What are you doing if your kid's school is still open?
Dd's preschool is not closing, even though all public schools are. I'm leaning toward keeping her home, but at the same time, h and I are still going to work everyday, so who knows what we're bringing home.
Our 3-year-old's preschool is closing for one week and then planning to reopen on March 23rd with daily temperature screens. It's a smaller school, just 12 kids, but I'm not sure they're logistically going to manage staying open because they plan to close if anyone kid's family has a case or needs to quarantine. (We're in Seattle, so our public schools are closed for six weeks.)
We talked it over and are planning to keep our 3 year old home as long as Seattle Public Schools are closed, since we've already got a care plan in place for our kindergartener. I figure it's better from a public health perspective, and it will potentially leave spots open for parents who don't have the option of keeping kids at home. BUT Mr. Smock and I aren't going to work (I WFH, he was just laid off so he's doing "home school" for the kids), so for us it didn't really make sense to send one kid to preschool when the rest of us are drastically limiting our social exposure.
I'm in Seattle. On Wednesday, Seattle Public Schools announced a two week closure. One day later they increased it to six weeks. Things are changing really quickly.
Have their been any other viruses that have infected 60+% of the population? My brother is insisting there are not and I can't really come up with the actual numbers numbers to prove him wrong. I think I saw about 700 million for H1N1, but with a population of 7 billion that's still only 10%. Anyone have any other data?
H1N1 infected up to 90 million Americans in 2009, according to the CDC, a bit under 30% of the total population. And the Spanish influenza infected about 30% of the world's population. (Spanish flu was also an H1N1 virus, FYI)
I've also heard the 60% figure, and I'm not sure how realistic that is. Considering the possibility of asymptomatic cases, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual number affected is double the known number.
You can tell your brother that over 60% of adults have the herpes virus, so it's definitely possible! (https://www.onemedical.com/blog/live-well/herpes-facts)
I’m sorry if this has been covered but we’re up to 52 pages so may have missed it. Is there a reputable site that shows cases in your state /county? Thanks!
This site was created by a high schooler in WA. It tracks cases by country and state, drawing on data from WHO, the CDC, and state health department:
Okay I just ordered workbooks, a world map puzzle, activity books, games, and sidewalk chalk from Amazon. We're ready for Seattle Public Schools to shut down now.
If you had a fever (99*), sore throat, and occasional cough, but, had no known exposure to COVID-19 and are limiting outside exposure to be cautious would you also pull your kids from school assuming they may have been exposed and will likely end up with similar symptoms? I have the ability (and privilege) to do so with minimal impact to my work but I’m questioning if I should. I also don’t want to be the asshole who sends my kids to school if they should be staying home. Thus far none of them have a fever or other signs If illness.
I had a mild fever and flu-like symptoms last week with no known exposure to COVID-19. I stayed home but I didn't pull my kids from school. I'm 99% positive I got it from them, though, and they never had a fever, so that shaped my decision.
I am a social worker in a very large school district. I'm not sure if this has been covered upthread. We have 8 cases in our state so far. One of the bigger concerns with closing schools is how many of these students will eat for an extended period when so many of them get breakfast and lunch at school. How are some of your districts addressing that?
This is one reason Seattle Public Schools is trying to stay open. (They've also mentioned the high number of healthcare professionals with kids in the district.) The district has been making plans to provide food to students even in case of a closure.
For example, today they closed a middle school because a staff member tested positive. Students can pick up lunch at the school between 11am-1pm.
Our The Little Gym sent out an email to everyone this week that they had the entire gym treated with SmartShield antimicrobial coating. I read the info about it, and it kind of seems like woo? Like, I get the general concept but I can't imagine how this lasts for 6 months with dozens of people touching stuff constantly all day, and presumably they're still cleaning surfaces daily? Anyone know anything about this?
My anxiety level fluctuates wildly these days. I'm in Seattle, so there's COVID anxiety, and we're also dealing with a layoff – Mr. Smock, who carries the benefits.
@@@ Silver lining: his last day is next week, and then he'll be able to watch the kids if the schools close so I can keep working. Hurrah. /@@@
Shopping for a new insurance plan during a pandemic is . . . something. And I have no idea how a recession will affect my career, which is terrifying since I'll likely be the sole wage earner for at least the next 6-9 months (Mr. Smock is going to do a certificate program and change fields).
