The district is forcing parent's hands. By saying that kids could potentially lose their spot at their school for up to 1 year by choosing the distancing learning option, an overwhelming number of parents are choosing the hybrid model. We want to teach at home, but by doing so our kid's school enrollment is threatened. Other districts are not doing this, why Pleasanton?

I'm disappointed Pleasanton didn't offer a full return to school option as Dublin did in their survey/options.

I'm also disappointed that Pleasanton's distance learning isn't a scheduled classroom day - its more of the same "here's your packet" learning we saw at the end of the current school year. I understand this school year's issue, I don't understand why that would continue for next year.

Our children and community deserve better - I know its hard, but dig deeper PUSD, you're not providing workable solutions.

Why aren’t we doing something about the name of Amador HS. It’s named after a man who was granted land which belonged to the natives who he drove off their land.

I'm feeling forced to send my kids back to school, Im immune compromised and terrified but don't want to risk losing their spots in the school we love and have loved for over 4 years now.

I feel bad for the students - the quality education their may be compromised.........

I feel bad for the parents - they have to worry about how they will fit these complications into their efforts to work and support their family financially.....

I feel bad for the teachers - they will become the face mask and social distancing police which will takeaway from their ability to teach...........

Has the PUSD stepped up as needed to meet the challenge of our schools' new reality? Do they have the ability, or even desire, to adapt and change?

Food for thought for all citizens of Pleasanton.......

PUSD need to significantly strengthen and improve distance learning. I believe our children were not educated properly last term. PUSD should not make excuse that Teachers were unprepared to teach on-line. PUSD should hire outside staff to deliver on-line lectures if teachers are not skilled or can not adopt to teaching on line.

6/29/2020 Pleasanton Weekly Headline: Alameda County Public Health delays reopening timeline indefinitely

Indefinite delay in, among other things, schools.

August 11 (?) is the opening day for our schools.

PUSD - what is the plan if Alameda says "NO" to your latest plans?

What is the contingency plan?

Are you ready for effective 100% distance learning again for the 2020-2021 school year?

So what if Alameda county doesn’t open...we elected a SCHOOL BOARD of Education to OVERRIDE the county for the education of our children in PUSD. A huge majority want to send their kids to school FULL TIME....THAT NEEDS TO BE MADE AN OPTION. Families obviously know the risks of uneducated children will last far longer than a virus that doesn’t even effect children. And if you are one of the few that have an immunocompromised person in your home, then by all means take the districts option to keep YOUR kids at home....don’t penalize mine that need to go to school.

@GO
No need to be so demanding on what public education owes you in these unique times... they are all doing the best they can. Maybe you should go pay for private school so you can yell all you want since you are paying for it. PUSD owes you nothing, they will follow the guidelines of the health department and the county and do the best they can for all families. If you don't like that - well De La Salle and Corondelet are a short drive away - you might fit right in.

Sorry, go is right. The school district works for the community, not the other way around. Now obviously that needs to be within reason but when Dublin is offering a full tone return to school option as well as other schools then PUsd absolutely should be as well.

I think it is still way too early to compare district "plans" to return to school and declare a winner. There is no way that Dublin can offer a complete "return to school" plan that will look like what people think - like "GO" who is demanding "FULL TIME" return - and still adhere to the social distancing requirements to keep the students safe.

For example, Dublin high has 3,000 students. It is physically impossible for all those students to be on campus at the same time and be safe. Same thing goes for Amador. So I think the community needs to pause a bit here.

If the District opens up in any form, I can imagine as soon as it does, someone at a site will test positive for coronavirus, then the schools will once again shut down with mandated quarantines for 14 days.

PUSD needs to get something like Edgenuity ready for this.

Zoom "learning" with PUSD teachers was a disaster.

We need to rework the priorities on the community "cover risk budget".

We can't have an economy unless people can work. Parents can't work unless children have adequate and safe childcare & schooling. Childcare facilities and schools have infection risks, but we need to work out how to do it.

Within schools, we know younger children need more supervision, and they're the ones parents can't leave at home at all. So we should be focusing on freeing up space for the elementary kids. Keep K-3 on elementary campuses and spread them out, maybe revive staggered schedules too. Send grades 4&5 into the middle school campuses (with some of the middle school teachers). Then
figure out how to share the available high school space among the middle and high school kids. They're more self-sufficient and can bus/walk/bike/drive to school on their own. They won't be able to attend 5 days/week, but they could all go in at least once a week, which won't be great but will still be infinitely better than "not at all".

All of this should be higher priority than opening restaurants, gymnasiums and other luxuries. We have to start from the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, the bottom of the economic pyramid, not the top.

Once we guarantee that anyone who needs to work has a way to take care of their children, we're on a much firmer social foundation.

Edit: not "cover risk budget" but "COVID risk budget". Autospell has the wrong priorities too!

The point is that if we can only afford so much social interaction without the virus going wild, then we have to choose carefully what interactions are most valuable to the city. I don't see the county, city or PUSD leadership really thinking through what this means. Everyone's been hoping for a return to business as normal, but that's not in the cards for at least 1-2 years, and possibly much longer if COVID mutates like flu.

Covid is expected to evolve similar to flu. We need to learn to live with this, not hide from it and wait for it to go away.

@Priorities- Teachers' credentials qualify them to teach in certain grades. For instance, most elementary teachers have a credential that allows them to teach TK-6 while middle/high teachers have a credential that allows them to teach 7-12. You can't just have a middle school teacher teach third graders.

@Go - Are you seriously proposing that PUSD Board override the county's and state's health orders?

If you want to be part of the solution, why don't apply to become a substitute teacher or instructional assistant. There is going to be a big need for substitutes this year when staff members become ill.

Don,
Interesting as parents are being asked to teach their kids with no formal credentials.

And yes PUSD should absolutely go against the county orders IF that is what the majority of Pleasanton wants.

There has been a 25% increase in COVID cases in Pleasanton in just three days....from 99 to 127. I doubt in any way shape or form that Pleasanton schools will open as normal next month. And they can't open in violation of county orders.

Heck, Santa Clara can't even have an in person principals' meeting without 40+ being quarantined as the Mercury News is reporting.

Luckily there are many non PUSD online options for the students such as the Pearson online school Connections Academy, etc.

@PleasantonParent,

Your entitlement has no boundaries. If nobody has yet called you a "Karen" to your face they are definitely thinking it. As if the school district should not follow county guidelines because that's what you want. Also, Dublin said they would offer a full time return office "If" that is what county allowed and then soon after the superintendent quit. There is absolutely no way that it will be allowed or that Dublin will be returning full time. At least PUSD is being realistic. This is a crappy situation for everyone. Nobody likes it or is happy with all of the bad options. Your incessant whining does not help. Be an adult and suck it up like the rest of us.

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?

Ken,
Go try read what a “Karen” is. In no way shape or form are my actions “Karen-esc”

Nice try.

Res,
Serious question- what covid infection rate are you suggesting we target to reopen schools? This isn’t going away.

127 people in all of Pleasanton, ever....zero deaths. Schools should stay closed?

@ pleasantonparent

Karen is a pejorative term used in the US and other English-speaking countries for a woman perceived to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is considered appropriate or necessary. A common stereotype is that of a racist white woman who uses her privilege to demand her own way at the expense of others.

Based on the content of your excessive posts on here this is you 100+ percent. Sorry but true.

Ken - education is beyond the scope of appropriate or necessary.....got it.

.....oh and our elected leader’s winery is still open while he mandates everyone else must close.

Web Link

PP listen to ken.

Karen, Becky, Gavin, all derogatory “name calling” by people who have no rational, legal argument to explain their bad behavior that the bystander, witness or victim is complaining about. They just pull out their phones and call the other person who has an issue with them a reverse racist name like Karen. Cut it out. And GIVEN 89% want kids back in the classroom, in school learning should be #1 priority for these elected School board officials or they will be voted OUT!

@cutitout
I’m trying to understand your nearly nonsensical rant. You are saying that we should blame the school board if our kids can’t go back to school and vote them “OUT”? Instead of recognizing that Covid is a huge problem that is putting every school district in an unsolvable and impossible situation.. we should just blame our local school board and vote them out. The myopic entitlement is fascinating in these forums.

@Ken wrote " Instead of recognizing that Covid is a huge problem that is putting every school district in an unsolvable and impossible situation..."

When Covid-19 first appeared it was thought to be a "huge problem" with a mortality rate of 2% or about 20-times deadlier than the common flu, but I think that all of us have figured out by now that we're not dealing with some virus which is 20-times deadlier than the flu and that the initial warnings about COVID-19 greatly overestimated the mortality rate. Multiple recent studies are settling on a COVID-19 mortality rate of about 0.35% or about 3.5-times that of the common flu. Furthermore, complications and deaths due to coronavirus are concentrated among the elderly and those with significant pre-existing health problems. The median age of those dying from coronavirus is around 75. Pleasanton school children are at low risk. Most Pleasantonians are at low risk. The total number of Pleasantonians who have died thus far of COVID-19 is Zero.

Let us be clear about the nature of the problem we are facing: We are not doing all of these sheltering-in-place and social distancing measures to protect our children or most of their (relatively young) parents. Children are at very low risk. We are doing all of these sheltering-in-place and social distancing measures for those who are most vulnerable to death and complications due to coronavirus: The elderly and those with significant pre-existing health conditions.

Ken,
Every school district? No. And that’s why we are right to challenge ours.

Although "PleasantonParent" (who I sort of question is really a parent based on the history of comments) wants to just roll the dice and return all kids to school as if nothing has changed, in real life it is not that simple.

I am sure the school district wishes it was this simple: send out a survey and whatever a small vocal group of aggressive Pleasanton parents want - this is what we will do - done deal :)

But as other have pointed out- all school districts are struggling with what is the right decision for the kids, teachers and parents (remember these kids come home each day).

The district has to look at college decisions too, like the entire CSU system who decided that Fall is not safe to return.... but somehow people think it will be safe for k-12 kids to all go back. Most of the college kids live at school.

Additionally, schools have to have contingency plans. If there is an outbreak (which most likely there will be).... what now, who isolates, for how long? Is there a distant learning system in place?

Would schools in places like AZ and Texas go back if school started Monday? Would parents be okay with that? I think a few weeks ago the answer would be yes - today, not so sure.

So many tough decisions with information changing daily. If Covid turns out to be airborne - antiquated air systems in our schools are not going to cut it.

Right now the best course of actions is to hope for the best and plan for the worst, which is what I think PUSD is doing.

It is that simple

Hope is not a plan. Hope is for those too afraid to fight for what they want.

Put it to the community, the fact the district isn’t willing even to do that says what you need to know about the “leadership”.

And other districts are not doing the same, they are planning for what their communities are requesting.

This is no different than the bond measure where the district put a all or nothing option in front of us not willing to listen and amend the measure to community input.

Cutitout- did you really argue “89% of kids want to go back to the classroom” so that’s what we should do? Entitled much???
Who is raising your children?
As some wise men once said “You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need!” This is a crisis and complaining doesn’t help. It’s not as if the schools asked for this.

