Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Panel: Is Biden Ignoring Science On School Re-Opening?" video.

I take issue with them moving teachers up when they still aren't vaccinating grocery workers or other essential workers that can't work remotely.
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Same here, they're talking about moving teachers up, but grocery workers and the like aren't even on the list for getting vaccinated around here. I think the earliest that's going to happen is probably in the fall, but we're expendable. I can't do my job remotely and if it weren't for the city council, I wouldn't have hazard pay. I might get vaccinated if there's a spare doses that's set to expire, but short of that, I'll be waiting until after many people that can stay at home all day every day get their doses. It's just such a lie when they claim that they're prioritizing people most likely to contract the virus when they're leaving out people working essential jobs that require them to be in close proximity with other people for much of the day.
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The school district here has provisions for feeding children in their homes. I don't know all the details, but I know there are pick up points for the students on free or reduced cost meals.
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@geometerfpv2804 That's really not acceptable and that's a large part of what's driving the antivaxx, antimask and the rest of it. They lied about the utility of the masks, they promised that we'd only have to stay at home for a couple weeks and only gave us a couple weeks worth of financial support and they lied about the levels of immunity needed to reach hurd immunity. The bottom line is that they should have been honest up front and the compliance rates would likely be higher. I never had the opportunity to stay home as I needed to work, but watching those without jobs has been really disheartening. Everybody should have been getting those $600 a week checks and at the end of the year, they should have taxed it back from those that made enough not to need it based on 2020 earnings.
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Senators. Have you seen how often they go on vacation?
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It's even dumber when you realize that the kids pass this around and are usually fine, but they spread it to older people that do get seriously ill. Worst case, you're talking about kids that are being cared for by grandparents or parents with compromised immune systems. And as you not, that means not vaccinating other people, the elderly, front line workers in the food supply chain etc.
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Vaccination would cut the rates down a lot, but you generally have to do a lot of other things until a virus has been dealt with. A 95% efficacy rate in a country the size of the US still translates to somewhere around 15 million cases. The point of flattening the curve, is to flatten the curve, not to elminate it. The main failure of the flatten the curve by staying home is that people weren't compensated for being out of work and those of us that were working essential jobs received dickie mcgeezacks from the government in terms of support. We should have received significant hazard pay along with being put towards the front of the line for vaccinations if for no other reason than the fact that essential workers are essential. People would run out of food rather quickly without grocery stores and the related supply chain feeding people. Those supply chain workers wouldn't be able to do their jobs without transit workers and the folks that are supplying the gas for their vehicles to get to and from work
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Grocery workers and other essential workers that have to work with the public aren't getting vaccinated unless there's spare doses about to expire. It's disgusting that they want to move teachers up without ensuring that other groups that aren't able to perform our jobs remotely aren't vaccinated.
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@shnnktl That's definitely not the norm, none of the grocery stores I've been to during the pandemic have done much beyond the absolute bare minimum to appear to be taking it seriously. Only the cashiers get gloves, we do get masks, but I haven't seen any evidence of increased cleaning in months and there isn't really any staffing to allow for that anyways. Even with those measures I'm place most of us can't afford to get sick That's part of why profits are way up, fewer people are eating at restaurants and the grocery chains are barely spending any extra money, we just have to do a bunch of extra work. The bottom line is most grocery stores and the like are not putting any protections in place that they're not being forced to put into place and teaching can be fine remotely.
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It's not a small risk, middle school and high school teachers have somewhere between 150 and 200 students they see every day on top of any of their fellow teachers. That's a massive risk for infection. In fact, that's how I wound up getting infected myself. As far as the harm goes, most of that can be mitigated by adjusting graduation requirements and summer schooling once things are under control. You're not going to cure the heart, kidney and lung disease and death that happens as a result of these infections. And yes, people do recover and have permanent damage to their kidneys, hearts and lungs. People from the original SARS outbreak still have literal holes in their lungs years later with no sign that the damage will ever go away. Honestly, the harm done to the kids is less than the harm they'd suffer if they contracted covid and wound up causing a fatal infection in a loved one.
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@universalsoldier2293 It's worth noting that for middle and high school teachers they're interacting with closer to 200 a day. But, yes, it's hardly just them. I'm a grocery worker and I won't get vaccinated unless there's spare doses that are going to expire. We're not listed until probably next fall at the earliest here. There are people literally that don't ever have to leave their houses are getting vaccinated because they're in a high risk group, but the grocery workers that are being exposed on a daily basis and probably spreading it around aren't getting vaccines unless there are expiring doses. Those expiring doses are going to start getting less common as they change the syringes to squeeze more doses out of the vials.
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The risk at college is a lot lower than it would be in the K-12 system. With the exception of some of those 101 level classes with several hundred students at most colleges, the number of students that the professors interact with is half that of the public school teachers. On top of that, most students take only 2 or 3 classes a quarter, meaning that they're not exposed to as many people per day. They're also older and better able to handle working from home if they start to feel sick.
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@SirJarlsburg It definitely transmits between kids and anybody claiming otherwise is either a liar or incompetent. I personally witnessed it ripping through a middle school in the early days of the pandemic and I've never seen anything else move through a school that quickly. I'm not aware of any of the kids getting so sick that they needed hospitalization, hence no testing and why people think that ut doesn't spread between kids.
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@justinprice8016 In all fairness, a lot of parents don't have child care options if the kid doesn't go to school. That's one of the things the government should be helping parents with.
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@luisalejandro2335 Construction workers shouldn't be coming into contact with hundreds of people a day in tight quarters. Also, as an actual essential worker, it disgusts me that construction workers think they're essential. You're not, nobody is going to die if those projects are delayed a few months or even a year.
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