As you know, I am generally in favor of as much in-person schooling as possible. But I am a realist about the risks involved. Just heard from a professor who told me that a graduate student of hers (in her 30s) is in the hospital in RI with Covid-19 bilateral pneumonia. She contracted coronavirus from her children who had tested positive 10 days ago, and likely got it at school. The children are doing fine, though they did get sick. The mother is clearly not well.
I hope that is a very rare, isolated case. The medical community has done nothing but tout the safety of in-person learning. I still see no reason for children not to be vaccinated the same as adults as well.
After all, we don’t have separate vaccines for the flu, polio, smallpox, etc. Do we?
As you know, I believe kids should be in school….when safe. I spoke to a friend a couple of days ago. A Cambridge teacher friend of hers is a long hauler with no end in sight. Another is struggling.
I really don’t care if it is a handful or a hundred. We have an alternative. But we focus on the teachers…..what must children think if their teacher or friend is struggling with covid ….or worse
School positive totals
PLEASE NOTE…..the last group is for a month and not a week. The first two totals are for just a week. No one is mentioning the increase. But then money speaks and men mumble
April 1 through April 7
Students 815
Staff 152
Total 978
March 24 through April 1
Students 791
Staff 228
Total 1019
Feb 25 through March 24, 2021
Students 1,856
Staff 675
Total 2,531
India and Uruguay both have meteoric rises in cases. I worry a lot about India at this point.
U.S. hospitalizations showing a now steady increase nationwide. it’s not a dramatic increase, but it’s steady and happening every day.
Much of the continent of Europe is still peaking; Spain and Portugal are exceptions as their numbers have improved steadily for the past 8 weeks, Portugal even better than Spain.
Interesting to see how variants compete against one another for dominance. B117 quickly dominated the original wild type variants. Now it appears that P1 (the one variant that scares the crap out of me) is beginning to dominate in parts of Canada and even the UK. Cases in the UK are thankfully quite low, but P1 is on the move. In some ways it’ll be an interesting real-world case study of how protective the Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna vaccines are against P1 (in the UK Astra Zeneca is the main vaccine used). Undoubtedly there will be some protection, but how much is the key question.
The President of Moderna believes that Covid will be with us for at least another two years, but more “seasonal” thereafter.
That doesn’t say much for its vaccine, does it? 🙁
Not the vaccine’s fault. If everyone got vaccinated there would be very little transmission, as we see now in Israel. But not everyone will get vaccinated, so yes Covid-19 will be around for a while. I do believe, however, that we’ll pass from the pandemic to the endemic phase at a certain point later this year. When is it endemic? Well, that’s somewhat arbitrary. But, I think a gauge of this is daily deaths reported. In a typical flu season the U.S. reports roughly 100 deaths per day. in a bad season that number is around 200. The 7-day moving average of deaths is now at ~700 (it’s coming down, which is good). If that approaches 200 per day, or better yet 100, we’ll have entered the endemic phase. This could happen as soon as this summer, though I caution against counting on that. This is where we also need to look more at hospitalizations and deaths than cases.
I think you’re being very unfair to the vaccine & its developers. Does the flu vaccine make the flu go away forever? No. Use logic. The vaccine is outstanding from pretty much all trials and early operations. Pretty darn amazing in fact given how quickly it all had to be done.
C-19 for 4-15 is ready.
Comments are closed.
Your no-hype southeastern New England weather blog!
As you know, I am generally in favor of as much in-person schooling as possible. But I am a realist about the risks involved. Just heard from a professor who told me that a graduate student of hers (in her 30s) is in the hospital in RI with Covid-19 bilateral pneumonia. She contracted coronavirus from her children who had tested positive 10 days ago, and likely got it at school. The children are doing fine, though they did get sick. The mother is clearly not well.
I hope that is a very rare, isolated case. The medical community has done nothing but tout the safety of in-person learning. I still see no reason for children not to be vaccinated the same as adults as well.
After all, we don’t have separate vaccines for the flu, polio, smallpox, etc. Do we?
As you know, I believe kids should be in school….when safe. I spoke to a friend a couple of days ago. A Cambridge teacher friend of hers is a long hauler with no end in sight. Another is struggling.
I really don’t care if it is a handful or a hundred. We have an alternative. But we focus on the teachers…..what must children think if their teacher or friend is struggling with covid ….or worse
School positive totals
PLEASE NOTE…..the last group is for a month and not a week. The first two totals are for just a week. No one is mentioning the increase. But then money speaks and men mumble
April 1 through April 7
Students 815
Staff 152
Total 978
March 24 through April 1
Students 791
Staff 228
Total 1019
Feb 25 through March 24, 2021
Students 1,856
Staff 675
Total 2,531
Sweden’s case rate is now the highest in Europe. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/13/sweden-has-highest-new-covid-cases-per-person-in-europe?
India and Uruguay both have meteoric rises in cases. I worry a lot about India at this point.
U.S. hospitalizations showing a now steady increase nationwide. it’s not a dramatic increase, but it’s steady and happening every day.
Much of the continent of Europe is still peaking; Spain and Portugal are exceptions as their numbers have improved steadily for the past 8 weeks, Portugal even better than Spain.
Interesting to see how variants compete against one another for dominance. B117 quickly dominated the original wild type variants. Now it appears that P1 (the one variant that scares the crap out of me) is beginning to dominate in parts of Canada and even the UK. Cases in the UK are thankfully quite low, but P1 is on the move. In some ways it’ll be an interesting real-world case study of how protective the Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna vaccines are against P1 (in the UK Astra Zeneca is the main vaccine used). Undoubtedly there will be some protection, but how much is the key question.
The President of Moderna believes that Covid will be with us for at least another two years, but more “seasonal” thereafter.
That doesn’t say much for its vaccine, does it? 🙁
Not the vaccine’s fault. If everyone got vaccinated there would be very little transmission, as we see now in Israel. But not everyone will get vaccinated, so yes Covid-19 will be around for a while. I do believe, however, that we’ll pass from the pandemic to the endemic phase at a certain point later this year. When is it endemic? Well, that’s somewhat arbitrary. But, I think a gauge of this is daily deaths reported. In a typical flu season the U.S. reports roughly 100 deaths per day. in a bad season that number is around 200. The 7-day moving average of deaths is now at ~700 (it’s coming down, which is good). If that approaches 200 per day, or better yet 100, we’ll have entered the endemic phase. This could happen as soon as this summer, though I caution against counting on that. This is where we also need to look more at hospitalizations and deaths than cases.
I think you’re being very unfair to the vaccine & its developers. Does the flu vaccine make the flu go away forever? No. Use logic. The vaccine is outstanding from pretty much all trials and early operations. Pretty darn amazing in fact given how quickly it all had to be done.
C-19 for 4-15 is ready.