers and not much else. PARCC, a Science Assessment, then NWEA in two languages. And of course, like most big districts, we are working well past the accountability window almost to July. Grades and scores are due for promotion weeks before that. As it stands, per Pritzker, we are remote learning thru June 18th.
Social Distancing in CPS? I already feel bad for the kids.
Here are some positive outcomes on my wish list as well as a few negatives (a lot of this assumes that a large portion of our unemployed get back to partial or full schedules soon):
1) Massive cash stimulus to state BOEs from the Fed, and an across the board revocation of testing contracts. Also a suspension of SPED legislation (excepting TMH and EMH students) and any DOE mandates that cost $$. Public transit gets a boost after moving to much more federal subsidy (student ID you ride free). That takes most school buses out. School Busing based on age i.e if you’re age 6 and have no older siblings you may need a school bus.
There’s the money.
2) Using some or all of the 50 closed schools to maintain distance learning in person. Chicago has the infrastructure to house well over half a million kids in classrooms, but we have only about 350K today. There’s plenty of space, not counting soon-to-be vacant office space and the giant buildings on Pershing Rd.
3) Address the short term labor shortage or teacher pipeline by pulling classroom teachers from (nearly all!) the middle-management, social services, and SPED ranks. No more IEPs, at least temporarily, but no more crowded classrooms. Accoms and mods will be handled by the teacher and other FEDSTATE funded agencies (DCFS, etc).
4) New classroom guidelines: If you measure out 6 ft social distancing in an average city classroom that’s 36sq feet per person. In my room from the 1880s, that’s enough for about 27 people total in a 1,000sq ft room. In more recent buildings, the numbers go down significantly. These metrics are in the labor contract. No exceptions or rounding down inches, as our airline industry did with their seats!!!
5) Staffing numbers and sick outs :No more splitting classes of no sub-absent teachers. Mandated Nurse or two (with large rooms and an assistant) in each building to house the sick whose parents are unavail. There has to be a back up pool of healthy adults for sick teachers and nurses. Before we start combining rooms because of illness and no back ups we go home, paid, for up to ten days. Each school sets up this (likely) contingency with families and their kids tablets. Labor contracts with cleaning services are set-up to ensure a clean work space and fair working conditions, i.e. more custodians. Hallway monitors for escorting sm group bathroom breaks, lunch is staggered so that 36ft2 rule is followed in cafeteria.
6) Culture shifts: No more attendance incentives outside of the usual certificate given in June for perfect attendance. On that note, the whole 180 days of school may evolve into different on/off groups. more people staying at home nov-march. If testing is gone, kids may not need to be in school that long. Especially k-1st and seniors. Discipline: Kids who cannot maintain distancing will have to stay home?? Bring back the 10 day suspensions. Kids and teachers returning from international travel stay home ten days. Hygiene and epidemiology curriculum move into the younger grades.
Some of the jobs lost in other service sectors will be made up in teacher/support ranks. Recess suspended, school moves back to 5.5 hour schedule including lunch, bathroom, and switching rooms. Breakfast moves back to cafeteria/hall. Maybe a knotted rope to guide the little ones in line? Minimum required subject mins are suspended. Teacher salaries may come down a bit a a result. Other support staff and custodial salaries go up. Independently run inspection of school conditions on a random schedule.
7) Tech: the whiteboard/smartboard/chalkboard model is going to lose relevance with this distancing, there are too many kids with vision issues already. We need an indestructible tablet one to one that substitutes for it that is live linked to the teacher board. Parent/school communication tech is made quicker and more reliable to work at short notice. Phones need to be buzzed if there is a cancellation.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/21/1938939/-5-year-old-girl-dies-of-COVID-19-in-Michigan-while-armed-protesters-deem-quarantine-excessive
https://www.clickondetroit.com/health/good-health/2020/04/17/how-loosening-restrictions-too-soon-could-lead-to-devastating-second-coronavirus-covid-19-spike/
I personally do not think schools should reopen until we are in the clear. Children are more likely to be asymptotic as well as they are likely to get sick being around children who are already sick with a basic cold.
I do not think it is fair for people to automatically push children back to school because they want businesses to open up or better yet to get back to work. Yes, we need money but your health and the health of your loved ones should be considered as well. What about everyone that is considered ESSENTIAL Workers? They want be home too but they can’t. They are at work making sure we are good and someone is doing their best to take care of us- as if we were their loved ones.
