We apparently have not learned much

I am once again hearing people say "Kids need to be in school and they need extracurricular activities for their health." I agree. I am a teacher and a cross-country, track and field and robotics coach. I already experienced losing a season (track) and having a season cut short (robotics). The problem is that people are using this statement to argue that we need to send kids back to school face to face now. It is actually pretty much exactly the same situation as the arguments this spring that we shouldn't have restrictions and lock downs because the economic damage will be worse than the damage from the virus. A framing that completely ignored the reality that uncontrolled infections were inevitably going to lead to economic downturn, and that we are not going to get out of the economic downturn without getting the virus under control. While New Zealand celebrates 100 days without a case we are really not in any better shape than we were in April and May.

I am tired of people equating "lower risk" and "no risk." They are not the same. It is a fundamental problem with human's ability to really assess risk and the consequences of their actions. A recent study showed that nearly 100000 kids got infected by SARS-COV-2 in the last half of July. This was with schools closed. In Georgia schools open and shut back down or immediately have hundreds of students have to go into quarantine because of close contact with infected peers and teachers. These are very real risks when you open with too much community spread, and our nation has made itself the poster child for sending containment efforts off the rails. So it just not a fair comparison to try to frame this as deal with the virus or open schools. Making the same false choice front and center with the regard to opening the economy lead us to where we are now.

We are also back to arguing that there is a conspiracy to inflate COVID-19 infections. What is really infuriating is the number of people who argue that the testing protocols are inflating the number of infections are also arguing, often in the same argument, that the virus has actually been circulating since last fall and their were millions of infections not counted then. "The number of infections is vastly over-counted and the virus is not really that dangerous because there were millions of uncounted cases last fall and winter." How do you even argue against that reasoning? 

 Even worse, I am now seeing people citing articles like this one predicting future deaths (up 300,000 by the end of the year) and saying "See, there is nothing we can do, we should just give up." Then instead of swearing and saying unkind things I have to try to patiently explain the fact that the predicted death toll assumes that we continue the mask wearing and distancing we are currently doing. If we throw up our hands and send everyone back to school and work, it will only be for a few weeks and everything will shut back down AND the death toll will go well north of 300,000.

So here is the thing, whatever you think about testing numbers, more than 163,000 people have died from COVID-19. And before you start with the "Those numbers are being over-counted too" please stop and ask yourself about the logic. There is significant evidence that the death count is a significant under-count. This post from CDC addresses some of the issues people are citing without understanding. Simply put, we are experiencing a lot more deaths than normal. In fact even more than official COVID-19 death toll can explain. This is not just happening the U.S. and except possibly for Florida and Georgia here, it does not seem to be from official efforts to hide COVID-19 data. It's just an artifact of the situation we are in, and something that happens in a pandemic. Here is the takeaway to consider when you get tempted to argue that COVID-19 deaths are being vastly over-estimated. That means that something else is causing all those extra deaths, and by pattern it is an infectious disease. So it would mean we have an unknown infectious disease for which we have no test that has killed over a hundred thousand Americans so far. 

Even if you think the infection count is an over-count, look at the trend. Right it looks like maybe, just maybe, we have flattened the spike from the Florida-Texas-California-Arizona debacle this summer. But remember when you look at the graph that there is a 3-5 week lag between infections and deaths, so we are not out of the woods yet.

Now let's look at Georgia where the Governor felt that school opening went well except for the viral photos. You know, the school from the link above that had to shut down because of the new COVID-19 cases and the lack of a plan of what to do because of them. Yeah, definitely the problem was the photos. 

Now note the 3-5 week time lag and think about the fact that Georgia is just starting to see the start of the increase in deaths from all of those new infections. And opening up schools with all those crowded hallways is not going to make the infection numbers go down. 

Which brings us to my home state Ohio, the one where I am a teacher and coach. Our peaks are a lot lower (it turns out having a competent governor matters, who knew?) than Georgia's, but we have to think about the trends.

We maybe, maybe have flattened out the increase. We seem to have reached the latest peak on on hospitalizations and deaths. And thankfully across the country the numbers of deaths are not as high, because we have learned a lot about how to treat this disease so we can do the right things earlier and improve outcomes. But we are far, far from out of the woods. And still way too many people say "We need to go back now" and "#saveourseason" without being willing to do the things, like wearing masks, distancing and not going to parties, that would actually keep this under control. 

I am a teacher and a coach. I really want to be able to teach my students face to face, safely. Safe for them, for me, for their families and my family. I already experienced a robotics season cut short and a track and field season completely lost this spring. I have seen the angst of my athletes and dealt with my own disappointment. I certainly am not relishing the thought of a lost cross country season. We had seniors who were poised to battle for positions near or atop the podium in Jesse Owens Stadium, and I feel awful that they were denied that experience. Over 200 other athletes I coach were denied their seasons. My son was denied his season, and is starting his senior year under a giant cloud of uncertainty. But they were not denied their seasons by a evil governor, evil health director or evil school officials. They were denied their seasons by a virus that will not stop ravaging our country, our economy and our lives until we get it under control. Forcing us to have in person school and sports seasons this fall has a strong likelihood of giving us a few weeks or a month of school and games, followed by another shutdown. And certainly no chance for winter sports. Each time we do this it cuts deeper. And yet we seem determined, as a nation, not to learn. Not from the lessons of other countries that avoided it, like New Zealand. Or Italy, which was ravaged but got it under control. Or from our neighboring states, like New York, that was devastated and got things under control. Instead we are like the toddlers who want to keep sticking our hand back in the electrical socket as soon as it stops tingling.

Now for a rant. And this is not directed at everyone arguing for us to go back to school and have sports seasons. This is directed at the very vocal group who thinks there is no real problem, teachers are lazy and evil politicians are trying to ruin their lives by not letting their kids be in class and play football. [Let's face facts, when people say kids need extracurricular activities more than half the time they mean football. I know a couple people who have said they will sue if golf and tennis get to have seasons and football doesn't.] At the very least, if you are dead set (pun intended) on schools opening and sports happening at the very least can you stop accusing me and people like me of enjoying this pandemic. It's kind of old. My job is much less enjoyable because of the pandemic, and remote teaching sucks. I have already missed a sports season entirely and am facing the prospect of losing another. My son lost his junior year of track and is looking at losing his senior year of cross country on top of doing a semester of remote learning. I do not enjoy this. Not at all. I am tired of being told I don't care by people unwilling to actually do anything to get the virus under control.