A truism, something undoubted, self-evident, too obvious to mention.

[rickgthf]

With regards to Fauci's comment about schools not being open this fall.. and trump's, "that's not acceptable".

If there's one thing that parents of school-aged children (liberal or conservative)  know to be true, "if there's anything going around when schools open in the fall, you're going to get it".

[sw363535]

life without a school system , might be a better life..... Like say 1968 or 1972 == when it was in local control.

Use the proper terms.  Life without a federal school system was better.  Education was better when it was in the control of the parents and student and local community.

Life without a bloated federal bureaucracy would be a tremendous improvement.

[sdholloway56]

Yeah, and as the other saying goes, first year teachers catch everything until they're immune from all of it. Only a tiny fraction of individuals- particularly in rural areas- currently have any immunity at all.

The concerning other related syndrome aside, it is probably true that the vast majority of kids would handle infection pretty easily. But not all. And they are perfect vectors into the rest of the community.

While I'm hopeful that the death plateau will be running along at a lower level by Fall, it will still be running and given the transmissability of the virus, it can explode any time and place there's an opportunity.

My assessment of home schooling is that it works very well for a small minority of families who have the personal capacity to manage it, and is the functional equivalent of dropping out for many. You would see a sharp increase in the inequality of educational outcomes. Might be a feature rather than bug in our Darwinian world, though.

Anyway, the virus does not care about anyone's political ideology.

[rickgthf]

I can guarantee, in a few months, all we'll hear about is: " I went to school, and killed gramma."

[sdholloway56]

Exceedingly unlikely that there will be an effective vaccine by then and the herd immunity thing would exact a horrendous toll in route.

May be some more effective interventional therapies.

As suggested, maybe leave it up to local school boards? I note that in at least one state that didn't do a shutdown- and I think most or all- 100% of school districts chose the optional shutdown.

It's my observation of local schoolboards that there are plenty of real nutters but they're typically the minority and about proportional to the number of qualified and conscientious members. The rest fall somewhere between.

As it gets closer, if the landscape looks like best guesses say it will, I think they'll think twice before exposing themselves to that kind of responsibility when the live among the people who will be affected.

[rickgthf]

"As it gets closer", of the 1721 deaths yesterday, only 115 were from New York.  Outside of New York, the number of new cases (& deaths) is rising steadily.  There is a significant source of infection everywhere in the Midwest & South.  It'll be interesting to see what happens as these states drop mitigation measures and mobility increases.

The IHME model jumped deaths by Aug. 4 to 147,000 recently, up from 134,000.  Not a good sign.

[sdholloway56]

With the propaganda blitzkrieg in force, it'll have to get close enough to smell before it will change certain minds.

And some places will remain relatively unscathed, which might lead to some tragic local decisions.

[sdholloway56]

ever watch a time lapse of a single e coli in a petri dish?

[sdholloway56]

Best science based guesses at this point would be that widespread re-opening and business as usual at schools would be courting disaster.

Thus, there is time to work up voluntary guidelines to help keep education in process while limiting risk.

Although this is an administration that ####canned the general guidelines from is own CDC.

[cphyllis5]

Schools MUST re-open this fall.  Millions and millions of parents will otherwise be forced to stay at home, permanently losing incomes and further tanking the economy.  Demand for our farm products and petrol will NEVER return to previous levels.  Absolutely unfair to the kids, the least-likely age group to contract the virus.  Remove Fauci and replace with someone of common sense. All he does is cover his *****. Ever notice how it's the rich that are so ridiculously over-cautious about opening the economy?  Most people need a weekly pay-check to simply survive.  Come-on America, we've become a land of wusses.