@Ellen

I'll tell you what "entitled" behavior is: It's the behavior of people who expect that everyone should put their lives on hold - over 70 million people going unemployed, their families facing eviction and hunger, children unable to go to school, etc. - so that we can overreact to a virus which is only about 3.5-times more deadly than the common flu.

Answer me this: If you think stopping kids from going to school and throwing tens of millions of people out of work is justifiable for this virus, then why don't you also believe that stopping kids from going to school and throwing tens of millions of people out of work is also justifiable to save more lives from dying of the common flu which claims 20,000 to 60,000 lives in this country every year? Let's see if you are able to come up with a logically self-consistent answer.

Wombat,
I have lost my job permanently. My daughter has lost her job. Another daughter has withdrawn from grad school halfway through.

However, as the daughter of a polio survivor, handicapped for the remainder of her life, I am well aware what a pandemic illness can do to a society. I personally believe that we are not taking this seriously enough. Science proves it is far worse to perfectly healthy people across all age groups. Yes, our jobs, schooling, lives, etc., have been disrupted and in some cases ruined.

I agree, the flu is awful and also concerns me which is why I get a vaccine every year. No vaccine for COVID-19 so we find ourselves in a terrible situation. We cannot downplay the seriousness of our situation just because we don’t like it. We are in trouble and many of us are in denial.

P.S. to Wombat
Per the above, my mom was a first grade teacher in 1956 and is believed to have gotten polio in the classroom.

@Ellen wrote " Science proves it is far worse to perfectly healthy people across all age groups."

The science has shown that the median age of those dying from coronavirus is about 75, and that people with pre-existing health problems (e.g., extreme obesity, significant cardiovascular problems, etc.) are 12-times more likely to die of coronavirus than otherwise healthy people. Relatively young (<60 years) people in good health are at very low risk of dying from coronavirus. Grade school children in particular are at very low risk and most would not even show noticeable symptoms of coronavirus infection (i.e., they would be asymptomatic cases). Try saying the same about the flu. Everyone knows when their child comes down with the flu.

But you didn't answer my very important question:
Given the fact that we don't shut down businesses and schools throwing tens of millions of people out of work and damaging our children's education each flu season even though the common flu kills 20,000 to 60,000 people each year, how do you justify throwing tens of millions of people out of work and damaging our children's education for coronavirus, a virus which is only 3.5-times more deadly?

Ellen,
What science are you referencing suggesting it’s far worse to healthy people across all age groups?

I’ve read nothing supporting that and cdc hospitalization/deaths don’t seem to support that either.

Additionally Ellen, children are entitled to in class education. It’a actually a crime not to go. We pay for it in taxes, bonds, etc....so yes, children are entitled to go to school and it’s expected of them.

Wombat, COVID-19 is much more contagious than the flu. As I previously stated; denial is going to hurt us all.

I wish you and yours the best of health during this global pandemic.

PP, I have followed the info since early Feb. and believe Covid-19 is much more dangerous than the flu. Maybe I’m just implementing my common sense but I have children I have raised to adults and public health never scared me till now. I understand children have the right to go to school in a SAFE ENVIRONMENT. I don’t think the schools can provide that at this time.

@Ellen wrote “Wombat, COVID-19 is much more contagious than the flu. As I previously stated; denial is going to hurt us all.“

So? The common cold is more contagious than the flu. And what facts do you think that I’m denying? You keep writing about “denial” but never state what it is that you think that people are denying.

Also, note that for the 2nd time you were unable or unwilling to answer my question about the inconsistency about the response to coronavirus versus the flu.

@Ellen wrote “ PP, I have followed the info since early Feb. and believe Covid-19 is much more dangerous than the flu.”

Newsflash, Ellen: Those initial reports back from around early February were greatly exaggerating the danger of COVID-19. Those early reports were claiming that COVID-19 had a mortality rate of about 2% or about 20-times higher than that of the flu. If you’re basing your views on those early reports, then I can see why you’re so panicked about coronavirus. Multiple recent studies have been converging on a mortality rate of around 0.35% or about 3.5-times higher than the common flu. Go read the recent news on the mortality rate of coronavirus. Or use your “common sense” and think: If the mortality rate of COVID-19 were really at around 2% as first reported, don’t you think that such a high mortality rate would be confirmed by massive numbers of deaths in our communities?

As for school children, you don’t have to worry about them. I have grade school children and I’m not worried. They are at very low risk from coronavirus. It’s the elderly and those with significant pre-existing health problems who are being largely struck down by COVID-19, not young, healthy school children. Again, the average age of those dying due to coronavirus is about 75.

Ellen,
I understand your fear over the schools providing an adequately safe environment. And as a parent I would support your right to not send your children to school (physically) out of that fear.
I would expect equal support from you in supporting my children’s’ right to attend school in person if I do think it’s safe for them (based on schools precautions and the existing statistical data around infection to youth).
I’m not asking you to do the same action I’m comfortable doing, I’m asking for your support in giving my children a choice. Today that’s being stripped from them with no voice.

We are arguing over reopening school, a hugely important topic, and yet one of our local high schools (maybe more?) has their basketball team practicing indoors? How is this being allowed?

Princeton and Harvard announced most or all teaching in the Fall will be done remotely....hmmmmm

Stanford University will reopen this fall, but due to continuing concerns over the coronavirus, online classes will continue even for students on campus, especially undergraduates.

USC (aka, "Party School, USA" and the university that admitted aspiring rocket scientist Olivia Jade) announced that its teaching will be done remotely.....hmmmmmmm

Ah yes. College campuses and students are the same as high school and lower grade students.

......silly me.

@PleasantonParent

You might be missing the point here... I think people look to see what others are doing in the same situation to help make good decisions - and if colleges are saying it is not safe for their students to be in class right now, why are you thinking it is somehow okay for our students to be in class.

If I have to choose whose leads to follow and the choices are:
PleasantonParent vs Princeton, Harvard and Stanford... sorry you are on your own:)

@(@pleasantonparent)

Princeton’s, Harvard‘s, and Stanford’s scholars and scientists are widely acknowledged to be some of the smartest people in the world.
Princeton’s, Harvard’s, and Stanford’s administrators are not widely acknowledged to be some of the smartest people in the world.

But you knew that, right?
:)

Hey Pleasanton parent,
What about the right for teachers not to have to risk their long term health by standing in front of your germ-infested entitled kid for hours? I guarantee that 89 percent of teachers do not want to do that. I know you will say then they can quit but you do know that there will not be enough teachers left when Covid is over. Also, I know many of them were open to going back when numbers were lower but now that numbers/hospitalizations are up they are not comfortable.

You should probably send your kid to private schools, that way you can go Karen your way around the school with your incredible amount of free time instead of on these forums.

Ken,

Yes, there are risks for teachers who return to the classroom, and I agree that if they aren’t given appropriate PPE and/or a safe environment in which to teach, they should be able to refuse their assignment.

Teachers are being asked to serve as frontline workers. They are providing an essential need. The AAP just issued a statement that kids will be best served by returning to the classroom. Without this, millions of kids will miss out on education during a crucial time in their development, and will find it difficult to recover from the loss.

As much as I understand the fear teachers have, let me ask you this: where do we draw the line of individual good over public good? Would you be comfortable with your doctor or grocery worker or police officer walking away from their jobs because it’s too dangerous? Should teachers be able to decline to do their jobs because they are more valuable than doctors, nurses, police officers, grocery workers, fruit pickers?

If teachers were provided the right PPE, would you be in favor of having them return to the classroom?

@anonymom

If PPE and environmental- distance measures are in place, then teachers can be expected to return as essential workers. However, there are people on here, such as PleasantonParent who are demanding that kids return to school FULL TIME. We all know that classrooms are crowded and our schools are not equipped to distance children or teachers enough. The hybrid model that the district is proposing is the safest way to return and yes, with PPE teachers can attempt to manage that. I am responding to the ludicrous entitled people on here that think their kids should return full time simply because that is what they want and wrongly feel entitled to. Other businesses have made major changes to the amount of people allowed in house to adjust. Of course, this is what the school district also needs to do.

Ken, WELL SAID! Thank you!

Ken and Ellen -

And don't forget - there is a large group of people who post here - including PP - that refuse to wear masks.

I would not want to be a teacher in a classroom, trying to teach and at the same time have to be the "mask" police.

Imagine the outrage inflicted on teachers, or anybody else, that confront non-mask wearing students and refuse to allow them in the classroom without a mask.

Listen to the Karen’s and SJW calling education “entitlement” as a negative.

You’re absolutely right children are entitled to a classroom instruction education. Whoever thinks otherwise is out of line.

And I love the hypocrisy......force grocery store and delivery service workers to work, ok for Gavins wine bar, environment is safe for them even though they come in contact with people more likely to be infected, but teachers are “above that”. Children are the least likely carriers of this.

Whose entitled now? Whose true colors are really coming to surface. 6 months ago you’d all be claiming the need for diversity and choices ....today it’s clear, “agree with me or be shamed. I don’t care what you want because it’s not what I want.”

Ah the hypocrisy.





I’m not telling you you have to send your kids to school, I support your choice. Please support my right to choose.

PP - the main point here is who says you get “a choice”? Grocery stores are a necessity because we need to eat. Learning may have alternative methods that can be used during a public health crisis. My sister is an elementary teacher with small children. Why does she have to be exposed to your children who can be carriers? Stop demanding what you want and let people smarter than we are design a working plan.

If 89% of parents want to send their kids to school per the parent survey just done, accommodate them, have 5 day a week school, and demand the State provide Blanket Liability Protection for schools. Parents need kids in school so they can go to their individual jobs, some essential. Its ridiculous to pay teachers when there is already a CA K- 12 online academy FREE online. Tell the union teachers to do the job they were hired to do,teach in a classroom, or loose your job and be replaced by a computer and parent at home. No kid has to go to school if parents want the online option...problem solved.

Where, exactly, do you see teachers complaining about going back to school? I haven’t seen it ANYWHERE so why this kind of comment? Maybe you should consider school something other than daycare.

Parents wont see it. Teachers demand everything through their UNION.

Ellen,
By your logic in person grocery stores should not be open. Online delivery is a viable alternative.

Bottom line -no one has a guaranteed right to avoiding disease. That has been and will be a forever reality we all accept as part of life.

Your sister has a choice to work or not work in the modified environment, kids should get the same opportunity to choose in class or online education. Educational needs are not all the same.

Leanne, a computer and a breathing adult=daycare. That's what our PUSD elected school board are proposing. No need for teachers anymore (highest paid in CA by the way).

PP, put on your lulu lemons and go for a walk.

Such a community of character - passive aggressive responses and name calling when an alternative request on options and choice is requested.

I’m not infringing on any of your rights, but you feel entitled to dictate what mine are.

Fact: The average age of death due to coronavirus is 75.

What kind of nation sacrifices the education of its own children and, therefore, its own future because of such a disease?

