Open the Playgrounds (Corona, Delhi, August: school district, universities, gated)

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by wac_432

The math is simple. 1:4 infections for adults. 1:1 infections for children. Clearly adults spread it more readily than children. The ratios are actually much worse if....

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6937e3.htm

Wac, come on. Salt Lake City, UT from April to July in child care facilities.

[sav858]

I still can't believe playgrounds are closed and Newsom hasn't said anything about it. It's such a low risk activity too, so it only makes sense CA keeps them closed since most of what this state does makes no sense. I would't be surprised if we are one of the only states to still have them closed.

Our HOA has a private park that was initially taped off but that disappeared so the kids can use that one, the play structure is kind of lame though. And they took the swings down. All the city parks are cordoned off still, they miss their favorite parks.

[wac_432]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6937e3.htm

Wac, come on. Salt Lake City, UT from April to July in child care facilities.

CA4, what are you trying to say? That's exactly the link I cited.

In the study, 3 index case adults spread it to 12 children. 12/3 = 4, so 1 adult infects 4 children, even if they are wearing masks, disinfecting, and social distancing. This is just from brief passing contact in a controlled environment.

Clearly adults should stay away from each other and from non-family children. The adult -> child and adult -> adult vector is responsible for spreading the virus.

Then, those 12 children infected 12 caregivers. 12/12 = 1, so 1 child infects 1 caregiver. That's a much lower ratio than 1:4, especially when you consider that those were live-in situations with more than 12 hours of close, unmasked, non-distanced contact in homes that were likely sanitized less than the child care centers. Presumably children can also infect other children at the same rate in the same situation.

Children, in any setting, spread the virus much less readily than adults. The child -> child or child -> adult vector is much less likely to spread the virus. This has consistently been shown in studies from Europe, Asia, and now the US CDC.

Anyone saying "there's not enough evidence" or "the ability of children to spread the virus is not well understood" is either ignorant or flat-out lying at this point.


I completely agree that playgrounds with children on them are NOT zero risk. The only zero risk with this virus is NO contact with anyone; people, pets, surfaces, food, etc. However, child-child playground risk likely falls well below everyday "permitted" activities like eating to-go food, shopping for essentials, and passing within 6 feet of others on hiking trails or boardwalks.

Child-child playground risk certainly falls below risky "permitted" behavior like hair/nail/massage, any outdoor gatherings of adults, eating on outdoor patios, shopping for non-essential items indoors, etc. It is also much more beneficial to health than any of those permitted activities. If we really want to stop the virus, we should open playgrounds and close down these non-essential adult activities.

Keeping playgrounds closed is arbitrary, ineffective, and causes far more harm than good.


So here's what should happen (focusing only on playgrounds):
- Barriers should be removed.
- Swings should be unlocked.
- Signs should be posted requiring: masks and social distancing for adults.
- Signs should also recommend: masks and social distancing.

Because I no longer have any pups in this fight, I'm advocating this because I recognize that draconian "abundance of caution" rules need to change after 7 months of unnecessarily overburdening families with children. If we don't, then the growing backlash against the stupid rules is going to cause people to disregard all the rules.

I think the current Halloween wars are a good opportunity for the state to reaffirm (or just plain honor) it's commitment to a science-based approach. Trick-or-treating needs to be discouraged due to the adult -> child interaction of handing out candy. A powerful way to deliver that message would be to inform people that child -> child transmission is lower-risk while reminding them that adult -> child and adult -> adult transmission is still very high risk and therefore playgrounds will be opened with restrictions.

The governor needs to make this decision and put it in his daily briefing to socialize it via the media.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by wac_432

CA4, what are you trying to say? That's exactly the link I cited.

I realize that. I don't see how we can't extrapolate from a study like this.

[saibot]

Most playgrounds in our town still have the yellow caution tape around them and signboards saying Playground Closed. However, I noticed today that a number of children were playing all over the equipment at our Central Park, while their parents sat on the benches around. Oddly, this playground is right across the street from the police station and City Hall.

(It doesn't bother me. I think it's fine for the children to play. But it does seem odd that almost all the playgrounds are "closed," while the one where it would seem easiest for a closure to be enforced is apparently open.)

[joosoon]

As far as I can tell, ours have been open for quite awhile and we are (although that will probably change Tuesday) out of the purple zone. If the risk was exceedingly high for outdoor play structures and, what? grass fields, it would show in our case load. There's no reason any other county should be keeping their parks shut down.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by stablegenius

I know right? As if kids can sit still for yoga.

Not to mention yoga with mom is not socializing with other kids and just being a kid.

[wac_432]

More evidence for opening schools and playgrounds. NPR and WaPo have picked this up. The data that children just don't transmit the virus efficiency is finally mainstream in the USA.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...outputType=amp

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by wac_432

More evidence for opening schools and playgrounds. NPR and WaPo have picked this up. The data that children just don't transmit the virus efficiency is finally mainstream in the USA.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...outputType=amp

Is this really conclusive evidence? Washington Post's embedded link directs one to an article in Science magazine, citing four studies about this. The first two are studies done in England, the third states, "Conclusions: There is preliminary evidence that children and young people have lower susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, with a 43% lower odds of being an infected contact. There is weak evidence that children and young people play a lesser role in transmission of SARS-CoV-2 at a population level. Our study provides no information on the infectivity of children." The fourth is from a study done in the UK. When were these studies done? Sample size of studies?

[joosoon]

Originally Posted by wac_432

More evidence for opening schools and playgrounds. NPR and WaPo have picked this up. The data that children just don't transmit the virus efficiency is finally mainstream in the USA.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...outputType=amp

Good news.


I've said this before, we already did a test run before the big shut down in March. It's unrealistic to think that covid wasn't within the communities by the time schools were shuttered. There's known cases that predate the shutdown by months. All that time between patient zero and the middle of March while the schools were still operating didn't translate into big spikes in positive cases isolated to kids or staff. If that had happened, the pattern would've shown as cases spiked in April. Now we're seeing it on the other end too. That's a lot of evidence that schools can open with the same sort of precautions businesses are allowed to operate under. There's nothing magical about a campus when compared to Target.