How long does anyone think 40,000 Rapid Tests will last MCPS with 72,794 Elementary School Students? Private Schools Opened Last Year with WEEKLY Testing.

...School board President Brenda Wolff said Wednesday night that she hoped the testing would be in place by Monday. The school system has requested 40,000 tests from the state.

“Once we get these tests, this will alleviate a lot of this,” Wolff said. She said she shared the frustration of parents...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/covid-testing-program-montgomery-schools/2021/09/08/4b1850ec-1101-11ec-882f-2dd15a067dc4_story.html?fbclid=IwAR08RFAAthY03wsUmIXJhSrJ60JXZcQrJjxnwd-dsHdElWhVrY708HbPdi0

A Calif. elementary school teacher took off her mask for a read-aloud. Within days, half her class was positive for delta.

The Marin County, Calif., elementary school had been conscientious about following covid-19 protocols. Masks were required indoors, desks were spaced six feet apart, and the students kept socially distant. But the delta variant found an opening anyway.

On May 19, one teacher, who was not vaccinated against the coronavirus, began feeling fatigued and had some nasal congestion. She dismissed it as allergies and powered through. While she was usually masked, she made an exception for story time so she could read to the class.

By the time she learned she was positive for the coronavirus two days later, half her class of 24 had been infected — nearly all of them in the two rows closest to her desk — and the outbreak had spread to other classes, siblings and parents, including some who were fully vaccinated...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/28/delta-variant-unvaccinated-children-elementary-schools/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR146w-CXxrf0nSfVe7iNYboe6yFCPJoLU6jx_LetcfN4m77tiiGNZj1phQ

Breaking: @McpsSafe ·QO High School case count now @20 , other schools with new cases not even on @mcps dashboard. Please vote in new mitigation measures at tomorrow's meeting, @mocoboe @ShebraEvans @brendawolff1 @hanaolooney @KarlaSilvestre6 @Lynne4Students @RebeccaOnBoard cc: @Marc_Elrich @tomhucker @PCMC1

QO case count now @20, other schools with new cases not even on @mcps dashboard. Please vote in new mitigation measures at tomorrow's meeting, @mocoboe @ShebraEvans @brendawolff1 @hanaolooney @KarlaSilvestre6 @Lynne4Students @RebeccaOnBoard cc: @Marc_Elrich @tomhucker @PCMC1 pic.twitter.com/TvEhA3EvwZ

— Safe_MCPS (@McpsSafe) August 23, 2021

Without mitigation, they predict that 80% of elementary students will be infected within 2 months, with most cases within span of 30 days.

We need to talk about the pediatric bed situation in the USA.

Because things are going to get really bad, real fast, unless people doing things to stop it.

This is an important thread. Please share.

...There are 50 million school-aged children in the US. A little over 4 million children have had confirmed COVID, childstats.gov/americaschildr… downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20… 16/n 

8 million have been vaccinated. Considering asymptomatic infections, we can guesstimate that approximately 8 million schoolchildren are relatively protected due to past infection.

This means that there are about 34 million susceptible schoolchildren. 17/n 

If current mitigation strategies are ineffective, and 50% of these susceptible schoolchildren catch COVID in the 30 days staring two weeks after school opens (not an unreasonable prediction based on the COVSIM model), what would happen? 18/n 

That means an average of 570,000 children would be infected per day.

If 1% of infected children are hospitalized, pediatric hospitals would need to care for 5700 new COVID admissions daily. 19/n 

But children don’t usually stay just one day. With the original strain in 2020, it was 2.5 days on average, in which case we would need 14,000 general pediatrics beds and 4,300 PICU beds, just for COVID patients...

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1426318422808449029.html

CDC will now recommend everyone in K-12 schools wear mask — regardless of vaccination status

 https://www.wbaltv.com/article/cdc-mask-update/37144675

Government faces legal challenge over ‘unlawful’ suppression of Covid data in schools-Public Health England is being told to release data on the spread of the Indian variant in school or face legal action

 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/covid-schools-government-legal-challenge-b1856670.html

Mask Confusion in Schools: Pandemic Offers an Enduring Lesson in Privilege

When I came back from lunch, I worked on my creative writing assignment, AirPods on high. As a substitute teacher and a student began arguing behind me, I lowered the volume and turned my head slightly — I did not want it to be too obvious I was listening in. The student, mask down, wanted to eat a sandwich while the substitute pleaded for him to pull his mask up.

Eating in class is typically allowed in my school. However, due to the pandemic, some teachers have limited snacking to the cafeteria so students can remain masked in the classroom.

The student refused to stop eating. The cycle of chewing, pleading and refusal repeated about five times.

In Missouri, I’ve had to swim upstream when it comes to masks in school. Denial of the virus’s validity isn’t uncommon, and doubts about the efficacy of masks often follows. The term “mask up” has become a cliché at this point, and students have become tired of the piece of cloth standing in the way of a typical school year. I can’t say I’m surprised by this defiance in a red state, but the ignorance and selfishness on display behind school doors goes beyond politics...

https://www.the74million.org/article/mask-confusion-in-schools-pandemic-offers-an-enduring-lesson-on-privilege/