Answer: A nation in decline.

"Coronavirus: Daily deaths in California reach highest level in a month, case count continues to rise Three days of 100+ deaths make the past week state's deadliest since end of May" Yes it is time to send our kids back to school because the virus needs more host to insure our death rate will match New York which is 10x our current death rate. The only way to control this virus is to stop allowing it to live on in our population. Sending kids to school insures the virus with thrive multiple and kill people.

Pleasanton Parent -

Simple questions for you based o your previous posts:
1) Will you ensure your kids wear masks and adhere to all social distancing requirements as defined by the PUSD as part of their return to school plans?
2) If your kids are identified as not following the rules for masks and distancing, will you claim they have the personal right not to follow these rules or will you make sure they follow them "for the good of the education community" they are part of?

PP, Efforts would be better spent in petitioning school board...and seriously, breathe!

Parent wrote “Coronavirus: Daily deaths in California reach highest level in a month, case count continues to rise Three days of 100+ deaths make the past week state's deadliest since end of May"

Some perspective:
Population of California = 40 million.
Average number of Californians who die each and every day of natural and other causes equals about 1000.

Don’t be a Chicken Little. The sky is not falling.

Panicking is no substitute for thinking.

Parent- wow, are you actually stating children are killing people? Bold. Fortunately proven untrue.

Charlie - I’m not the “no, not my kids?!” Parent. If the schools define expected behaviors my kids adhere to them. My kids have been taught to treat teachers like firemen/women, police officers, elderly .....with respect and as authority figures.

I think that also addresses your second question.

Personally I’d be in full support of bringing back detention and being held inside for recess/breaks for any violations of these and other behaviors, but apparently that’s “cruel and unusual punishment today”

Children can be vectors. Please address your valid concerns to the school board then pour yourself a glass...day drinking is allowed during a pandemic!

I have.

Sorry. I have (get) to work, can’t drink at work.

@pleasantonparent,
Stop lying. There is absolutely no basis in science that children cannot get Covid and pass it to others. As much as we all wish that were true it isn’t. This is a pandemic, not just a disease. It needs to be contained until there are viable treatments. Your idea of “learning to live with it” does not mean continuing things as before because it’s convenient. It means making sacrifices, changing behavior, distancing, and wearing a mask. It is easily spread which is why the GOP leadership in our country trying to pretend it doesn’t exist hasn’t worked. There are ignorant people who proclaim it is their “right” to not wear a mask and to do whatever group behavior they want, so we have spent the summer expanding this virus instead of inhibiting it. Most other countries made changes, wore masks without a fight, and did not reopen while numbers were still high. Those countries will mostly be able to open schools, some normally some modified. In previous posts you have stated that you won’t wear a mask. YOUR selfish behaviors (and other idiots) are part of the reason we are here now as a community and country. Now we are all wishing our kids could go to school full time but until people like you stop telling lies, respect science, and change behavior that won’t happen. You seem to think you are smarter than a global pandemic and instead come off woefully ignorant to everyone who reads your nonsense.

At this rate of ever escalating COVID cases, practically everyone will be faced with online school in the Fall.

Yesterday, Pleasanton's COVID cases were 132. Today, 146.

Hospitals are filling up to capacity as we speak. SoCal patients are being tranferred to Norcal hospitals.

Yesterday, San Joaquin County announced all of their ICU beds were taken.

@Ken,
Fair, insightful post until you have to interject the words GOP and idiots. Then it appears you are reciting the latest talking points rattled off by the telly.

PP - Good to hear!

If the rest of the parents do the same, then some level of in person teaching should be done. This is still probably the biggest variable in plans to open schools.

Kids do need some personal interaction. While I do not have kids in the schools, the neighbors I've talk to are concerned with 100% distance learning without any in person interactions.

Ken,
Reading comprehension misses you. I never said kids couldn’t get it. I said the transmission rate by asymptotic kids is not the primary risk factor.......but I’ll let you prove me wrong with the “science” you claim Proves otherwise.....go find it, I’ll wait.

PP, humility, kindness and common sense miss you.

PP,
"The problem with children is that they are so asymptomatic that they are spreading it. And our biggest mistake was that we didn't close the public schools when we should have," said Hes. "So the children were the vectors to the teachers, who might be elderly or immunocompromised. They might have diabetes or cancer, but they still had to come to work every day. They still had to take the subway every day."

On Monday, the New York City Department of Education announced that 21 teachers have died as a result of coronavirus. The CDC report acknowledges the role that children with only mild or no symptoms may have played in the transmission of COVID-19. "

Parent2 - go re read and see where kindness humility and common sense are missing.

Mark - where is the source?

Mark - here, children are less likely to transmit than adults

Web Link

Pleasanton Parent is right! Israel reopened their schools and it went GREAT!

@PP- quote from above. "wow, are you actually stating children are killing people? Bold. Fortunately proven untrue."

NOT PROVEN untrue. liar. Of course, they are vectors. They are human beings capable of catching and spreading the virus just like adults. They are not just magically immune. Maybe they get it slightly less or maybe their symptoms are not nearly as severe, it doesn't matter. They still get it and spread it. Yes, the resultant spread from children to parents and grandma have killed people. Did you learn nothing from what happened in New York? We get it, you really want your kids to go back to school full time and you don't like wearing a mask. Must be hard when your world is so small. You don't need a source, look it up yourself. Mark shared some CDC info above. Stop being so self absorbed and put on a mask on your face.

Ken - reading comprehension would help you separate children and transmission rate from general population and infection.

Good luck, let me know when you’re ready for a adult conversation. You know where to find me.

Denmark, Norway, China, Taiwan, Germany, South Korea, and Japan as well as many other countries already plan to be sending their children back to public school full time in the fall. We seem to be the only country in which many people are advocating for not sending our children back to school but instead having a so-called "distance learning" option, which we all know will negatively affect the education of our children with respect to their international competition.

But that's OK. We can afford to relax because US students are already so far ahead of their peers in countries like Germany, South Korea, and Japan that we have nothing to worry about, right?

"Sometimes sarcasm helps us to think more clearly" - Dilbert

Hey PP,
My reading comprehension is fine however your written fallacies are absurd.
You’ve been whining about sending your kids back to school full time, not allowing for safe distancing, while 3-4 weeks ago spewing about your refusal to wear a mask. Wearing a mask is known to decrease spread. You and mask refusal people like you are the problem and the reason that other countries have squashed this thing and are able to return their kids to school. I think we all know what the adult behaviors are.

The countries with functional governments have controlled the virus. Unlike the USA , Mexico and Brazil which are far behind in controlling the virus but are winning the race for most daily deaths. When the leaders of Brazil and USA scorned the accepted ways to limit the virus they insured the deaths of their citizens. People who believe this is political and they have a right not to wear a mask are empowered by a non-functional government leader.

@functionalgovernment

Agreed, and that is exactly why most European and Asian countries are now able to send their kids to school safely. If we had been doing what other countries have done successfully we would not be in this position. Ironically, we now have the same people who won’t wear a mask and have been trying to argue against globally accepted and proven measures insisting on full time school while we are nowhere near the place other countries are in minimizing Covid hospitalizations and deaths. (Looking at you PP and Wombat)

Sorry Ken, try again.

I'm not sick, kind of impossible for me to spread something I don't have.

I'm still waiting for you to bone up on some facts and we can continue our discussion when you've got your bearings straight on the discussion. Take your time....no rush.

@PP

Since you don't understand science I'm not sure why I'm sharing but maybe others will gain something

Web Link

@Ken wrote "Ironically, we now have the same people who won’t wear a mask and have been trying to argue against globally accepted and proven measures insisting on full time school while we are nowhere near the place other countries are in minimizing Covid hospitalizations and deaths."

What are you babbling about? The UK, Belgium, and Sweden all have higher per capita coronavirus death rates than we do but they are sending their children to school. You see, they realize something that you don't: That despite the fact that coronavirus is a disease not to be taken lightly, that taking actions to deny their countries' children a proper education is an overreaction to this disease.

The amount of Chicken Little wailing over coronavirus by you and a lot of others on these forums is both amusing and, at the same time, a bit sad. Awhile ago Kathleen was wailing about some "shocking" news she read: That more than 60 doctors had died in Italy of coronavirus! Horrors! The sky is falling down! I then did a check and found that Italy has more than 400,000 doctors and taking the mortality rate of the common flu that 60 is within the range of Italian doctors which would be expected to die from the common flu in a typical year. Chicken Little moment deflated.
:-(

Earlier in this forum we had someone else wailing "Three days of 100+ deaths make the past week state's deadliest since end of May"! Oh no! Another Chicken Little cry! The sky is falling! But, wait, why is the number "100" a serious milestone for coronavirus deaths? Because it "sounds like a big number"? In our state with a population of about 40 million we can expect about 1000 Californians to die each and every day of natural and other causes. The number "100" doesn't sound so big anymore, does it? Or how about comparing that "100" to the 2017-2018 flu season in which about 80,000 American died? Scaling the number of American flu deaths to the population of California means that approximately 10,000 Californians died of the flu in that flu season. The flu season lasts about 6 months (Dec to May) so we have an average daily death rate of about 50 Californians who died each and every day of the flu that season. Was anyone panicking on these forums in 2017-2018 about that daily death toll of about 50 Californian flu deaths? No, you all shrugged it off. About 10,000 Californians died of the flu that year and you didn't even notice it. Why not? Is there some magic number between "50" and "100" where we're supposed to suddenly hit the panic button, running around like Chicken Littles, and stop sending our kids to school, shutting businesses, and throwing massive numbers of people out of work?

Is coronavirus a serious health threat more dangerous than the common flu? Sure. Is it the bubonic plague? It's a viral threat with an estimated mortality rate about 3.5 times higher than the common flu (not 35-times higher than the common flu as first reported), and deaths from it are concentrated among the elderly and those with significant pre-existing health conditions (similar to the flu). We can deal with it with appropriate, reasonable measures without denying our children a proper education (just like we do with the flu).

There may well be a day when we face a very serious viral threat in which extreme measures such as shutting schools and businesses is needed, but this isn't it.

@ Wombat

I suggest you look at the CURRENT infections/hospitalization/death rates. Most deaths in UK and Belgium were due to infections transmitted in March/April. Their governments have since implemented measures which have drastically reduced spread and hospitalizations. Belgium and UK have vastly lowered rates of spread and hospitalizations now which is why they can send their kids back to school regularly. Sweden is a whole other story. They will continue to be high. If you were at any hospital in New York in March/April you wouldn't be joking about chicken little. In New York now EVERYBODY wears a mask, which is why their numbers are now low even though population density is high.

@Ken wrote “If you were at any hospital in New York in March/April you wouldn't be joking about chicken little.”

