Not really. I can't speak for other districts, but our has an extremely strict "no symptoms" policy for attendance. Parents are supposed to screen their kids every morning, to include temperature checks, before sending to school. Any child who presents with even minor symptoms is sent immediately to the nurse and parents called to pick up. Teachers, likewise, are forbidden from coming in with symptoms.
We have not had one outbreak in our schools. We have had scant isolated cases that never spread further because parents kept their kids home. Most positive cases in students didn't even require contact tracing because the kids were not in school while symptomatic or while awaiting test results.
We have the same. And it has been going really, really well. As in no in class transmission, no whole-class quarantines,, and absolutely excellent compliance from parents/families with the precautions we put in place. Maybe that's why I find the situation so frustrating - because it wasn't a kid who didn't know better or a family caught between a rock and a hard place regarding care for a child with symptoms that might have been allergies. It was a teacher who not only refused the vaccine but also isn't using the sick time that we all know she has (which was increased this year for this express purpose). And then the fact that it wasn't one of our direct-hire staff, where discipline would be a matter for our administration and parish to handle, but rather one of a "package deal" of teachers we get in our shared-time contract, which means we don't have much ability to remove this teacher. Odds are, she'll be back right along with the kids next month, and that the contract will be renewed next year despite her.
There does seem to be case increases in places with there B117 variant is predominate, but the vaccines are equally protective of that variant as it was during the trials on other variants. Combined w seroprevalance and increased vaccinations, these increases really have no way to became nearly as bad as previous ones, there just aren't as many bodies to infect. The faster the needles go into arms, however, the better and the quicker these flames can be put out.
A couple weeks ago, I'd have agreed with you. But now I'm not so sure, and I'm genuinely beginning to worry about reinfection for the first time after a year of being perfectly satisfied with the data suggesting it is rare. About 10% of my county has had a confirmed case of covid. So right there, we know that the CDC estimate of 10x actual case prevalence is wrong for our area because there wouldn't be *any* bodies left to infect if it held true locally. Even the revised estimate, which used a multiplier of 5, would put a slim majority of the population as already having had it. In addition, 25% of the population has had one dose of the vaccine and 12% are fully vaccinated, and while it is theoretically possible to have 100% overlap between "vaccinated" and "already had it", that seems unlikely. So at worst, we should have maybe 40-45% of the population still vulnerable, compared to everyone being vulnerable early on. Those numbers do suggest that increases shouldn't have the potential to get as bad as in earlier waves, but our case numbers this week are roughly double our previous peak. So either the percentage of people still naive to the virus is higher than estimates would predict or there's more reinfection potential because of the spread of virus variants (the UK being the only one confirmed in our county so far, though the state has cases of the SA and Brazilian variants as well).
A friend of mine at UM Med is saying the hospitalized patients, more younger ones (40’s) these days, are generally sicker than during the previous wave back in ~January.
It’s not like MI is doing terrible wi the vaccinations. They’re about the national average. Hopefully, this will be a warning heeded by other states.
Yep. The Detroit paper is reporting hospitalizations among those in their 40s is up 800% with this wave. Among 30-somethings, it is up 633%. That's partly because of a relatively low baseline number in those age groups, but it is also an alarming number of relatively young people who are seriously ill. And the number of hospitalized patients has doubled over the last two weeks, which I think puts an end to the notion that with most older people vaccinated, a new wave of cases wouldn't bring a new wave of hospitalizations (and potentially deaths, but we won't see that in the data for another 2-3 weeks).
And it also isn't like Michigan has thrown caution to the wind. We're still under a mask mandate, and businesses are still at limited capacity though few are closed entirely (just nightclubs/bars, live entertainment venues, etc.). Compliance varies from place to place and the first counties to see big increases were places with a lot of resistance to masks and distancing, but counties with better compliance and more cautious populations are increasing too.
Anecdotally my manager just had a COVID scare where her whole family was exposed in their home to a fully symptomatic COVID positive person (he thought he just had allergies) for a full 24 hours while he was sneezing and coughing and they all had no masks on. Her whole family tested negative and are now through the 10 day quarantine period. With how contagious this virus is why did NONE of them test positive. There is very little rhyme or reason. There is something more going on...
It is possible that they'd already been exposed and didn't know it. It is very likely that a lot of asymptomatic and mild cases did go undiagnosed, especially early on and among those less likely to seek testing. My son has had several direct exposures at work, including one person he carpools with (unmasked) and never tested positive himself... but our family got sick with covid-type symptoms after traveling early in the pandemic, so I ascribe his experience not to luck but to that possible previous exposure. Actually, my husband and both adult kids have had close-contact exposures that required testing and none got sick, nor did they bring the virus home to DD12 or I (that we're aware of, anyway).
