DAN SCHINHOFEN: Covid ‘safety’ measures seem arbitrary and capricious

This is purely “hypothetical” as no school board would ever be this stupid. Imagine this playing out if you were a parent of a school aged student.

You get a call from the office of the school your child attends. Your child plays on the sports team and is made to wear a mask while they practice and play. One child has a family member that tested positive for the SARs-2 virus, or “‘Rona” as I call it. That child then takes the test and is positive.

The school decides that all the students on the team need to “quarantine” for two weeks and you are told to pick them up. When you get to the school your child is not in the office but rather, they have left them in the classroom and they call them up to the office when you arrive. In the name of “staying safe” you are now told they must stay home at least for 4 days due to date of last contact, and if they have no symptoms, they will be allowed back in school then.

Never mind that they have already been “exposed” because they played ball with the kid, but they wore masks the whole time. No matter that the one kid had been in school already for some time after being “exposed” and don’t even worry about the fact that all those children were still in their classrooms possibly “exposing” other students to the ‘Rona, because the school is now sending them all home.

The arbitrary and capricious nature of these “safety measures” are plain and obvious if you think about it. For example, if your child is in elementary school, they only need to be three feet apart.

The CDC, if we are truly following the science, states that kids should be in school. The numbers on the CDC site show that children under 17 die from the ‘Rona less than they do from the seasonal flu. The suicide rates and abuse rates have skyrocketed since these “safety measures” were put in place too. Lives are not being saved, but many are being ruined.

No, I am sure that our local school board would consider ALL THE FACTS before doing something as stupid as this “hypothetical” school district did. I would like to think that they would not be cowed by the teacher’s union or what other counties are doing and focus on the data locally and on the data the CDC puts out. (Even though the death numbers include Pneumonia, Influenza and Covid (PIC). But even giving them all those numbers, the chance of dying is exceedingly small. Even at my age I have a 0.02 percent chance of getting it, if “exposed” and if I do I have a 95% chance of mild symptoms. The chance of being hospitalized, for me, if I get it, are 0.1% For children under 17 those numbers are even infinitesimally smaller.

Yes, the teachers, or their union say, they are afraid they might catch it. (I refer you to the numbers at my age) The Unions do not Represent the public at large. An elected school Board Trustee are supposed to represent all the people that voted them into office. The teachers that are at high risk may consider early retirement or just staying home and using their sick leave. With masks being worn and distancing in place their chances of getting this virus are very small, or is the mask not really protecting them?

By taking away sports and having these students “removed from class’ we see a big problem, because this “contract tracing” becomes a rabbit hole we all can get lost in.

Suppose the first kid stopped at a convenience store on their way to school. Two people were in line, so do we need to make those two people and the clerk “quarantine” too. That Clerk goes home, so does that mean her whole family has been “exposed” and they too now cannot go to work or school.

Consider this, on the school bus the children can be closer than 6 feet, but they must stay at least 6 feet away from the driver. Having them sitting in a small space for an hour or so is okay. I guess the ‘Rona doesn’t spread on buses. Which makes me wonder, if any of those kid’s rode the bus to school shouldn’t everyone on the bus, including the driver “quarantine” too?

Again, this could never happen here because our school board trustees realize that they work for all the people not the unions and that the teachers are free to take time off if they feel threatened. I am sure many part-time teachers would be happy to fill in.

The facts are there on the CDC and other government sites, like the study from 2015 from the National Institute of Health that shows cloth face coverings allow 97% of particulate matter through. Cutting kids from school and extracurricular sports will do more harm than good. Weigh the facts over the fear and you will see, if you are not totally driven by the hysteria of the media, than in our county at least, the numbers of deaths and or hospitalizations do not call for doing something as stupid as this.

If there are going to be “safety measures” at least make them rational and reasonable and show the data to support them.

So glad this wasn’t our school district that did this…hmm?