You’re saying that I’m not seeing the big picture of human suffering? On the contrary, it is you who is not looking at the big picture of human suffering here. You’ve posted many, many times here on the toll of coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations, but in your many posts here did you even once acknowledge the scale of the human suffering on the other side of the equation? Or do you not even know what I’m talking about? Apparently not. As a result of these extreme anti-coronavirus measures that have been taken over 70 million people have been thrown out of work. Do you have any idea the scale of human suffering that is associated with that huge number? Are you completely blind to the fact that associated with that number there are countless families whose lives are devastated? Do you not realize that associated with that massive amount of unemployment are increased suicides (i,e., “deaths of despair”), increased drug and alcohol abuse, spousal abuse, and child abuse? Have you acknowledged any of that in any of your posts, or have you been so narrowly focused on hospitalizations and deaths due to coronavirus with your tunnel vision that all that coronavirus-related human suffering didn’t even enter your mind?

You’re the one who has the problem with not seeing the big picture here, not me.

Wombat -

Just curious. You repeatedly criticize other posters because they don't adequately acknowledge the impact the lock downs, etc have had on people - unemployment, etc.

What exactly have you been doing in OUR COMMUNITY to help those who have impacted. Please share....hopefully you do more than bloviate and pontificate (and throw your elitist Ivy League education at us) on this posting site.

Here's what I have done to help MY COMMUNITY:
1) Two donations to the Alameda County Food Bank - both 4 digit amounts that were both matched (and thus double) by my company's matching dollars. Alameda county has a significant population of people that need FOOD
2) I have a large number of elderly neighbors that I have know more than 50 years who are negatively impacted mentally due to the isolation of sheltering in place. I contact them on a weekly basis to see how they are doing - phone calls, stopping by to talk in person (with masks and at a safe distance), helping buy groceries so they can avoid going to the store, when it looked like gardeners would not be allowed to work I mowed lawns
3) I occasionally get help to do home maintenance / gardening tasks - I've gone out of the way to find work for the guys that does this work for me - helping to keep him working and earning money for food and necessities for his family. And paying him $65 an hour for the work.

And of note - outside of Pleasanton but part of my extended Social community - I've donated 4 figures to my University alumni group to directly support programs that help students to cope with the challenges the pandemic has placed on them - things like food and places to live.

@Charlie

You’re trying to turn this into a pure, 100% personal contest between the two of us and I have no interest in spending my time doing that. Sorry. I’m here to debate policy.

Wombat -

You are the one attacking people that do not comply with your posting standards regarding this issue.

Your lack of response says it all - all talk and no action on your part.

Excuse me now - my neighbors need me to go to Safeway for them......

Hey Wombat,
Almost every country shut down and suffered the hardships you mention. Why are these other countries able to safely return to people to work at this point? Because their governments and citizens took it seriously, wear masks, and don’t have large gatherings! We literally have a president holding rallies and encouraging people not to mask. We are not pro shutdown and are not calling for that. Instead, people need to stop being selfish, put on a mask and take it seriously for ALL of us, so we don’t have to shut down.

Hey Charlie. I'll work for $50 an hour. Where do I sign up. You sound like a true philanthropist.

@Wombat,

Think about the 850,000 people in Taiwan who won't die because they handled this right and got it stopped. Feel free to check my math.

Needy -

What can you do? What re your skills?

Can you paint interior door trim?

How about installing some baseboards?

For $50, you have to be able to DO something...or are you just being sarcastic and calling me a liar in a round-about-way (like many on this site do...)?

Although, given you live in Birdland, Pleasanon CA - you're probably much richer than me and don't need the help.

They guy I hired needed help, so yes I'm a philanthropist.

Paying somebody for a service doesn’t make you a philanthropist, it makes you a customer.

And wombats absolutely correct, your own contributions during this time (while needed and appreciated, thank you btw ) are not core to the discussion around whether schools should / should not open. Whether anyone has matched your generosity or not plays no bearing into that conversation.

Now, if you’re willing to open your home to students in need of formal education and can teach lessons you got something.

The most asinine part of this debate is no one is saying you have to send your kids to school. No one. Everyone universally supports your CHOICE to keep them home / remote learning.

But here you are telling others that they can’t have a choice, you are actively arguing for your decision to be there’s. This country doesn’t work that way. That’s fundamentally wrong.

@PP
Nope, the most asinine thing is you trying to defend sending your kids back to school FULL TIME, not allowing for distancing, putting teachers and other students at risk, while at the same time refusing to wear a mask and take globally recommended precautions that have worked for other countries to successfully combat the same virus. It’s absurd, selfish, asinine, and fundamentally wrong.

Ken,
Again reading comprehension my friend. Come on.

Ken -

Just wanted to point out that PP confirmed she would ensure her kids follow mask / spacing protocols as defined by PUSD to open the schools.

Please see her responses to my questions above.

@BobB wrote "Think about the 850,000 people in Taiwan who won't die because they handled this right and got it stopped. Feel free to check my math."

Uhhh....yeah. Your number is a factor of 10 too high for a mortality rate of 0.35%. Sorry, you flunked your arithmetic assignment. So did the three people who up-voted your comment.
:-(

See? If our Pleasanton schoolchildren continue to be deprived of a proper education, they'll grow up to be just like the four of you. Do you want that???

Now you'll please excuse me if I get out of here before Charlie decides to challenge me to a hot dog eating contest to determine who is really right on a debate about coronavirus policy.

@charlie,
That may be true but there are plenty of previous posts where she has stated her own refusal to wear a mask.. anywhere. Also insisting that kids need to go back to school FULL TIME since that is what she and other parents want, which would not allow for distancing protocols. Maybe her kids will wear a mask at school but I’m waiting to hear her comment on her own mask refusal which affects other families as well as respond to her insistence that kids return to school full time while Covid is surging. Maybe she doesn’t want to admit that now since it doesn’t fit her current narrative?
PP- cognitive dissonance much?

That's your rate, not mine. Even with your infection fatality rate (well below what I've been reading), that would be 85,000 deaths that didn't have to happen. You get that right? Taiwan saved hundreds of thousands of lives (or 85,000 if you want to low ball it). We didn't.

I said I won’t wear one outside as mandated. You are correct.

I do wear them in stores as store policy dictates, and I don’t throw a fit over it because it’s not the employees decision. They’re just doing a job. They deserve respect not disrespectful customers. If I don’t want to shop there because of it I’ll shop online/elsewhere.

My kids follow the rules as dictated by stores / schools / daycares etc.

My opposition of them - mandated masks (again reading comprehension Ken) is in situations where they make zero sense and, to be honest, I think the efforts are better spent protecting the at risk groups over trying to control the masses.

And yes, I fully support a five day school option. I don’t expect every child to attend in person. I support CHOICE.

You can’t say social distancing isn’t possible because you’re not the architect of what it may or may not look like.

BobB you sound like people that saved $100 by spending $500.

Even with your numbers, they saved 85,000 lives. You're not okay with that? Too much impact on the economy in Taiwan?

So you're saying Taiwan somehow killed 500,000 to save 100,000? How do you figure that?

@BobB wrote "That's your rate, not mine."

About 0.35% is the most recent mortality rate estimate for coronavirus as determined by multiple studies. The only way that your figure of "850,000 deaths" makes sense is if the mortality rate were 3.5% or 10-times as high as recent estimates. No one now believes that the mortality rate for coronavirus is as high as 3.5% for the general population.

You made an arithmetic mistake with the decimal point. No big deal. Just admit it, laugh it off, and move on.

Taiwan is an entirely different story. They're a small island nation, don't have the widespread obesity problems that the US (the most obese major country in the world) does, have a very law abiding population, and they have a national health insurance ID database that they used for swift and effective tracking of cases. There was never any possibility that the US was going to be as successful in dealing with coronavirus as Taiwan for all these reasons and more, so I don't know what point you think that you're making by bringing up Taiwan.

Obesity had nothing to do with it. We screwed up. I was wrong to use your number with the decimal in the wrong place. I admit that. Your number IFR is lower by 2 to 3 times. Do you have a link to a consensus number for IFR of .35%?

You’re right. Obesity is the reason the median age in the US is 50 not 62. We should make fat people shelter in place and eat salad for their safety.

Taiwan is a small island with a smaller population. Comparing Taiwan and New Zealand makes sense. Taiwan and the us......different leagues.

@Bob wrote "Do you have a link to a consensus number for IFR of .35%?"

Below is a link to an article I saw in SF Gate reporting on multiple large-scale studies of the mortality rate of coronavirus (a Santa Clara study, a Los Angles study, and a German study). As you probably know, getting an accurate fix on the coronavirus mortality rate is tricky because there are many asymptomatic cases, but the fact that all three of these studies were getting numbers in fairly close agreement is noteworthy and adds to the credibility of their findings.

In summary, the results were as follows:
• The Santa Clara study estimated a mortality rate of 0.17%
• The Santa Clara study estimate after corrections made by others gives a mortality rate of 0.33%
• A German study estimated a mortality rate of 0.37%
• Data from a Los Angeles study implies a mortality rate of 0.31%

SF Gate article: Web Link

Additionally, here's a more recent paper on the subject of the coronavirus mortality rate. I'll let you read the abstract for yourself:

"The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data": Web Link


- - - - - - - -

I love when liberals scream we must have CHOICE when it comes to abortion and killing babies, yet they deny informed parents the choice to send their kids to school full time....seems all the liberals in the Bay Area should support the 2 options of keeping your kids home if you are scared, or sending your kid to school if you feel that is in their best interest mentally and academically. And don’t bother responding to this comment if you don’t actually have CURRENT students in PUSD.

The state can easily enable all schools to open full time if they instate Blanket Liability Protection for all CA school districts. He can even require and give out the masks he gave China millions for. Newsom is finding money to give to all his other cronies and buying votes for November, I am sure he can find money for this to give to protect his most powerful union payers....I mean supporters.

@PP, one thing you are are not is consistent, changing your thoughts to fit your current narrative. Again, cognitive dissonance much?

The schools have said that a 5 day program is not possible for distancing, which in crowded schools we all know is true. However you are an expert in everything and you know better than the actual people doing the work. I’m sure you can tell them how to architect it in 3 sentences while demanding and whining why your kids are “entitled” to be in an physical classroom full time during a pandemic.

Ken,
You’re a very angry and rude person online. I would encourage you to re-read my comments with comprehension and without pre-conceived hate to understand my position. I promise you it’s fairly consistent.

That said I forgive your attitude here, I’m sure you’re a lovely person in real life. I’d wager we’ve probably crossed paths and been very cordial in interaction. This event causes flare ups in us all, and I see that happening with you now. Breathe, exhale, let it go. We can help ea other get through this. It’s definitely an uphill climb and not going to be a clean finish. Be blessed

PP has a very condescending and know everything attitude. He or she must related to Wombat know it all with lots of time on hands to post. Not even entertaining.

Wow,
You’re a very angry and rude person online. I would encourage you to re-read my comments with comprehension and without pre-conceived hate to understand my position. I promise you it’s fairly consistent.