I'm getting better at stepping away from the news when necessary (though I get sucked back in pretty frequently). It helps to lose myself in something, whether that's work, TV, reading, eating pizza . . . I'm also doing yoga (at home) and running (outside), which both help my mental health. But it's hard not to spiral.
It’s a breakdown and comparison of how different places handled this thing, how that may have impacted spread or not, and what that may mean for the U.S.
I am not good at data analysis so I can’t tell if this is legit or overblown or what, so hopefully someone smarter than me can weigh in.
I looked up the author and it looks like he’s an engineer and does a lot of analysis for businesses 🤷🏻♀️.
His data isn't great. In the case of Washington state, he claims that based on the current number of deaths and a 1% mortality rate, there might be 16,000 cases. But the death rate is much higher for people over 60, and since most deaths in Washington came from a nursing home, his extrapolation is almost certainly wrong.
Of course, there are a lot more cases in WA than we've seen reported because of testing, but Trevor Bedford, a virologist at the Fred Hutch, estimates the number of cases is closer to 1,000. (still scary, but not as alarmist as the Medium piece)
It's because he was exposed at CPAC two weeks ago, so Wednesday is 14 days after he was exposed.
Ah. I guess what’s blowing my mind is that all these people have been walking around for WEEKS. Seems like an explosion of cases must be right around the corner.
Yep, we are seeing that here in Seattle. It's been spreading since mid-January and we've really only been testing for a week. Conservatively there are probably a thousand more cases we haven't even identified. And that number doubles about every 5 days. It's scary.
Both my kids get a rash with amoxicillin – and so do I – and we never did any additional testing. I'm assuming they probably won't grow out of it, since I didn't!
jlt19- I feel like this is one of those areas where we don't know. It sounds like a long shot but I haven't found anything that says that they know how it spreads. I shared a WaPo article that COVID made it to Italy from a German auto parts manufacturer. But, we'd been told it doesn't live that long on surfaces so wtf?
I believe there were 16 people working at the German auto parts manufacturer who tested positive after a coworker caught it in China. The thinking is that one of them spread it to someone and it reached Italy through human transmission that wasn’t caught when they tried to quarantine the outbreak. It didn’t travel on the auto parts.
How long does it take to shift to vote by mail? We’re completely vote by mail here in WA, so hopefully this won’t effect turnout. I guess we’ll see when we vote on Tuesday.
On the sanitizer (and please correct me if I'm wrong people because I don't want to spread misinformation), my understanding is that while it's helpful to kill bacteria that can cause the secondary infections that make a virus work, it is powerless against the virus itself. For that, you need soap and water.
The virus is surrounded by a lipid layer that dissolves with hand sanitizer that’s at least 60% alcohol. So hand sanitizer will kill the virus—but washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds is still the best if available.
I'm in Seattle, too, and we've definitely cut back on social outings. Two weekends ago, we went to two kid birthday parties and two dinner parties. Last weekend we laid low.
Everyone in our family has a cold, too (which is anxiety-indusing in this environment!) so we're avoiding going out.
I'm less concerned about catching it and more concerned about potentially spreading it.
Coronavirus is sending my anxiety through the roof. It doesn't help that I'm in Seattle and caught something flu-like this week, which also means I haven't been able to do my usual anxiety-reducing activities like yoga and running.
I'm feeling better than earlier this week (health-wise and anxiety-wise), but I almost flipped out when a friend suggested going out to dinner and another asked if we wanted to meet up in a public place this weekend. I might become a shut-in until the outbreak ends.
Remember when we almost went to war with Iran and they shot down a civilian plane? The president escaped impeachment with zero witnesses? Only white men in their 70s can be president since everyone else dropped out? And a global pandemic is sweeping the world and the president spreads misinformation?
The University of Washington is cancelling in-person classes and exams for the rest of winter quarter. Campus remains open but faculty are being told to arrange online lectures and online finals. Spring quarter starts on March 30; they will reassess them.
I'm feeling sick, so of course I'm right in the "is it a cold, flu, allergies, or covid-19" frame of mind.
This was me earlier this week. From what I’ve read, COVID-19 usually doesn’t have congestion as a symptom. But it’s stressful. Hope you feel better soon!
I feel bad got Jessica, too. She cares what other people think too much. She always pulls back from Mark after any group setting bc she's comparing their relationship, and she spends all her time worrying what others will think of their age. She's all about appearances, which ironically is probably why she got engaged in the first place. She's definitely the type that only posts super positive, super fake posts on social media.