Episode 091: COVID, Immunity, and Back to School

Now that we're approaching the half way point of summer it's time to start thinking about what we're going to do with school for K-12 (and college) kids. States and communities are starting to finalize their plans with how they expect to conduct elementary and secondary education in the face of the COVID pandemic. The only certainty is that there is a lot of uncertainty in what will happen.

The questions we need to ask ourselves require a serious conversation - which few are willing to have. We need to address the following questions:

1. How long do we seriously expect to stay locked down assuming there is no viable vaccine?
2. How important is in class participation for students?
3. What is the real risk to students in a school for contracting COVID - and can we conduct school in a safe way that prevents massive outbreaks of COVID within the community?

Finally, it's important to look at the real risk from dying from COVID right now and deciding if our actions warrant the measures we put in place. Assuming a recovery rate (not death) of 99.5% and an overall risk of contracting COVID of 5% your chances of contracting and dying of COVID is 1/4000. The most recent stats showing your risk of dying from trauma in the US (accidental poisoning, falls, or accident) was 2.2/4000. This means your risk of dying from COVID is half the risk of dying from trauma. It doesn't make the death any less tragic or painful but hopefully puts it in perspective.