That said I forgive your attitude here, I’m sure you’re a lovely person in real life. I’d wager we’ve probably crossed paths and been very cordial in interaction. This event causes flare ups in us all, and I see that happening with you now. Breathe, exhale, let it go. We can help ea other get through this. It’s definitely an uphill climb and not going to be a clean finish. Be blessed

Please don't generalize liberals. I believe in a woman's right to choose. I also believe in a parent's right to choose what the school program for their child. You should try getting to know some liberals as opposed to generalizing all of us and not knowing what we may or may not believe.

Just curious if anyone has had the thought that teachers might not want to be in the classroom. It would be hilarious if all of these arguments are invalid once the district realizes teachers do not feel safe and want to teach virtually.

"Just curious if anyone has had the thought that teachers might not want to be in the classroom."

Then don't.

You've been teaching through all sorts of illnesses and diseases and you hadn't once thought about your safety until now?

Just don't go back. Your replacement would love to have your job.

Dan

This pandemic has gotten to a comic level of mass hysteria.

The daily death rate has plummeted since the highs in April, but none of you aside from a few individuals seem to have noticed.

They told us masks wouldn't do any good. Then later, they tell us we should all be wearing masks and that the reason why they told us differently in the beginning was because they didn't want hoarding because hospitals would need them.

Think about that for a second...

We all ran around spreading this virus, so that hospitals - who already should have their stock - can hoard more masks.

They predicted by this time millions in the US would be dead. The models were ALL WRONG.

By the numbers, kids are the least affected by the virus, yet now they are telling you they are the most vulnerable.

None of you virus nannies are getting it through your heads that you are being played.

I'll say this now: the virus will cease to be an issue on Nov 4, 2020.

I'll mark my calendar as a reminder.

Dan

"What about teachers?"

And btw, I welcome virtual teaching for many reasons.

Here are just two:

1. Instead of having 1 teacher instructing a class of 30, now 1 can teach a class of 60.
2. I would have insight into the classroom on a daily basis. I can actually monitor my childs' education in real time and watch the teacher.

Is this really what you want?

What about those classes that need lab work, like Chemistry or Biology or Home Ec?

Let's be very clear about this. Virtual teaching might go over well in our affluent community. But there are many more working class communities that don't have the luxury of having a stay-at-home mom/dad, making sure that their children are online and doing what they should.

Virtual leaning is a great idea and I see it expanding, but it should be used as an add-on and not a replacement for physical attendance.

Most teachers are not thinking through the consequences of what they are looking at when it comes to virtual teaching. You think that it is the same as virtual "business" but you are completely and utterly misunderstanding the differences in our workplace. Physical and Social interaction and development is an EXTREMELY important component of schools too.

Go ahead and continue to push for virtual learning. You will find yourself on a different career path very soon afterward, and it will all be in the name of progress.

Dan

Dan,
I’m not!
And what makes you think we never worried about our health? Worried everyday for years, my friend.

Pleasanton Teacher,

"Worried everyday for years, my friend."

Yeah...and how'd that go for you?

There are hazards to every job. I once worked on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Big deal.

Stop complaining and get back to work.

Dan

PT,

"I’m not!"

I'm assuming this is to my challenge for teachers not to go to work.

All I have to say to that is "good for you".

Dan

Dan,
There are no words...

DKHSK,
"The daily death rate has plummeted since the highs in April, but none of you aside from a few individuals seem to have noticed."
July 8th 150 people died far exceeding the 121 death which occurred on Apr 22. This is what is happening in California so maybe the East Coast is doing better but are daily death rate is setting new highs.

The total number of deaths in California is 6,864 which moves death from the virus into 8th place for leading causes of death in California. Just behind accidents and diabetes. But if you believe "This pandemic has gotten to a comic level of mass hysteria." then you must believe diabetes and traffic accidents are jokes also.

No Joke,

July 8th included accumulation of all deaths over the 4th of July weekend.

Get your facts straight.

Dan

DKHSK
July 9th 137 still beats any day in April. But that is right it is all a joke to you.

I don’t see my child’s pediatrician “refusing” to “work”, he wears a mask and even TOUCHES my kids. Teachers will be distanced from the kids and all will be wearing masks. There are risks to every job and if teachers are too scared to work around kids, now is a great time for a career change! Go for it. There are a lot of new graduates with teaching credentials who would love to take your job in such a high paying district as Pleasanton.

No Joke,

"The total number of deaths in California is 6,864 which moves death from the virus into 8th place for leading causes of death in California."

It is indisputable that there is financial incentive for hospitals to claim COVID as cause of death: Web Link

That there exists a chance to game the system, I'm willing to bet that there would be a tendency of a for-profit business to claim COVID killed a patient that was clearly dying from other pre-existing conditions.

That is clearly the logical position.

Dan

No Joke,

I've said my peace. If you want to run around like chicken little then continue to do so.

I've given you my opinion and facts per the link and we clearly disagree.

Move on.

Dan

Jil,

"I don’t see my child’s pediatrician “refusing” to “work”, he wears a mask and even TOUCHES my kids."

Of course not, he isn't unionized and he gets the science.

I swear, most teachers are the whiniest of professionals.

They work a fraction of the time most white collar professionals work, in the most low stress of conditions and they do nothing but complain.

I have a cousin and his wife who are teachers out in the Central Valley. Own a 5 bedroom house, installed solar panels, have a travel trailer and a boat, and they STILL complain about their salaries with absolutely no awareness.

Ugh. So painful to hear them complain.

Dan

Tracy Unified has ditched plans for students to come back 5 days a week.

They just announced that students would be in an A or B group for 2 days of in class instruction a week, attend an online charter school or go independent study.

The A group goes to class Mondays and Thursdays and the B group goes to class Tuesdays and Fridays. There is no in class instruction on Wednesday.

They cited the changing conditions and the upswing in COVID for this change of plans.

I suspect other school districts will also roll back plans for in person instruction as well.

Wonder what those teachers are going to do on those Wednesdays?

'Changes' wrote "Tracy Unified has ditched plans for students to come back 5 days a week."

Reality check, people: Do we really want to follow the lead of the Tracy Unified School District?

Tracy School Ratings & Reviews: Web Link

. . . . . . .

Here is the COVID page for Tracy Unified with the letter that got sent to the parents today. It is the 7/10 letter. PUSD seems very far behind Tracy Unified and far less communicative. PUSD doesn't for instance even have a dedicated COVID page.

TUSD COVID page---

Web Link

Wednesday the teachers are supposed to engage in support for the Hybrid model. I don't know exactly whether that means Wednesday will be online classes. This Hybrid model is in addition to the online charter school and the online independent study options. You can read the 7/10 letter just published today on the Tracy link above.

Again, PUSD seems far behind Tracy Unified.

@Jill...Easy now , teaching is not a high paying profession as you adamantly claim, and college graduates are not clamoring to fill vacant spots as you profess. Teacher training programs have been declining for years. So lets not speak so aggressively on topics that you are not informed.

Now if you want to sign up to be a sub in a closed environment with 30 kids all day- by all means call PUSD, they would welcome your sacrifice.

Jill, thank you. Yes, please call PUSD and sign up to be a sub in a very rewarding field! Please, please, please. We did not have enough subs BEFORE COVID and were doubling up on classes in elementary school. Cannot imagine what will happen when teachers start getting sick. Jill is exactly correct. Not enough teachers for the necessary positions.

Happy to sub if the district opens up business as usual 5 full days a week for all grades, but we all know your Union won’t let that happen. If you teachers aren’t committed and plan on calling in a sub all the time, just resign now and give a new credentialed teacher the opportunity to be in these nice safe classrooms with mask and teacher distancing protocol. When you decide it safe for you to go back into “classroom teaching” someday, your spot in PUSD may not be there for you, but apply to Oakland school district and see how nice you had it in PUSD with all the parental involvement in the classroom and with activities and support.

For those of you who aren't worried, I have a suggestion.

Invite 35 of your kid's closest friends over to your house for several hours. Let them touch everything in your home. Make physical contact with them.

Then do it again for your other kid (or kids). Be there when it happens. Tell parents and kids that it's all good. They're not going to die, or get sick, or pass it on to their at-risk relatives.

Let us know how it goes.

"teaching is not a high paying profession as you adamantly claim, and college graduates are not clamoring to fill vacant spots as you profess."

Hold up.

When factoring for actual classroom time, teaching pays pretty well, don't kid yourself.

I've crunched the numbers and put them on various threads here in Townhalll. Just do a search and find them.

Dan

@"Dark Father" wrote "Tell parents and kids that it's all good. They're not going to die, or get sick, or pass it on to their at-risk relatives."

Answer me this simple question: What do you think the probability is of a kid of grade school age (K-12) who is infected with coronavirus of dying from it?

Like I said, it's a simple question, not a trick question. Just give me a percentage number of what you think the probability is of a K-12 student dying after being infected with coronavirus is. A rough estimate is fine. Thanks.

@Dan

Actual classroom time is a specious argument, and you're smart enough to know it.

If you're a salesperson, how much of your day is spent selling? Tech support? How much time do you spend supporting customers?

If you really think our teachers are only working when they're in front of kids, why don't you move to a better district? Spend some time on campus. Walk away from the computer while you're "working," and still posting here, and see what's really going on.

@Wombat

It's clear you're picking and choosing points from my post. Have you had 35 of your kid's closest friends over? Will you?

Having said that, I agree that the students are not the ones who are going to suffer. Teachers at risk? Maybe. Grandparents? Immunocompromised family members? What level of risk/death is acceptable?

@Dark Father wrote "Having said that, I agree that the students are not the ones who are going to suffer."

Oh, OK. You could have just started off your 2nd post by saying that because from your 1st post it sure sounded like the school kids, their parents, and their at-risk relatives were all in dire mortal danger from coronavirus.

You ask a very good question, though, of "What level of risk/death is acceptable?". So you tell me: The mortality rate (chances of dying if infected) for the flu across all age groups is about 0.1%. The mortality rate for coronavirus across all ages groups according to multiple recent studies (see the references that I gave in one of my posts above) is about 0.35% (and not a 2% to 5% mortality rate as was originally estimated).

We take reasonable precautions against the flu each flu season but we don't go as far as closing schools even though we could probably save many of the 20,000 to 60,000 lives if we did close schools and imposed other strict anti-flu measures such as social distancing, mask wearing, etc.. So explain to me why the flu with a 0.1% mortality rate is "acceptable" but coronavirus with a mortality rate of 0.35% is suddenly "unacceptable" and we need to start closing schools. I would really appreciate it if you can come up with a logical justification for what we are doing in terms of coronavirus response and how it is consistent with how we respond to the common flu each year. Is there some magic number between 0.1% and 0.35% where we need to suddenly hit the panic button?

@Dark Father

Oh, and in answer to your question to me, no, I would not have a problem with having 35 of my kids closest friends over to our house in terms of the safety of myself or my kid. We both agree that my school age kid is not in any significant danger, and looking at the mortality rate risk data for people in my age group I don't feel that my own life is in any significantly elevated danger due to coronavirus, either. Personally, I'm more concerned about traffic accidents, drunk drivers, and household accidents.

When you get a bit older, I hope you understand.

