My thoughts about Covid in schools-
Our studies are crap. We haven't put appropriate resources into studying this. Merging "in-person school" v "remote school" across the country makes little sense since there's so much heterogeneity in what "in-person school" looks like. 🧵

A teacher in Louisiana in an area with high rates of covid & in-person school, has a class with just 2 students in it. The entire school has 37 students and 12 staff, in a building that can hold hundreds.
Should this school's data be merged with a school that's fully open?
How would merging such disparate data, and everything in-between impact our understanding of Covid in schools? What about when we compare it to the rates in children who are in virtual school?
Things often not considered that should be... Are kids in pods? Are kids doing virtual school in community centers/ churches/ other group settings? Are youth sports or other extracurricular school activities (music, etc) happening in-person. Heterogeneity exist in this group too.
What's asymptomatic testing of children in the community like? We know that children are under-tested, how can we say something is safe if we are NOT TESTING children at the same rate as the rest of the population. We can't embrace the "don't ask (test) don't tell" apprach here.
The US has not adequately funding research on this topic so that we can have good data to support policy decisions on this front. Makes me wonder if we really want to have a scientifically sound answer.
Without typing the virus, near complete contact tracing, and routine testing, we won't have the data you all are hoping for.
Until then, we must rely on what we know on where the virus spreads best, and admit that schools have many of those qualities.
Here's places that are looking at the virus spreading and closing schools. We should follow suit. And yes, it is nearly impossible to be a parent and have children in virtual school. I get the stress. Let's work to decrease community spread so we can get back to school.
https://t.co/8XEXxM7bdy
https://t.co/j0e3Xa0L9P
Sorry about the typos, it's after midnight where I am. You don't have to spell correctly or match word tenses after midnight. Isn't that a rule somewhere? 😆

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It appears to be a combination of some of these factors, along with others not mentioned here. Ibn Khaldun’s analysis appears to be a good foundation to go off. [Thread]


Ibn Khaldun makes an important distinction between what he calls العُمران الحضري and العمران البدوي, which, for convenience’s sake, I’ll translate as urban civilisation and rural/Bedouin lifestyle.

He notes that the rural world is largely nomadic, and, as such, Bedouins build character traits that assist the survivalist lifestyle — e.g. the fact that they have to kill snakes that might pop up at any time during their travels helps them build courage and bravery.

The lack of stability and a proper settlement means they don’t really have the luxury of sitting down to let their minds wonder around. They thus build a preservation mindset, which manifests itself through emphasis on memorisation and transmission.

Inhabitants of urban world, on the other hand, are largely settled and established. This means they face less attacks from snakes, lions or danger of human attack from other tribes. Thus, they don’t build the courage and bravery of the Bedouins.

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