Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston: daycare, home, employment)

[lrfox]

Baker's apparently anticipating quicker testing turnaround times in the coming weeks: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/...-test-results/

“The vast majority of the tests in Massachusetts are turned around in 24 to 48 hours,” Baker said. “We’ve been in many conversations with some of the larger national platforms about test turnaround time. And I do believe within the next several weeks we should see some improvements with respect to their turnaround times.”

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by id77

Sacrifice? You act like getting it isn't a 20% chance of complications or death but a 100% one. Endanger is a more appropriate word, but I've also figured out by now you're rather partial to emotionally-fueled hyperbole.

Aaah. So landing 20% of teachers who catch it in the hospital is hyperbole.

[porterhouse]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

So landing 20% of teachers who catch it in the hospital is hyperbole.

Yes

[Bridge781]

So people didn’t think of school as free daycare before all this happened ? Why all of a sudden now are people being accused of using school as daycare lol. Schools been around for centuries. Parents have always depended on it.

[Bridge781]

Imagine what the poorer less educated areas of MA will be like if school is completely remote in the fall. It won’t be pretty.

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Yeah, but you aren't trying to rationalize sacrificing public school teachers so you can use the school system as daycare.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by porterhouse

Yes

WHO claimed as much at one point: "1 in 5 infected with SARS-CoV-2 will end up hospitalized". This was pulled from a late May report, which I suspect includes very high hospitalization rates in areas like northern Italy and Iran.

This said, the CDC is claiming hospitalization rates are below 1%. Given that IFR rates from reliable sources are higher than the CDC's hospitalization rates, I'm inclined to say the data is "incomplete" ... very doubtful that hospitalizations are somehow lower than deaths.

Assuming any of the CDC data has validity, the interesting take away is that there is a 30/30/40% hospitalization split by age demographic meaning that while the 65+ crown is ending up hospitalized at higher rates (10% to exact), the 18-65 crowd accounts for 60% of hospitalized patients.

[Bridge781]

It’s ignorant to say parents are using schools as daycare. Obviously we will all have to make due but yes when parents had their kids I’m pretty sure most of them though and yep someday they’ll go to school. Some parents use free public schools, some pay 50k a year for kindergarten. Either way school has been a thing for a while now. Absolutely absurd to start accusing parents of using it as daycare. I’m sure parents didn’t imagine themselves on zoom calls with kids asking for things in the background. Or just having their kids home 24/7 in general. Anyhoo it sounds like school will be back in the fall in the classroom.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

WHO claimed as much at one point: "1 in 5 infected with SARS-CoV-2 will end up hospitalized". This was pulled from a late May report, which I suspect includes very high hospitalization rates in areas like northern Italy and Iran.

This said, the CDC is claiming hospitalization rates are below 1%. Given that IFR rates from reliable sources are higher than the CDC's hospitalization rates, I'm inclined to say the data is "incomplete" ... very doubtful that hospitalizations are somehow lower than deaths.

Assuming any of the CDC data has validity, the interesting take away is that there is a 30/30/40% hospitalization split by age demographic meaning that while the 65+ crown is ending up hospitalized at higher rates (10% to exact), the 18-65 crowd accounts for 60% of hospitalized patients.

I used last week's CDC data on the previous page. Without doing the calculation, 60% looks close enough.

Originally Posted by GeoffD

The COVID-19 age profile for hospitalization looks nothing like that. According to the CDC, there were 37,052 hospitalizations the week of July 11. 15,506 were age 65+. There is insufficient data but a big chunk of those under 65 are looking at lung damage and chronic problems for the rest of their lives.

The average age of teachers in Massachusetts is over 40. I see 42.4 using 2011 data with the median a bit lower. There are a lot of older teachers. I imagine there are an awful lot of teachers with the usual list of preexisting conditions that make them higher risk. Among other things, I don't see how this makes it past the unions.

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by id77

Sacrifice? You act like getting it isn't a 20% chance of complications or death but a 100% one. Endanger is a more appropriate word, but I've also figured out by now you're rather partial to emotionally-fueled hyperbole.

Nobody's excited about the options, but there's a very real and very big problem coming in September: what to do with all the school-aged children when their parents can't be around full-time because they're also being "sacrificed" to return to work. Here's the general options:

1. School is entirely remote. Problem: by September there will be a significant (and likely majority) of the population who is required to return to an office or other not-home place of employment. If you count people doing partial returns (1-3 days per week, 2 week rotations, etc) that number is probably around 80-90%. Some of those people are risking reduced pay or termination for not going in, so they're now forced to choose between staying home to be a "daycare" or leave their kids at home unattended. Don't even suggest babysitters, because there's not going to be even remotely enough to go around. There will have to be somewhere where numbers of children can be left together with adult supervision.

2. School is entirely on-site. This solves the "daycare" problem but creates your emotional "sacrifice" problem. Been beaten to death already, so leave this one there.

3. Hybrid of 1 and 2. Problem: how to coordinate which days kids go and make it work with which days parents go to an office to work? I can't get 8 people to line up for 1 hour a week; I can't imagine getting 30 kids' 1-3 days per week that will work for everyone.

Regarding option 1, I can tell you right now that suggesting that employers should be required/mandated by government to accommodate parents of schoolkids by letting them work from home and continue to be a quarter as productive as a result is a non-starter. Will. Not. Happen. I already know for a fact several employers have told parents who are WFH right now that when the office reopens, their only recourse is FMLA leave. That's a finite, and in many cases, reduced compensation that buys those parents maybe a few months more -- at best. Then they're also out a job, but hey, at least they'll be home with their kids while they take remote classes...at least until they can't pay the cable bill anymore and that shuts off.

Bottom line: everybody is going to be taking a hit for the team. This isn't just about sh*tting on teachers; they just happen to be the unfortunate lynchpin in the machine during this pandemic.

Stop it with your ridiculous hyperbole. Millions of people will still be working at home, even in September, and far beyond. You're really not getting the employment trends of the past few years, sped up by COVID this year. Sacrifice yourself first before you throw teachers on the funeral pyre.