What we need to do now is shut down hard, track everyone, and stop this disease.

@BobB wrote "What we need to do now is shut down hard, track everyone, and stop this disease."

Why do we need to "shut down hard" and close schools and businesses when we don't "shut down hard" and close schools and businesses for the common flu? Why do we need to "shut down hard" for a virus with a mortality rate of 0.35% but not for one with a mortality rate of 0.1%?

It's a simple question, and I've asked it in various forms at least three times on this forum, but none of you appears to be able to answer it. None of you seem to be able to explain why you want to suddenly hit the panic button at 0.35% but not at 0.1%.

No one has immunity to this. Many have immunity to the flu and there is vaccination. I also dispute the .35%. The consensus is more like .5 to .8%, but that is changing. There is also the long term damage to be who survive it, which is already appearing to be worse than the flu. It is also the unknowns. People over 60 aren't expendable.

The very small percent of families in PUSD who CHOOSE a living arrangement where grandparents live in the same home with the grandchildren is not a legal argument for denying my children the access to their classroom that my tax dollars pay for.
Second, there is an option provided for those few families. There is an option for those teachers that don’t want to go back to the classroom. The majority of parents, per the survey, want our kids back in the classroom on the first day of school. It is the elected school boards job to make that happen with masks and protocol “guidelines” Guidelines are not voted on law, but child access to a classroom and a certified teacher is. Those teachers that don’t want to sign a waiver and work the job they were hired to do, or want to keep their kids home with them, can take their chances with online job placement and school placement with the ONLINE option....go ahead and roll the dice. I, like the majority in PUSD, want my student in the classroom with protocols.

@BobB wrote “ No one has immunity to this. Many have immunity to the flu and there is vaccination. I also dispute the .35%. The consensus is more like .5 to .8%, but that is changing. There is also the long term damage to be who survive it, which is already appearing to be worse than the flu. It is also the unknowns. People over 60 aren't expendable.”

I’m sorry, Bob, but I don’t see an answer to my simple question in there.

BTW, even the CDC has reported a very low coronavirus mortality rate (i.e., infection fatality rate (IFR)) number of 0.26%, which is even lower that the 0.35% estimated mortality rate number that I gave. As for claims of “long term damage”, there is a lot of hysteria and false claims out there. For example, there have been panicky articles claiming that coronavirus can lead to blood clotting, but these articles never mention the fact that blood clotting due to an infectious disease is nothing new.
Wired: “ Covid-19's Scary Blood Clots Aren't That Surprising:
There's more than a century of research linking clogged blood vessels to infectious diseases.: Web Link

Finally, your final ending sentence of “People over 60 aren't expendable“ is an especially weak one. People over 60 are at increased risk of death from many, many diseases including the common flu. There is nothing special about coronavirus. About 10,000 mostly elderly Californians died of the common flu during the 2017-2018 flu season, but I’ll bet that you didn’t even notice that, much less banging a drum urging that schools be closed because of the flu.

Parent surveys don't matter.

After spending the late spring and early part of the summer conducting surveys with parents about their preferences, the districts adopted plans based on data that at the time.

Now with the spiking of COVID deaths and infections in the last week, reality reflects a much different scenario that health experts are currently facing.

Back in the spring, it was thought that infections would go very low like the Spanish Flu did in the Summer. That has not happened with COVID.

COVID spreads through airborne particles so the infection rate is much higher.

It doesn't matter that the parents are screaming that they want their kids out the house 5 days a week. That just isn't going to happen no matter how loud parents kick and scream.

Fremont Unified just announced it would start the Fall Semester with distance learning only.

I expect PUSD will do the same.

Fremont will continue with Distance Learning until there are no new cases of COVID in Alameda County for a 7 day period. Web Link is from the Mercury News article.

We are in a pandemic, COVID is very contagious. even 'recovered' people continue to have significant issues after the recovery, and it is not going away any time soon.

Well, despite my best efforts to inject a little bit of rational thinking into this coronavirus discussion forum, it appears that more panicky Chicken Littles are coming out with their poor fluffy little feathers all mussed up and scattered. OK, I've had enough. Instead of trying to reason with you, I'm going to instead feed your fears!

First, BAD, SCARY NEWS for all of you who thought that social distancing and mask wearing (and shutting down schools) was going to save you from every getting coronavirus: According to Santa Clara Public Health Director Sara Cody, you all are going to get coronavirus regardless of what you do!:

"Still, Dr. Cody says a surge in cases is coming, and that since a vaccine is still a long ways off, at some point everyone is likely to be infected with COVID-19. "Yes, probably at some point," Dr. Cody replied when asked if she believes everyone will be infected. "What our shelter-in-place order does, though, is slow things down, so we spread the cases out over a long period of time, and so that we spread the number of people who are severely ill and require hospitalization over a long period of time as well.""

ABC 7 News: Web Link

Oh, and here's another bit of SCARY NEWS for you: It may not be possible to develop a vaccine for coronavirus, and even if one does eventually come out, it's almost certainly not going to be 100% effective against coronavirus any more than the flu vaccine is 100% effective against the flu. If a coronavirus vaccine is developed and it's anything like the flu vaccine, you can expect it to have an overall effectiveness of somewhere in the 40% to 60% range. That means many of you will be exposed to the FULL BRUNT OF .....THE CORONAVIRUS! EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!

OK, you can go back to hiding under your beds again. Have fun, And, remember: Coronavirus is lurking in every shadow and behind every corner. Learn to sleep with your eyes wide open.......or else........

This is much much worse than the flu that's why it's not comprable.

Plus the United States response to this disease has been a tragic disaster compared to most of the rest of the world. We really blew this. Let's keep the schools closed this fall and see where it goes from there. if this were many of the countries in Europe or Asia I'd say go ahead and open the schools but this is the disaster that we have here in the US of our own making.

“Till there are no new cases of COVID IN 7 day period” Will never happen. Expect to join a Class action Lawsuit against PUSD and Fremont if that is where you student lives and expects to be educated based on your residential location.
As a grocery store clerk I still have to do my job, wearing a mask behind plexiglass. I have a union too, and I work with kids and all walks of like. My employer gets sued if I refuse service to someone....especially based on their age. I can’t do my job If my children are home. PUSD has no legal authority to mandate students stay home...neither does Alameda county.

The public schools were not meant to be a babysitting service for working parents. Also the elementary schools, middle schools and high schools are jam packed with students so there is no way to have fulltime school and achieve any thing remotely similar to social distancing and plexiglass barriers between individual students and staff.

Parents will easily be able to find babysitters because the CSUs are online only at least for the Fall and perhaps for the entire year. Pleasanton is full of college students taking online classes right here in Pleasanton because the dorms have been shut on campuses across the state.

No public school system is going to open their doors for 5 days a week in an area where the other school districts have decided that for the safety of their students and staff, to open with distance learning.

Pleasanton Unified staff is recommending that school reopen with remote learning for grades 3-12 rather than classroom based learning. The PPT is posted on their website.

Currently the powerpoint says a recommended AM/PM model for TK-2, but I will bet the Board decides remote learning for that group as well.

Each school district is independent. Calling PUSD glorified online babysitting is what PUSD WILL be when they have to file for bankruptcy and furlough and fire teachers and classified workers due to their choice to not listen to the public survey and keep classrooms open. Prepare to join a Class Action if you want to get a classroom education for your PUSD student. If Disney World can open and local dance and sports classes have opened, PUSD classrooms can open.

Sorry @joiningclassaction,,,,not going to happen.

Maybe if PUSD school were not at twice the physical capacity they were designed for then maybe there would be some way to logistically spread the kids out - but 3,000 students at Amador, not possible.

Plus as as soon as kids test positive, which will happen, just look at college football teams already..then what - kids go back home with no plan in place?

Why not just start the Fall semester online and then see if things improve and come back in Spring Semester - that is what makes the most sense, for lots of reasons - the first being health and safety.

I think this is what PUSD will do regardless of threats from angry parents.

Classes are overcrowded BECAUSE of mismanagement and the loss of lawsuits in the past. A class action Lawsuit and bankruptcy of PUSD could be the best thing for students. If PUSD really cared about students and learning, they would be thinking outside the box and already planning and negotiating with the Fairgrounds to have additional High School Classes there. Everyone else gets to use the Fairgrounds...Google...Food Banks ...Movies...How about actually using it for the Education of our Local Students!

The K-12 kids are going to be kept home this fall in in PUSD. This needs to happen and is happening.

Bob, how many minor students do you CURRENTLY have in PUSD?

As you can see from Web Link the CDE website, the size of an elementary, middle school, or high school classroom is tiny compared to the rest of the nation.

If you look at the per student footage, California is very small compared to the national median. In addition, the so-called K-3 class size reduction means those classrooms are particularly small.

Given the fact that students are packed in classrooms like sardines because of the small size of classrooms compared to the national medians in the web link above, you can see how infeasible it is to achieve the 6 foot social distancing requirements given the micro-classrooms that are now in Pleasanton schools. It is simply infeasible to achieve social distancing in these tiny classrooms.

If Pleasanton had built their classrooms closer to the national medians, it might be feasible, but in Pleasanton it is not. In elementary schools, four students' desks are often times pulled together as a unit so that one student is literally 5 or 6 inches away from three other students. They have to share supplies (markers/crayons/gluesticks) that parents thought they were buying for an individual child, but are instead pooled together for multiple students to use). At the middle schools, there are no lockers with individual books. Instead classroom books are shared in a communal situation. There is no way to safely have a child stay 6 feet from others in this situation.

Res, those classrooms were spacious when we had class size reduction, that we then got rid of due to politics and unions and mismanagement of PUSD. In court PUSD will have to answer to what have they done to TRY to keep students in a classroom environment as the parents/taxpayers said they wanted in an overwhelming majority of 89%. Did PUSD inquire to use our Fairground buildings? What are they doing to keep kids in the classroom and when did they start doing it? Covid has been around since Feb and it’s not going away. Our students deserve the option of classroom learning.

@Impacted,

2

Students can't be taught in the livestock buildings or exhibit halls or the racetrack grandstand at the fairgrounds because they don't meet the building codes mandated by the state for public school classrooms. If you would like to change that law, you could contact your assembly member and school board members.

It seems like instead of pouring money into these so-called lawsuits that have about must chance of succeeding as having the kids educated in the Fairgrounds' livestock buildings, why not face the realities of the pandemic?

@Res They are EXHIBITOR BUILDINGS built for Humans. Perfect for large crowds of HUMANS OR SOCIALLY DISTANCED STUDENTS:)

BeFair/Hmm/Wombat/Fairisfair---why don't you gather up all of your coronavirus denier group and propose to the local school board that fairground exhibition buildings be used as school sites?

I'm sure that the one restroom at the entrance of each exhibition building will be adequate for the thousands of students. Brilliant idea.

It’s amazing how a parking lot at the fairgrounds wasn’t built for Medical testing, but by golly, we managed to do the Covid testing there. I think it’s a great option for the High school students to hold numerous socially distanced classes in the large, empty exhibit halls.

