Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston, Hingham: daycare, homes, preschool)

[Bridge781]

Right some parents are really motivated in putting together a remote learning plan for their kids in addition to working a full time job. These folks are the over achievers. There are a lot of underachieving parents out there who aren’t going to do anything. I think if things are remote as long as the teachers are the ones preparing the assignments and sending them along in an organized way it won’t be awful.

I don’t know what to do with my 4 year old. We’re in a new town and she finished up a year of pre school at a private catholic school this past year. She just turned 4 in March. I could tell she was bored on the zooms but did well with the assignments. I don’t know that I would bother enrolling her in a pre-K that was going to be fully remote. Curious what other parents are doing.

It will also be weird for my 1st grader if he’s introduced to his new school, new teacher and new classmates on the computer. Ugh. I do worry about them having little actual interaction with people.

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by NewfieMama

My biggest issue with distance learning is I really do feel that it puts disadvantaged kids in the worst position. It also puts parents who work outside the home in the worst position. And these are the households that need the most help.

If a parent has to work outside the home and cannot afford a babysitter, what happens?
If a parent can stay home, but can't afford help and cannot work and homeschool, what happens?

You are correct. There are probably a few paragraphs of things that were discussed that I could write here that nobody has a good answer for. I really feel bad for the teachers trying to plan for every contingency and to accommodate every students needs with what? 4-5 weeks to go.

I've got two 2nd graders (in two different school systems) and a 3-year old. The 3 year old will be going back to day-care at a local home daycare with only 4-5 kids. However, they are closed on Friday, so I will be WFH every Friday for the forseeable future. Now I need to juggle in a hybrid model for one of the 2nd graders, and a full-time in class for the other. I wouldn't be surprised if the MA school goes hybrid at the last minute, and our luck they will be different days.

[porterhouse]

My biggest issue with 100% distance learning is mental and development issues for the kids.


I thought this from professors at the Harvard School of Public Health is an intelligent and balanced take. For those who can's see the article, some of the main points that stuck with me include don't let polarized politics politics drive this decision, and "we should be following the science that says in-person schooling for our kids is too valuable to give up and that the risks of school-based transmission appear to be low".

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/...eopen-schools/

[NewfieMama]

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

You are correct. There are probably a few paragraphs of things that were discussed that I could write here that nobody has a good answer for. I really feel bad for the teachers trying to plan for every contingency and to accommodate every students needs with what? 4-5 weeks to go.

Absolutely--if there was one thing that was loud and clear in our school meeting last night it was that planning for any of these contingencies was damn near impossible. Everybody sounded completely exhausted. I truly feel for the teachers and administrators--it's a mess.

[NewfieMama]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

I don’t know what to do with my 4 year old. We’re in a new town and she finished up a year of pre school at a private catholic school this past year. She just turned 4 in March. I could tell she was bored on the zooms but did well with the assignments. I don’t know that I would bother enrolling her in a pre-K that was going to be fully remote. Curious what other parents are doing.

In our school committee meeting last night we were told that the preschool and Pre-K programs through our elementary schools will definitely be happening as planned and in person. The 3 and 4-year-old programs are not an issue because the kids aren't bussed, they don't have lunch on premises (3-year-olds are morning and 4-year-olds are afternoons, but neither group has lunch at school), and they have dedicated classrooms. So even if our K - 12 program is hybrid, the preschool program will take place at the school. Not sure if your town has a preschool program through the elementary schools, but if so that could be an option.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

It'll burn itself out long before there's a vaccine. That's basically what happened here. Latest I saw was that a vaccine was looking more like the Fall of next year.

We have a difference of opinion. My belief is that the Northeast had enough behavior change to cut the transmission rate below 1.0 for a sustained period of time. We did not have enough infections to get anything remotely close to herd immunity. It didn't "burn itself out". Until there is a vaccine, if we don't continue that behavior that keeps the transmission rate below 1.0, it will pop back up with the hospital ICUs overflowing again.

[Bridge781]

Why are people angry or seem to have bad feelings towards those who want school to open in some form? To say, oh ok this is about you and your first grader is pretty crappy. This isn’t just about me and my first grader at all. Me personally yes I’d like my kid to have more structure in a school setting. Structure I can’t necessarily give to him because I’m his nurturing mother. Some kids listen better to other adults aside from a parent.

[Bridge781]

Originally Posted by NewfieMama

In our school committee meeting last night we were told that the preschool and Pre-K programs through our elementary schools will definitely be happening as planned and in person. The 3 and 4-year-old programs are not an issue because the kids aren't bussed, they don't have lunch on premises (3-year-olds are morning and 4-year-olds are afternoons, but neither group has lunch at school), and they have dedicated classrooms. So even if our K - 12 program is hybrid, the preschool program will take place at the school. Not sure if your town has a preschool program through the elementary schools, but if so that could be an option.

That’s good to know. Thanks! Our town does have a preschool through the elementary but it’s only 9 to 11. We were looking at other options because we needed more than that but now I guess I’ll take what we can get.

[NewfieMama]

sometimes I look at European news just to see what they are talking about over there. Just saw this article in the Times about how there are no cases anywhere in the world where a student gave a teacher Coronavirus: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/n...tist-3zk5g2x6z

What's interesting is that in the U.K., schools will be open in fall, but now they are questioning if they should have ever shut them down. From the article:
Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told The Times that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.

To me, the science (both the fact that opening schools has not had a negative effect on Coronavirus cases in Europe AND that psychologists, pediatricians, and even epidemiologists feel that children are suffering by not being in school) points to a hybrid or in-person solution for MA schools this fall.

[BostonMike7]

I'm just thinking out loud here, but I think the amount of cases in the northeast is MUCH higher than thought. Not sure if it's enough for herd immunity, but I think we missed a lot of cases initially when testing was very limited in March and April.

Reason I say this is because the mortality rate against documented cases is VERY high in the northeast states. 7-9% or so. The states where cases are taking off now are trending around 1-2%. I realize deaths come later, so take this with a grain of salt. If the MA death rate was a similar figure of 1-2% (instead of 7.4%) , that would mean the actual MA case numbers would be around 550,000 or so.

Using that same logic with NY state, with a mortality rate of 7.9%, they would have 2.1 million cases if the 32,500 deaths were only a 1.5% mortality rate.

CT's rate is 9.2% with 4400 deaths. If we were to assume an actual 1.5%, that would be nearly 300,000 cases.

NJ is 8.9% with 15,800 deaths. Assuming actual of 1.5%, that would mean about 1 million actual cases.

NH and VT were high as well with values in the 4-6% range, so their actual case loads could be higher.

Florida is trending at a 1.2% however we will need to see how that number changes over the next few weeks. However, if it holds (along with the numbers of other states) at a similar mortality rate, i'm going to assume that we missed a significant number of cases here in the northeast.

If the mortality rate of COVID is below 1%, that means the actual cases are even higher!

My point is that it's very possible we've had a significant number of cases run through the area in Feb/Mar/April and didn't even know it (because we couldn't detect).