I’d like to talk about this part of your post, perhaps we should move it to the medical thread?
Specifically, are we (US) checking all donated blood from November/December/January for covid antibodies to see if it shows up here? Does blood have that long of a shelf life? You’d think we would (if indeed we still have donated blood from December).
Rate aside, with the data of 172 kids having died of the flu last year from @roycroftmom 's post I bet by the end of the year Covid will prove more deadly just with pure numbers, esp since we didn’t start with known deaths until after the year began. This assumes we aren’t there already if one were to include the 15-18 year olds.
Not a whole district, just a K12 private school, @creekland, so maybe that is the difference. And in 15 years there with several kids, they have closed twice due to influenza, yes, reaching 40% of the enrolled division (lower school, high school etc). In any event, I think we can agree that while there are certainly reasons for K12 schools not to open in person (it’s expensive, it’s difficult, it poses a risk to some teachers), fear of student fatality is not one of them.
You all sound like you think school age children live in a bubble. But they go home to parents and grandparents in some cases.
I don’t think we have done much testing in children - especially in those who are elementary school or younger. So, I doubt we have a clue as to the actual infection rate of young kids.
Yes, the flu does kill children - but we have a vaccine every year to aid in protecting most kids and everyone else. We also have a treatment which lessen the flu should one get it.
Comparing CV to anything about seasonal flu is just a smokescreen.
Feel free to copy and paste it there. I have to do some other things now but will check there later.
I don’t know that the US is checking all donated blood, but that blood that is used to make IgG infusion fluid for people with low IgG levels (a type of immune deficiency) is screened for many things. Once Covid was known and they knew how to look for it, they would have added that to things that they screen for. It takes a long time from donation until it reaches patients. I am not sure why. I know what even one dose of the stuff comes from an incredible amount of donations and donors. Some have preservatives added to it and can stay at room temp for a long time (not sure how long) and others need to be refrigerated (brands of IgG infusion liquid). yes, it has a long shelf life when prepared and preserved properly.
My immunologist said to me (different doctor than the above) that we know the virus was in our state (in North East US) in December. I have heard of it being in various parts of the world in December based on test results done after the fact. Not sure how anything was preserved to test after the fact in those cases. So, I think the idea that it started in Wuhan and was right away in various parts of the world possible but that it likely started a bit earlier in Wuhan–Oct or November.
I am also curious what test they are using to check for antibodies. The two major hospital systems in my state are refusing to administer antibody tests due to the inaccuracies of the tests.
Haven’t some studies indicated that school age children are not infecting their parents and grandparents?
We’re quite aware of that. We’re solely focusing on student deaths due to a comment that a pp thought their school would see several student deaths. I think that’s overblown. The rest? Definitely not.
Are your numbers correct? When I read then the number is 26 deaths under the age of 15. I only get to 151 deaths total when I bump it up to under 25 years old. Perhaps I’m looking at it incorrectly.
Oops, @MarylandJOE, it was I who read the numbers wrong. Thank you for the correction. The other number in the post, 7500, was wrong too. Not one of my better efforts.
The death number for under 15 is indeed 26. In any case, the point stands and we agree: the number is tiny.
I just looked at your link - very interesting, esp since it’s comparing the same dates.
From what we have so far for school aged children and higher, ages 5-14 is the only data set that has fewer deaths from the flu. After that age group it’s pretty sobering to see how much worse Covid is:
5-14 has 13 Covid deaths and 46 flu deaths
15-24 has 125 Covid deaths and 50 flu deaths or 2 1/2 times deadlier
25-34 has 699 vs 143 or 4.9 times deadlier
35-44 has 1780 vs 232 or 7.7 times deadlier
45-54 has 4976 vs 557 or 8.9 times deadlier
55-64 has 12,307 vs 1191 or 10.3 times deadlier
65-74 has 21462 vs 1394 or 15.4 times deadlier
I would think those age groups/stats should cover most folks in school either as students or employees.
It definitely isn’t just the flu, but I still don’t envision a lot of students at any one school dying from it. Who else they might pass it on to is a totally different consideration. I can certainly see why schools aren’t keen to restart in person as if everything is 2019.
As stated up thread, there seems to be evidence that children are not mass spreaders to each other or adults.
For my consideration of returning to school or not - for me since my youngest lad graduated high school in 2014 - it’s still the worry about long term effects similar to what my oldest lad in his 20s is currently dealing with and he was never in need of being hospitalized so by definition had a mild case (assuming it was a case as he was never tested - just told by a doctor that it was likely after he had a chest x-ray).
I’ve yet to see anyone try to figure out stats regarding how many get long term effects other than it’s a thing being reported all over. I still wonder if so many athletes getting it now will boost this onto more radars giving us more info. Recovery is great, but is it recovery back to pre-Covid self?
Then why do you think many who attended the same party or went to the same bar or are on the same sports team are getting it? Or are you talking the elementary ages?
Check our the pnuemonia death’s by age.
I really wasn’t looking to compare deaths other than with children but if you look at the higher age groups straight pnuemonia is pretty bad too.
There are many things different age groups die from. Pnuemonia doesn’t close down schools does it?
I don’t know if there have been any studies, but since every school has been shut down since at least the middle of March and young children have been SAH most of this time, I don’t know how any study could even be done, yet.They aren’t going out nearly as much as adults (grocery shopping, work, etc.) to be infected and bringing it home to infect the adults they live with. We do know that children have been infected by the adults they live with.
Even the European countries that have reopened schools have only done so in the last few weeks.
Yes, I’m talking middle school and under, definitely elementary.
Is pneumonia contagious before one knows they are sick? I’m thinking not, but I could be wrong. Regardless, in my 20+ years I’ve never seen an outbreak of it at school.
The one time I had pneumonia not even my family members caught it from me and I certainly wasn’t going to school with it.
Last week a Cleveland Children’s hospital was alerting parents to be aware of covid symptoms because of the increasing number of cases.
"As the pandemic took hold, children were testing positive for Covid-19 at just 1 to 2 percent, according to UH’s Dr. Amy Edwards.
“That’s creeping up to like 4 percent or 5 percent, and actually, if you look at just the last seven days it’s more like 7 percent so we’re definitely seeing an upward trend,” Dr. Edwards said."
…
"Throughout the majority of the pandemic, Dr Edwards said, very few children were admitted to the pediatric Covid -19 unit at Rainbow, but in the children’s cases they have seen recently, the symptoms have been severe.
“We’ve had very few kids admitted to our Covid unit, but in the last couple of weeks we’ve actually had periods when our unit has been full,” she said."
Yes, the evidence was from foreign countries where a child in a group would test positive but not pass it on to many other children and adults that they had intimate contact with.