Res, ever been to Amador? The bathroom situation is better at the Fairgrounds.

Teachers should not have to risk their lives and end up dying because of COVID.

In the situation with the 3 Arizona teachers who were in a classroom without students teaching summer school Web Link , in spite of social distancing protocols, all three teachers in the same classroom contracted coronavirus.

One teacher of the three has died from the coronavirus. This happened less than two weeks ago. According to the news article, they took a number of precautions but still ended up all getting COVID with one teacher dying.

The schools in Arizona should not have required the summer school teachers to come to the school site to teach the virtual summer school classes.

No wonder the teachers are in favor of distance learning.

Here is a video about the teacher who contracted COVID during the first two weeks of summer school and sadly passed away Web Link

She was in a classroom with two other teachers teaching a virtual summer school session for young elementary school students.

All teachers contracted COVID and one passed away. It is simply too dangerous given the escalating levels of COVID cases to have any sort of in-classroom teaching at this time. Hopefully the PUSD will value the lives of their teachers, classified staff, and students and open up in 4 weeks with distance learning only.

In the Arizona situation, the teachers apparently followed all CDC protocols and still there was a tragic ending.

@Res wrote "All teachers contracted COVID and one passed away."

Hey, Res. An average of about 20,000 to 60,000 Americans pass away due to the common flu each year. In the 2017-2018 flu season, about 80,000 Americans died of the flu. That included about 10,000 Californians who died of the flu that flu season which works out to an average of about 50 Californians who died of the flu each and every day of the flu season from December 2017 to May 2018.

Just thought that you might want to know so that you can start demanding that all schools close each and every flu season.

@wombat

I wish I had $10 for every time you have posted this tired statistic:

"20,000 to 60,000 Americans pass away due to the common flu each year"

Since you like numbers you must realize that Covid has already claimed 137,000 lives since February - which will equate to 274,000 lives after 12 months - assuming of course there is no increased trajectory, which I think is very optimistic considering where the numbers started in February and where we are now. This is heating up, not slowing down or staying consistent.

So I guess the question to you is what number of people will need to die before you step back and stop your nonsense on these blogs? 150K, 200K, 300K... please answer this question with a numeric response... not some more more rhetoric.

I have seen you demand answers from others on percentages on this blog, so here is your chance to clear it up for all on the Pleasanton Weekly, your pedestal.

How many people must die of Covid 19 before the Wombat will take it seriously?

Just a number response please. Thanks

@Ruby Hill Guy

Pay attention! I never denied that coronavirus is a more serious virus than the flu. Since your reading comprehension abilities are so poor I’ll repeat (yet again!) what I’ve already written here multiple times: The estimated mortality rate of coronavirus Is about 0.35%, and the mortality rate of the common flu is about 0.1%. Got that, Sparky? You know that 0.35 > 0.1, right? Need more time for that info to sink into your thick skull?

Since you seem to be a know-it-all, I’ll ask you to answer a simple question that I’ve posed here three times already without getting an answer from anyone. Ready? Here it is (now for the 4th time!):
Why do we need to "shut down hard" and close down schools and businesses for a virus with a mortality rate of 0.35% but not for one with a mortality rate of 0.1%? Why do you want to suddenly hit the panic button for 0.35% but not 0.1%?

Let’s see if you can give a rational, coherent, non-evasive answer to this simple question. I’m betting that you can’t. Try to surprise me.

Coronavirus has nothing to do with the flu. The mortality rate for coronavirus is much higher than the various strains of the flu, according to the John Hopkins website Web Link

I get my information from the Johns Hopkins website. It also details the long term damage that can result from getting coronavirus. They are a hospital and should have more details on it, which they do, than some coronavirus denier website, which Wombat seems to delight in quoting from.

The current COVID pandemic seems to not also follow similar statistics as the Spanish flu epidemic in the early 1900s.

No one cares if you want to send your kids to school full-time. It'll never be a legal option despite what the district wants so you can put that thought in your pipe and smoke it. Intellect still Trumps naivety.

Pleasanton parents continue to behave badly having kids do sleepovers, etc. Typical Pleasanton entitled behavior. These parents should spend less time reading texts and more time reading data. You can't wish this one away. It's in your face, in our face, we all need to deal with it.

Why isn't Pleasanton putting cameras in classrooms and such? There's a huge budget cut and Pleasanton residents didn't invest in their community by passing a bond.

Nice try Parent. Seems PUSD was the ones that would rather buy worthless solar panels for the parking lot from their liberal cronies, instead of adding more classrooms to Amador that could actually effect education right now.

@Parent, So are you going to call PUSD to report all the PUSD teachers who’s kids also have sleep overs and are around their friends, and doing kids activities? Your going to out them as hypocrites?

@Res wrote “ They are a hospital and should have more details on it, which they do, than some coronavirus denier website, which Wombat seems to delight in quoting from.”

What “coronavirus denier website” do you think I’ve been quoting from, Res?
SFGate? Wired Magazine? ABC 7 News? The CDC’s own website? None of those? Then what?

If you can’t debate facts, you can always tell outright lies.
(Yes, I’m looking at you, Res.)

We screwed up. And now we're paying the price. Other countries took this virus seriously. Fools and ignoramuses downplayed its seriousness here. It is time to get serious now. Ignore the fools who continue to downplay it.

I agree with BobB. These people on the forums arguing that the flu is more dangerous than COVID seems to be disagreeing with the medical experts.

For seasonal influenza, the average infected person will infect one or two others, and it has a shorter incubation period (1 to 4 days) before someone shows symptoms.

With COVID, it is a completely different ball game. COVID is more infectious as there is a 14 day incubation period where someone could infect dozens of people before they come down with symptoms.

COVID, with its higher mortality rates, is filling up area ICU hospital beds in the middle of summer. When has the flu done that? When have doctors and nurses on the front lines treating people for the flu died?

To compare the two (flu and COVID) and insist that schools open up right now in the middle of skyrocketing cases in the middle of a pandemic is simply absurd since it endangers the teaching staff, the children, and their families.

In Santa Clara county last, week the superintendent held an in-person administrator meeting. Guess what, there has been a COVID outbreak of the attendees.

@“COVID pandemic” wrote “ I agree with BobB. These people on the forums arguing that the flu is more dangerous than COVID seems to be disagreeing with the medical experts.”

You’re setting up a straw man argument. WHO here is saying that the flu is more dangerous than COVID-19???

. . . . .

Straw Man Argument

“A straw man (or strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, meanwhile the proper idea of argument under discussion was not addressed or properly refuted.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".”

“The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition.[2][3] Straw man arguments have been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly regarding highly charged emotional subjects.”

Wikipedia: Straw Man: Web Link

. . . . . .

Looks like this forum has degenerated to a state where people are telling outright lies about other people’s sources of information (Looking at you again, Res) and grossly distorting the other side’s views (Looking at you, “COVID pandemic”).

Here’s a question: If the truth is on your side, then why the need to lie? Why the need to distort the other side’s view and set up a straw man argument?

When one side starts engaging in a pattern of lying and factual distortion, any hope of having a rational discussion is over.

Wombat has quoted that the Coronavirus has a mortality rate of a very tiny fraction of 1% ---- .35% in his/her July 4th post. I can't find that .35% anywhere else.

It varies by country. Within the US,it is 4.2% and in the UK, it is 15.5%. In Mexico, it is 11.8%. Web Link

The faulty statistics that Wombat seems to continue to post are used to back up his/her position of 'open up ____________' where ____________ seems to be everything.

Wombat also offers up other supposed facts such as children do not come down with Coronavirus. Perhaps he/she has missed all of those news reports about Coronavirus showing up as Kawasaki disease in children.

Wombat, the armchair epidemiologist, perhaps should take his/her 'knowledge' of the so-called facts and try to get hired as one of our public health government positions.

Love that you think teachers can be easily replaced, Dan. The district can't even get substitutes because there is such a shortage. Every day I receive an email from our school secretary asking our staff if we would like to teach through our preps. I absolutely help out and say yes because it's best for kids. And I sit on hiring committees shocked at the lack of qualified people applying. Teachers can't afford to live in the Bay Area. Alameda County is not allowing outdoor eating, except Livermore and Pleasanton. Contra Costa County is now requiring masks when people hand out with their social bubble. It is ridiculous that you think we should go back into the classroom when we cannot live normal lives right now.

Go right ahead and try to replace a large group of us. It will not work.

@ Wombat
Home work for you -
"In the 2017-2018 flu season, about 80,000 Americans died of the flu"
// Please post your source for above flu death #s you cite and methodology to arrive at those #s vs Covid #s.

@covid pandemic. Maybe you missed the reports of Kawasaki disease showing up for years in response to flu, colds, and bacterial infections. No one shut down the schools for all the 99.99% of students that did not and will not ever have that reaction.

@“COVID pandemic” wrote “ Wombat has quoted that the Coronavirus has a mortality rate of a very tiny fraction of 1% ---- .35% in his/her July 4th post. I can't find that .35% anywhere else.”

In response to BobB who was asking for the source of the 0.35% figure, I posted a link to an SF Gate article in which three separate studies came up with coronavirus mortality rates clustered around about 0.35%. You can easily find my post above if you bothered to look.

@“COVID pandemic” wrote “It varies by country. Within the US,it is 4.2% and in the UK, it is 15.5%. In Mexico, it is 11.8%.”

No, as the web link that you yourself provided for those numbers, those numbers that you quote are for “CASE FATALITY RATIOS”, not “mortality rates” or “infection fatality ratios”. If the coronavirus mortality rate were really as high as 15.5%, I would be panicking, too. It’s nowhere near that.

@“COVID pandemic” wrote “ Wombat also offers up other supposed facts such as children do not come down with Coronavirus.“

You’re now going to tell another lie about me? Provide a quote from this forum where I wrote “children do not come down with Coronavirus”, or wrote or implied any such thing.

@“COVID pandemic” wrote “ Wombat, the armchair epidemiologist, perhaps should take his/her 'knowledge' of the so-called facts and try to get hired as one of our public health government positions.”

Seriously, fella. If you’re so ignorant of this subject that you actually think that the mortality rate for coronavirus may be as high as 15.5%, you’re in no position to be commenting on how knowledgeable others are on the subject.

@hpicfail

The number of Americans who died in the 2017-2018 flu season is not some obscure bit of difficult to find information. It’s publicly available statistical information which you can easily find yourself if you even bothered to try. (Which I’m sure you didn’t.) Don’t try to waste my time.

Wombat,

Once again, you're too low on IFR (Infection Fatality Ratio).

"The number of individuals who die of the disease among all infected individuals (symptomatic and asymptomatic)."

You're using out of date estimates from people with an agenda.

The latest "Current Best Estimate" from the CDC is 0.0065. Look at page 6, table 1. This is from July 10, from the Centers for Disease Control.

Web Link

Also, some background on the flu:

"The case fatality rate in people who become sick with flu may be 0.1%, but when you account for people who become infected with flu but never show symptoms, the death rate will be half or even a quarter of that."