I worked in the healthcare field in my early twenties and I have been working with children for the last 3-4 years and I must say yes it is hard doing remote learning for some- but pull through. Putting the risk of others health in jeopardy for money and travel is disgusting. You can fly out or make all this money, but what happens when you are sick? We have to look at the bigger picture and dissect the fact that we should not be reopening anything yet because we are at higher risk of it spreading.
OK, I got sucked into this because of a friend to whom I recommended this site long ago asking me, “can you believe this shit?” With the exception of Stephen’s initial comment, virtually all the rest of you commenting here are complete idiots. Flerp, if you could choose that all your relatives and dependents would be the only victims to die of COVID-19 and everyone else would get through this, would you still write what you do? Because your legalistic “analysis” is NOT grounded in science. It’s based on statistics, which you should now are the conclusion of lies, damn lies, etc. If your child or grandchild was the only one who was young to succumb to this virus, would you still argue as you do? If you say either no or a disingenuous yes, you are a fucking idiot. You are a perfect example of Shakespeare’s aphorism about lawyers. Take the other moron with you on your way to Hell.
Not one of you has a goddamed idea of what the scientific method is teaching us. The most important thing it teaches us is that not ONE of us, even the most educated scientists, have a clear idea of what this virus does. I only hope that those of you who have certainty or the dismissive, deadly snarkiness like Flerp and the moron contract this virus so you can finally understand what you minimize and equivocate. I take great joy when this virus kills people like you. It’s not about “panic” (how stupid do you have to be to buy into this description?), it’s about rational science and realizing that the “best” knowledge we have now may well be obsolete in two weeks. Got that out of my system and spoke for my friend. Adios, idiots.
There are some points I could address, but I saw this and, just, wow.
“I take great joy when this virus kills people like you.”
I guess the key is that we really don’t know what we know yet. Opening up is a bit like Russian Roulette at this point. No one has come close to meeting the criteria set forth for opening. Nor do we have any idea of when the social economic stressors will outweigh the medical concerns. Right now, though, the medical professionals on the front line are saying they have no more reserves to meet a new spike if we open any time soon. Take a breath people. There are no easy answers and probably no single timetable for everyone. Bottom line is nobody wants anyone to die.
I find the arguments for a tilt point– between shut-down to slow transmission of an unknown lethal virus, vs the inevitable social & phys/mental-health fallout from economic collapse, & isolation– to be off the mark.
The economic collapse is here already. Startup while infections/ deaths are still on the upswing [or barely plateauing for a few days, or lowering by smidgeons for 2 wks] clearly risk a second viral wave with even worse economic outcome. Focus should be elsewhere: (a)1st& foremost, FedDefProdAct testing, vaccine devpt, PPE, ventilators, added hosp capacity; (b)monitor Asia, where it started [& Italy too]; we get a free 2-mo preview of startup procedures/ results; (c)stop monkeying w/complex stopgaps like unempl ins & loans/ grants that can’t be handled fast enough by bureaucracy: wire fed $ now to everyone in need & figure out who owes who what later; (d)use the same route for covid healthcare incl mental-health: as of tomorrow make it 100% “free”/ fed-pd – use Medicare platform & square it later.
The argument re: rise in depression/ suicide, domestic violence, & especially the position that quarantined kids’ soc devpt is being sacrificed to adults’ safety strike me as particularly off-base. No question stress increases ill health physically/ mentally. The combined fears of contracting deadly disease from normal transactions plus looming poverty are dire indeed.
But stats on this are soft compared to viral death count. They are order-of-magnitude only, and highly variable. Not even as solid as stats on combat PTSD, which we can use short-term to project needed services, long-term to add to the risk/ benefit analysis hopper re: war. The parallel risk/ benefit analysis for covid-19 is not granular– it’s not whether/ how/ when to cease quarantine, which are epidemiological & in the fact-finding stage. It’s part of grading our govt’s response to the crisis, w/implications for needed changes. Also part of a bigger issue, the cost to society of our inequitable economic system.
I disagree with much of this, but I do commend you for not saying that you “take great joy when this virus kills people like” me.
Well put, Bethree.
Cuomo spoke about this balance and he put it well.
https://patch.com/new-york/longisland/cuomo-tells-out-work-protesters-get-job-essential-worker
Cuomo stressed that economic hardship is not the same as death, which he said would result from reopening the economy too soon.
“Economic hardship, yes very bad, not death,” he said. “Emotional stress from being locked in a house, very bad, not death. Domestic violence, on the increase, very bad. Not death.”
He emphasized that allowing people to return to work puts not only their own lives at risk but the risk to others.
“Yeah, it’s your life, do whatever you want,” he said. “But now you’re responsible for my life. You have a responsibility to me. It’s not just about you.”