Coronavirus

Regeneron was tested on fetal tissue.
Abbott is against that kind of thing, right?

Gary Sax wrote: www.texastribune.org/2021/08/17/texas-go...bott-positive-covid/

To me it is extremely frustrating that Abbott is receiving regeneron, which is for very very sick people. At least Trump, according to the Washington Post, was pretty close to going on a ventilator so his super advanced treatments were somewhat matched to his severity.

Regeneron for me, but not for thee.

RobertB wrote: Regeneron for me, but not for thee.

Also, don't you dare issue a school mask mandate for this totally bogus illness that I have vaccinated myself against 3 times now.

Good grief, you guys got some sand in tight places.

Abbott is vaccinated and now infected. You guys are armchair quarterbacking his treatment, particularly one that lots of folks have gotten? It isn't super secret elite sauce. Abbott is against MANDATES, as is most of america, going by polls (though you can shop around to find one that says whatever you agree with). He isn't anti-vax or anti-mask, just against FORCING people to do those things, particularly in places where it makes little sense, like a class full of kindergarteners.

Anyway, looks like Texas (and possibly the US as a whole) might be rounding the corner on delta, much like Israel and the UK, so hopefully this is a flash fire wave that comes quick and fades as fast.

Kids don't have any special immunity to Covid-19. They were just less likely to catch it than most people while schools were operating remotely. And if we're not vaccinating kindergartners, it absolutely makes sense for them to wear masks right now. Two weeks ago, nearly 94,000 kids caught Covid in one week.

www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-up...f-all-new-infections

jason10mm wrote: Abbott is against MANDATES

Indeed. So much so that he mandated against them.

Shellhead wrote: Kids don't have any special immunity to Covid-19. They were just less likely to catch it than most people while schools were operating remotely. And if we're not vaccinating kindergartners, it absolutely makes sense for them to wear masks right now. Two weeks ago, nearly 94,000 kids caught Covid in one week.

www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-up...f-all-new-infections

Come on, just watch 5 year olds with their masks. They pull them down, pick their nose, and adjust them CONSTANTLY. There is zero protective benefit for a cloth mask on a young kid for prolonged periods unless you staple it to their head. All it does is stress them out and deprive them of facial recognition with their peers and teachers. It's theater, nothing more. Older kids can participate with some degree of success but overall masking as a strategy is hopeless with that demographic.

Edit: Adding some data, as I like to to that to support my position since it is contentious here. I obviously don't suggest there is NO risk for kids in covid, just the mask requirement is futile and the overall threat, despite the tone the news uses, is quite low if you look at data.

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7023e1.htm This is for adolescents, younger kids are even less risk
gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_5.html and this has a great chart for HOSPITALIZATIONS, to give an idea of the actual risk we are currently under and to which ages.

Most kids don't have trouble keeping their pants on during the school day.

I am for forcing people to do things in the interest of the public good, so I guess that's where we pretty fundamentally disagree and what is giving me "sand in the wrong places." I would like my 5 year old kidney transplant recipient niece to be able to go out in public again and go to school. Like uba, I would probably cut someone put of my life who is not family who actively won't get vaccinated. It's personal to me.

As for the other thing, sure, maybe his treatment level is totally normal. I just haven't heard of anyone I know being able to get monoclonal treatment when they are asymptomatic and vaccinated. So that's a different issue of the fundamental justice of our health care system which I am definitely not interested in hashing out so I probably shouldn't have brought it up.

Shellhead wrote: Most kids don't have trouble keeping their pants on during the school day.

We know this isn't true for little kids AND teenagers, though for different reasons

jason10mm wrote: Edit: Adding some data, as I like to to that to support my position since it is contentious here. I obviously don't suggest there is NO risk for kids in covid, just the mask requirement is futile and the overall threat, despite the tone the news uses, is quite low if you look at data.

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7023e1.htm This is for adolescents, younger kids are even less risk
gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_5.html and this has a great chart for HOSPITALIZATIONS, to give an idea of the actual risk we are currently under and to which ages.

We all have to keep our heads on swivels with this thing--I think Delta has changed the calculus. Kids themselves may fare well and have low risk, but with the R-naught as high as it is, the concern some of us have is their capacity to keep transmitting it to the sizable population who can't get it, won't get it, are on the fence, etc. That's the part that prolongs the national misery and stands to chew up healthcare capacity for the myriad non-COVID issues.

No idea what other people's kids are like, but mine (6 and almost 10) don't mind masks at all. They actually complain about other kids not taking it seriously. Being in an educator's household, big endorsement of the substitute teacher issue--they had to beg and scrounge to find people last year, I don't see how it'll be any different this time around.

ubarose wrote: You're just talking through your hat here. Al and my daughter and several of my friends work in the schools. The little kids, even the ADHD ones, have zero issues with the masks. Many of the youngest ones even think they are cool because they can wear their Spiderman or dinosaur face, or kitty face mask.

Well, that's great anecdotal second hand reporting, doesn't jive with mine though. So, good thing I send my kids to a school system that does what I want them to do, presumably you do the same for yours. America works!!

FWIW I do send my kids to school with instructions to wear their masks. Regardless of my personal belief in their overall efficacy versus interpersonal distancing, hand washing, and ventilation; parental influence, peer pressure and soft power on the part of the teachers is effective at getting them to at least keep the mask on their head.

But what would a mandate do? Get a kid expelled because they refused to wear it properly? Is that really the distance we want to go with this? Even if some kids were just totally anti-mask are they really a threat?

Data about mask efficacy in schools is almost always looking at just masks in conjunction with other measures, there are not, to my knowledge, any quality studies comparing masks+precautions (hand washing, 3' apart, cohort grouping etc) versus no masks + precautions within the same school/system or even state. So even the data from mask optional places still showed little student to student transmission within schools but there are not good comparables to a mask mandatory system since regional covid burden presumably plays a large role in student positivity.

I expect we will see lots of articles comparing mask optional positivity rates in the delta environment to PRE-DELTA data from last year, and then including words like "sky-high" and "soaring" without adding in context by comparing to a current mask mandatory school environment with similar characteristics on community covid rates, population, and vaccination rates of adults. I suspect all schools will see increased covid positivity rates while in a delta surge, mask mandated or not. Assuming the teachers and parents associated with these kids are vaccinated, previously exposed, or have low covid risk profiles I don't think we need to close down schools for another year.

Everyone relax, 640,000 dead Americans is really not a big deal.