That's clear, and it's why I'm asking you how you see it and how your interpretation of the official numbers supports your opinion.

How can a healthcare worker retain their job while refusing the vaccination? Particularly, as cited in this piece, nursing home workers working with some of the most at-risk people in society?

There's a whole lot of space between ". . .the collateral damage can't be ignored" and stating that driving to and from a basketball game is more dangerous than a virus that's infected 25 million people and killed 400k.

I grew up in a very small community that is being ravaged by Covid. I currently work in two of the smallest counties in North Carolina. In one, 8% of the county residence have tested positive for Covid. In the other 9% have. In that county, 2% of residence have either died or been hospitalized with Covid - Note: this is not those that tested positive, but of the community at large. Basically everyone knows someone who knows someone that has died or been hospitalized - 2 degrees of separation. Currently 35% of the hospital beds are filled with covid patients. Having the hospital director and largest funeral director on my board and committees, I can assure you it's not "underlying conditions" that did them in. Which is an odd argument anyways if you truly believe in the "sanctity of life" - but that may only apply to another argument.

Bottomline, I can assure you folks in small towns are not hankering for festivals and parades. In fact folks called on me and others to be fired when they thought we was advocating for such last fall.

Yes - But not "alternative facts"

Bottomline, I can assure you folks in the small towns I am involved with are not hankering for festivals and parades. The funerals they have not been able to attend, and the visits to friends in the hospital they have not been able to make - are not replaced by parades and festivals.

And like most everything else, these small towns are at the back of the line for vaccines, grants, and government support. Too few voters to be top of interest.

My brother doesn't believe gravity is real anymore...so...they're out there.

If the speed limit were lowered to 15 instead of its current 55 wouldn't we assume that would save lives? Why don't we do that as well? If tobacco weren't sold wouldn't that save lives? Where is the line drawn?

I have to disagree with much of this. According to the CDC, for example, we have seen so far approximately 58 COVID deaths for individuals 5-14. If you expand the group up to 24, there have been under 600 deaths in the United States from COVID.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm...

However, the New York Times reported this weekend about Las Vegas (and a number of other localities) that are seeing a rise in young adult suicides possibly related to children being isolated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/student-su...

Children in my state of Illinois have been unable to play school sports for nearly a year. Many have been out of the classroom during that same amount of time. To prevent ONE person from dying and to do everything that is necessary is foolish. We cannot resort to living in a bubble to protect everyone.

I don't want to sound crass, but we cannot fall into a trap of doing everything necessary to protect ONE person (your words). Hell, we often have more school shooting deaths annually for children 5-14 than we have seen national COVID deaths in that age range. Never have I heard the argument that we should close down all schools due to the tragic mass shootings. Yet we are shutting down schools, keeping kids off playing fields, eliminating social opportunities for our adolescents and young adults which will be detrimental to their mental health and their academic development. Numbers are not readily available yet, but I am unfortunately expecting a rise in suicides and overdoses in the US for teens due to the lack of social interaction from the last year. This is a tragedy that can be addressed but is being relatively ignored in many of these shutdowns.

There are annually stories of college football players who die from severe practice conditions. I have not heard of a high school player or college player in team sports that has yet died of COVID. In doing a simple search, there's only one case that was listed as a possible case, but came from a school that had already canceled its season, so it wasn't contracted through sports.

Very nice idea. What people need is to see an example of light at the end of the tunnel. For nearly a year it's been nothing but doom and gloom and endless lockdowns, masks & distancing.

Ah yes, so the 400,000 lives lost in less than a year are just collateral damage. Cost of doing business. Got it.

And yes, cigarettes (nicotine moreso than tobacco) do cause a lot of deaths and need to be regulated. Heart disease is the #1 cause of death in America and some can be linked to that.

Interesting discussion. The kids sports thing has two sides - the points you make and that faction that is so obsessed with getting their kids to play that they would dp anything to have them play. Quick question. If your school has been in session all year, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being nothing and 10 being normal, what number would you give your district this year as far as teaching and learning goes?

Alan,

Great question. This year certainly has been odd and one that I wouldn't want to repeat. It's been the most trying one as an administrator and there have been fights, discussions, disagreements, and challenges I'd never experienced before. Our learning has certainly suffered due to a couple of factors. Students are cohorted, not interacting with students outside of their classroom. That means no grade-level recess, no separate PE, no other specials outside of the classroom, no teachers sharing students for interventions. Students are primarily confined to their classroom or for individual class recess (and also lunch out of the room).

So, to answer your question about the effectiveness of learning, we are running the option of remote learning and also offering in-person learning. About 8% of our population has selected remote learning (though more are consistently choosing to return to in-person learning). For them, I would unfortunately put the learning at about a 2-3 on the scale. We are using professional teachers, zoom, supplied technology, etc, but it's quite difficult to build strong emergent readers through virtual learning. As for our in-person learning, even with mask wearing (which has not been an issue for students at all...staff is sometimes a different story), we are seeing significant academic gains. Our social-emotional gains feel a bit strained, but at least they are interacting with a group of peers. I would say that, if our usual school year would be a 10, this year we are hovering around the 7 neighborhood. Our raw scores from diagnostic assessments are on par with previous years, however I know there is much lost without the specials, without the interaction from other classes, and without utilizing all of our teacher resources like we have in the past.