Politics Thread

[Masterofreality]

I'm so happy I live in a place where my kids have been in school in person nearly every regular school day starting in August 2020. Sure, we had the abrupt end to school after spring break in 2020, but that actually set up probably the best two week vacation of our lives to Escalante, Utah where we basically had the Grand Staircase national monument and all its fantastic features to ourselves in April 2020. My kids are going to come out of this pandemic having barely skipped a beat in their lives. I suspect when they go off to college in a few years they're going to meet a lot of kids whose Covid experiences are going to have seriously negatively affected them.

Yup.
Talk to Chicago.

[paulxu]

Go, glad things worked out for you and your family.
Where states chose to hold kids out, it's understandable I think.
Kids were remarkably resilient to the virus, but 20% of cases were kids.
So, being in school and spreading it, and then taking it home to more vulnerable people is a consideration.
I believe people who made the decisions to close schools, did so trying to control a health issue; not as some would think for any political gain.
We've lost a million; that's a lot of folks.

[Masterofreality]

.
We've lost a million; that's a lot of folks.

700,000 under “Shut Down the Virus Biden”. In a year and a half!
This with vaccines and better therapeutics.
Let’s Go Brandon!! Get that 2 million!!!

[Smails]

“Dead horse continues to be beaten. What’s the point?” Fixed it for you.

Yet you continue to post on this thread. I've got an idea you can chew on: If you don't like the content of a particular thread, don't read it or don't post on it.

Or you can cry to the mods and see where that gets you.

[GoMuskies]

Go, glad things worked out for you and your family.
Where states chose to hold kids out, it's understandable I think.
Kids were remarkably resilient to the virus, but 20% of cases were kids.
So, being in school and spreading it, and then taking it home to more vulnerable people is a consideration.
I believe people who made the decisions to close schools, did so trying to control a health issue; not as some would think for any political gain.
We've lost a million; that's a lot of folks.

I don't know if it was an easy decision. i'm just thankful it's the decision those in my area made.

[noteggs]

I'm so happy I live in a place where my kids have been in school in person nearly every regular school day starting in August 2020. Sure, we had the abrupt end to school after spring break in 2020, but that actually set up probably the best two week vacation of our lives to Escalante, Utah where we basically had the Grand Staircase national monument and all its fantastic features to ourselves in April 2020. My kids are going to come out of this pandemic having barely skipped a beat in their lives. I suspect when they go off to college in a few years they're going to meet a lot of kids whose Covid experiences are going to have seriously negatively affected them.

Yea, my youngest’s college career has been less than stellar in terms of social aspects. Freshman year they separated roommates at the beginning of the year. Classes were online for the most part minus a few labs. Masks were required during her Sophomore year except last two months. Thank gawd teachers union finally gave their blessing. Socially, she felt like her Sophomore year was more like her Freshman.

Oh well, at least she has an academic foundation where a lot K through 8 do not. As you mentioned, some decisions will have major impact on some kids. Unfortunately for college kids, you wonder about the psychological toll. Just hope mine has a sense of normalcy in her last two.

[bobbiemcgee]

I camped at Mesa Verde (only car in campground) and then Moab last Monday and Tuesday. No crowds yet.

[Muskie in dayton]

Go, glad things worked out for you and your family.
Where states chose to hold kids out, it's understandable I think.
Kids were remarkably resilient to the virus, but 20% of cases were kids.
So, being in school and spreading it, and then taking it home to more vulnerable people is a consideration.
I believe people who made the decisions to close schools, did so trying to control a health issue; not as some would think for any political gain.
We've lost a million; that's a lot of folks.

Wow, Paul, you've captured the essence of mainstream media brainwashing in a 5-sentence post.

Lockdowns, including school closures, have resulted - and will continue to result - in incalculable deaths, far more than they helped prevent. Not only that, but they proved completely ineffective at their intended purpose. Every time the leftist media held up a geography for "doing it right", that geography had a subsequent outbreak just like everywhere else. But of course you wouldn't have heard about that.

Kids are not resilient - there is an unprecedented mental health crisis among kids and teens that I've seen first-hand, and this is the population that is far less at risk to COVID than they are the flu.

Kids not being is schools did not slow spread. This has been empirically proven. It's not like they hermetically sealed the kids at home for gosh sakes. They were still out being kids doing what kids do amidst an airborne respiratory virus. All the while the lower and middle class had to struggle with child care, further transferring wealth. Why is it hard to understand that?

Perhaps at first those who made decisions to shut down schools did so with good intention. My concern is those who continue to push for school closures - or did so after summer of 2020 when the preponderance of evidence showed overwhelmingly that they are far more detrimental than helpful. One either has to be:
a) willfully ignorant to the point of maleficence
b) extremely low-IQ to not even be able to question if that policy is a good idea
c) standing to gain politically or financially.
I'm a scientist, not a psychologist, so I won't guess on the "why", but I will say that none of the above options leave me feeling good about the state of humanity.

Finally, your closer line... Citing the number of deaths recorded as COVID (note the wording) without context or annotation is simply strawman argument for whatever COVID lockdown policy one feels appropriate. The number who have died with COVID is beyond human control. Those who continue to suffer and die because of lockdowns is within human control. We need to focus on what we control.

Humans =/= God. Remember that for the next time your government wants to "control" something.

[paulxu]

Finally, your closer line... Citing the number of deaths recorded as COVID (note the wording) without context or annotation is simply strawman argument for whatever COVID lockdown policy one feels appropriate. The number who have died with COVID is beyond human control.

Wow. I don't feel particularly good about the state of humanity after your post either.
There have been in the last 2 1/12 years an excess number of deaths over a million in the US, which seems to connect with a pandemic.
Me noting the number, was actually being saddened by the loss of human life...here and around the world.
And there are things we can do within human control to lessen numbers like those. Vaccines being a good example.
I continue to be amazed by people who want a public health crisis to be a political football.

[Masterofreality]

I continue to be amazed by people who want a public health crisis to be a political football.

Then I guess you are incredibly amazed by your elected President and his/your party of Democrats since every blame for virus deaths was blamed upon Trump- even though he was able, through Operation Warp Speed, to get a vaccine to the public in record time. Add to that the mainstream leftist media who continued Covid Death Counters on screen all through Trump’s Presidency then mysteriously disappeared them on 1/20/21.
One million deaths. Over 650,000 of them under your Democratic Party’s rule, even with vaccines and improved therapeutics. That’s where your “excess number of deaths” comes from Paul. But you just can’t bring yourself to acknowledge that…amazingly.