America's kids will easily survive COVID-19, but not the schools now being redesigned to save them from it.

[Mark Crispin Miller]

Saturday, August 8, 2020

The hybrid scenario: kids return to school several days per week: Are You FKM?

Covid has brought out the finest in government mismanagement.  Now it is being applied to schools.

Does anyone believe the notion that students will be safer attending school 2 or 3 days a week, instead of 5? Who dreamed this up? Do they think if your child inhales 1/2 as much virus, or uses the public bathrooms half as often, they will be appreciably safer?  Do the schools think that a "deep cleaning" (whatever that is, since it is undefined), even done daily, is going to stop viral transmission? There are no data that say it will.

“Hybrid" schooling still prevents parents from going back to work, so it does serve the purpose of reducing economic activity.  In other words, it perpetuates the economic crash that the lockdowns initiated.  This, by the way, has a very adverse effect on lots of children.

One school I heard about is planning to build plexiglass partitions around each desk, on 3 sides, with 6 feet between the children.  I think they are also cancelling lunchroom, recess and sports.  Some are requiring masks all day, even on kindergartners.

The 6' distance rule is a totally arbitrary creation invented by CDC, after their prior 3' rule was proven to be bogus during the Ebola epidemic. See my 2014 post on this. There is no science to support it.  You heard me right.  It is invented out of thin air, an expensive charade, to make everyone think that Covid risks can be successfully controlled. But only with extreme measures...like halving classroom size and ruining the economy.

Yet most schools are stuck with inadequate ventilation systems.  Kids at most schools will be highly exposed to viral transmission via aerosols (small particles containing virus that can remain suspended in air for hours). But only rarely is this discussed.

We are supposed to think the extreme measures are going to solve the transmission problem. However, kids will be kids, no matter what rules are imposed. Their masks will do nothing, if they even stay on. They will find ways to play with each other. We can't turn them into robots, and we should not be trying. 

Can we please have some common sense regarding schools?

As of July 14, only ONE child in Canada had died from Covid. As of July 19, only 29 Americans under age 14 had died of Covid.


So far, Covid has been a rare disease for children. I read in two places that a) 50% and b) 70% of children who died from Covid had a preexisting condition. Multiple studies that have examined child to child, and child to adult transmission of Covid, published in the August issue of the journal Pediatrics, have found that spread by children is a rare event. The review concludes:

Almost 6 months into the pandemic, accumulating evidence and collective experience argue that children, particularly school-aged children, are far less important drivers of SARSCoV-2 transmission than adults. Therefore, serious consideration should be paid toward strategies that allow schools to remain open, even during periods of COVID-19 spread. In doing so, we could minimize the potentially profound adverse social, developmental, and health costs that our children will continue to suffer until an effective treatment or vaccine can be developed and distributed or, failing that, until we reach herd immunity.

Public health is supposed to be about balancing risks and benefits, and choosing interventions that will clearly provide a net overall benefit. Hybrid schooling is not a public health measure. It’s just another expensive charade.

While some children and teachers will no doubt get Covid in schools, and a few will die, that is what happens in life.  Some students and teachers die each year from flu, or pneumonia, accidents, cancer.  We can't stop this.  We should stop pretending that we can. 

Once children have been exposed to Covid, the vast majority (probably 99+%) will have asymptomatic disease or a mild case.  And then they will be immune, and we can relax our fear for them.  Isn't that a better outcome?

Either keep children locked up at home, or send them back to a regular school program. Let's be honest about this.