Web Link

This is much worse than the seasonal flu. Stop downplaying it!

@Wombat
That explains. You just quote #s that you read who knows where. No understanding what it means or how that data is gathered.
Do the home work I gave you and you might understand why people are calling you out.

With the fact that High School students have very specific graduation requirements that can’t be shuffled around or removed from their schedule, and because high school grades and GPA matter for college admission requirements, it is a NECESSITY that all PUSD high school teachers come to the high school where they were hired to teach (with or without students on day 1 of class) and STREAM their class using their district provided laptop and white board behind them and take comments and questions online from students in real time. Just because the students MAY be virtual for a few months, streaming keeps consistency in the Bell Schedule and keeps required hours per school year per student. Attendance should be taken and the district will still get paid for that students virtual attendance till we can have high school students back in the classroom. I actually think all teachers should be required to teach from their large clean classroom without risky students, if they want to continue to draw a salary. Their classrooms are where they have access to all their teaching materials for their grade, lots of space on white boards for demonstrations, and science labs etc. This way the teachers will feel SAFE without those vectors of disease in their classrooms anymore and our students get the QUALITY of education our teachers were hired to provide using the resources our tax dollars paid for.

If the state prevents pusd from opening I don’t like it, but can accept that more than pusd self selecting against what 89% of the community wants.

That justifies a lawsuit. Any legal references? Time to move this to legal recourse.

@PP
Okay, Karen. You should talk to the manger and if that doesn’t work then call your lawyer!

Also, I’m sure that will work since pretty much every school district in the Bay Area will not have kids returning in August but you probably haven’t noticed. Please though, call your lawyer.

@ken. He or she will be OUR lawyer...representing the 89% of us and our students who want to be IN our LOCAL PUSD schools with the acceptance that there will be new safety protocols for all that attend and work in schools in PUSD. PUSD should stop wasting time and acquire Blanket Liability Protection if need be. If teachers are now scared of children and teenagers, there are options for them, but remember we see YOU now, out and about, at parties, protests, stores, restaurants, and allowing your kids to be in activities and out in the community and around others. Don’t be a hypocrite. Staff and teachers will still need to report to their schools to their socially distanced JOB with or without students IN the classroom to STREAM our students education. Parents in this district will not put up with paying teachers full pay to do limited work from home while taking care of and supervising their own kids and household during school hours. They will need to be in their assigned GRADE classroom and HS subject classrooms that are needed more than ever to provide the in depth education and maintain structure for students to come back to.

After the disaster round of interviews that Betsy DeVos did yesterday, I doubt anyone would send their kids to in-person classes. Did anyone see these? She repeatedly refused to answer whether schools needed to follow CDC guidance on opening up.

Even Rolling Stone has blasted these interviews- Web Link

She then targeted the schools outside of DC. The superintendent said they would need to build the equivalent of 5 Pentagons in order to have the square footage to achieve social distancing for its entire student body; therefore, it is only opening 2 days a week. He said currently the separation between students is a mere 18 inches. Betsy DeVos wants CDC guidelines to be ignored and for them all to be packed in, 18 inches apart, ignoring CDC guidelines. Here is the link to the CNN story Web Link

Clearly the Trump administration could care less about the safety of teachers and children.

Lot's of back and forth about the danger or non-danger of Covid-19.

Is anybody actually concerned with how PUSD is going to handle distance learning?

Regardless of your stance on the dangers of Covid-19, there is a real chance that schools will not open.

What is PUSD's contingency plan for effective distance learning? If it's more of the same seen at the end of this last school year, students are going to miss out on effective learning for almost a full year.

What a mess the US made of this. Now we're dealing with the consequences. And we still have fools trying to downplay the severity of this virus.

The CDC is like the FBI, compromised by liberal, socialists,un-fire-able, hacks trying to ruin the economy and the country and take away your rights as Americans.

Luckily we still have the CDC. If we rely on Repubes and their endless greed, selfishness and Know-it-All attitude, we would be doomed! I am glad this looks to be comiong to an end, and we will have grown ups in charge again.

This will all die down on Nov 4th, 2020.

Schools will be back in session after the Christmas break not because of some miraculous recovery, but because the election will be decided.

After all, by December we will have supposed to be hitting the next peak of this virus but that won't matter. Politics is what's really important and trillions of $ are on the line in this next election.

Bank on it.

Dan

@BobB wrote "Once again, you're too low on IFR (Infection Fatality Ratio)....You're using out of date estimates from people with an agenda....The latest "Current Best Estimate" from the CDC is 0.0065. Look at page 6, table 1."

Did you even bother to read the document that you yourself provided? The CDC explicitly states that the numbers are "FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY". It says "The scenarios are intended to advance public health preparedness and planning. They are NOT predictions or estimates of the expected impact of COVID-19.". The document even has the words "Planning Purposes Only" splashed across each and every page in giant type so that even the most foolish people won't miss it! (But guess who did?)

The CDC number of 0.65% wasn't arrived at by any independent study of the mortality rate performed by the CDC. It's a number that they grabbed out of a hat FOR PLANNING PURPOSES. I helpfully gave you a list of true independent, scientific studies of the coronavirus mortality rate by three different groups all of which stated that the mortality rate was around 0.35% (and one additional group which gave a significantly lower value of 0.26%).

IF you were an honest person, you would have also noted that the CDC "Planning Purposes Only" number has been bouncing around all over the place and earlier used a mortality rate number of 0.26%. Why didn't you mention that fact? Because you're an intellectually dishonest person who cherry-picks numbers which are to your liking but ignores numbers such as those from the four studies that I helpfully provided to you.

I agree with Wombat. Good research.

There, I said it.

Dan

@DKSHK

BobB's claim that the academic research groups at Stanford, UCLA, and in Germany which performed the coronavirus mortality rate studies I presented are "people with an agenda"(???!!!) is also bizarre and ludicrous.

Wombat,

There has been so much wrong with how this has played out in the media, that no amount of actual data/research will dislodge the outright fear (being stoked by the media and Democrats) from the population.

This is the very definition of mass hysteria.

Consider that they (the media and politicians) told us in February that masks would be useless. Now they'll allegedly save the world.

I actually feel sorry for those that wear masks ALONE or with others in their car. Sometimes I laugh, but most of the time I can't help but to think how weak someone has to be to live with that much fear given all the information that's out there.

Dan

common people ...it's only a short 9 months. Keep our kids safe and let them stay home. buy 2021 there will be a vaccine . is it really worth one childs life????? obviously all about the money...sick world.

Wombat,

You have it wrong again. That "planning document" includes the "Current Best Estimate" for infection fatality rate and is fully sourced and footnoted. Go back and read it. The estimate is fully up to date as of July 10. Read the footnotes. It is a planning document, but also used real numbers which of course change over time as we get more data. They don't just make them up.

The numbers provided are out of date. Just look at the dates.

Plus you never addressed the fact that you were also way off on the IFR for the common flu, which, as I showed, was .025% - .05%, not .1%, as you claimed. Bottom line is COVID-19 is more than 10 times as fatal as the common flu, just as has been widely reported.

Stop trying to downplay the seriousness of this horrible disease.

You're either being sloppy or deliberately dishonest.

And yes, some of that research from Stanford came from "people with an agenda", like the guy that seems to always want attention.

The current best estimate for coronavirus IFR is .6% not .3%,
Flu is .035. You have it wrong.

The numbers you provided are out of date.

Flu IFR is .035%.

@BobB

Your dismissal of studies done by respected research groups at Stanford, UCLA, and in Germany by saying that they are all "people with an agenda" because you don't like their results tells me all I need to know about you. Rational discussion with you is not possible.

And the IFR for the common flu is?

More from the CDC document:

"Scenario 5 represents a current best estimate about viral transmission and disease severity in the United States, with the same caveat: that the parameter values will change as more data become available."

s. kely wrote "common people ...it's only a short 9 months. Keep our kids safe and let them stay home. buy 2021 there will be a vaccine . is it really worth one childs life?????:

A couple of problems with your post: (1) The idea of closing schools is not to protect the lives of the schoolchildren. The purpose is to protect the lives of seniors and those people with pre-existing health problems which make them vulnerable to health complications from coronavirus. Children of school age are at extremely low risk of dying of coronavirus. (2) None of us know if there will be an effective coronavirus vaccine by 2021. There's no guarantee that there will ever be such a vaccine. (3) Even if a coronavirus vaccine is developed, there's no reason to expect that it will be 100% effective. The flu vaccine isn't 100% effective. As I recall, the effectiveness of the flu vaccine typically ranges around 40% to 60%.

Wombat,

You said "It's a number that they grabbed out of a hat".

BS.

Go read the document again, including a footnotes.

The United States of America really screwed this whole thing up and embarrassed ourselves before the world. the majority of developed countries handled this so much better than the Americans did.

As to having an agenda, I was referring to Ioannidis. he seems to always want to be the contrarian.

Wombat,

The data clearly show that the widely reported estimate that COVID-19 is about 10 times more deadly then the annual flu matches up well with the current data. Are you really still saying they're all wrong, and you've got some insight that it's only a third of that? Seriously?

@BobB wrote “ As to having an agenda, I was referring to Ioannidis. he seems to always want to be the contrarian.”

Nonsense. Baloney. You didn’t write “person with an agenda”. You wrote “.... estimates from people with an agenda”. Plural, not singular. You dismissed ALL of the mortality rate studies I presented with that one statement slandering the integrity of respected, professional researchers at multiple institutions.

Amazingly, you just succeeded in reducing your credibility with me even lower than it already was. Nothing that you write has any credibility with me anymore. Nothing.

I did not say all, I said out-of-date and with an agenda. I'm happy to clarify.

Don't worry about my credibility. I provided all my sources, so you don't have to trust me.

It would probably be best if you just admitted what you had was wrong or out of date. I don't know why you continue to insist that you've got it right and all the experts have it wrong.

Once again, go back and read the document I provided. It's fully footnoted.

Also check the document on the IFR for the annual flu. It's about a third of what you claim. Care to address that?

Seriously, real lives are at stake. Downplaying the urgency and seriousness of this virus can have real consequences. It's tough enough to just get some people to comply with masking directive and social distancing recommendations.

Looks like all San Joaquin County schools are starting this fall with distance learning as well. 642 children in the county have contracted COVID-19. The press release in part says:

At first, the efforts to "flatten the curve" showed promising results. But today the numbers show a surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases that has created a situation that is worse than it was on March 13, when San Joaquin County schools were recommended to close. Currently the number of positive COVID-19 cases in San Joaquin County has risen to 6,988, and the ICUs in our seven area hospitals are at 121% capacity. Children younger than 18 years old account for 642 of the positive case count.

The complete press release is at Web Link

Tracy Unified School District just reversed their decision on the hybrid learning model (part in class/part remote) and set out a letter stating that they will open with 100% distance learning in place rather than having students in the classroom....

The letter reverses what was published last week which included a hybrid learning model---
Web Link