comment: >
  
  I don't think for the most part people are criticizing in-person learning. Rather, folks have pointed out how in-person learning could be made safer with some rather simple changes, but isn't.
context: I remember the huge lines of parents  in FL taking their kids to a shady chiropractor to get them mask exemption letters for $50 a pop. >
  
  "Covid-19 deaths displace influenza and pneumonia, becoming the top cause of death caused by any infectious or respiratory disease. 
  It caused “substantially” more deaths than any vaccine-preventable disease historically,
  the researchers wrote." >
  
  I’m still haunted by my conservative friends who insisted in 2020 that “kids don’t get COVID.” That was always a lie, but they believed it. They still believe it. Facts don’t matter and they do not care. Dead children didn’t convince them when it was guns. Dead kids won’t convince them when it’s a virus. How tragic. How pointlessly tragic. >
  
  I vividly remember members of my family saying since they had COVID early on, they’d never get it again. No need to vaccinate and spike proteins blah blah blah. They’ve had it 3 times now, and each time is worse. One is thinking they have some long COVID symptoms now too. 
  I finally got it around Christmas coupled with the flu and had the highest fever since I was a kid at 103+. I’m not sure if it was the flu or COVID that fucked me. It sucked. >
  
  Dad swears he had it before the first reported case even though he was diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia  and has refused to vaccinate. His wife works in a major hospital. Betting you can guess her vax status as a medical professional in Ohio. Swore he couldn't wear a mask because it made it too hard to breathe with his beard. Went out to dinner in crowded restuarants 3 times a week with his hospital staff wife while refusing to vaccinate or wear masks. 
  Family swears grandma died because "her lungs were shot" not because she had covid in an over run hospital. I gave up. >
  
  The mask thing always makes me chuckle. I was running around Lake Washington(Seattle) during the summers with forest fire smoke in an n95 mask way before COVID. It was fine aside from the sweat. >
  
  The best thing I learned from this pandemic was that an n95 mask outside in the summer cuts my allergy/wild fire smoke induced asthma down by like 80%.  I wish someone had told me this in the 90’s when my asthma was still very severe. >
  
  After an allergy test, the doctor said he’d never seen someone so allergic to grass and other things. Said if I wanted to play outside, I should wear a mask (no asthma). Neighbor kid had one for about three days due to asthma. Kids mocked him nonstop to where he stopped using it so I never used one.
  Fast forward to pandemic and the same realization. When the cotton woods are out, I sneeze nonstop and with the mask it was almost nonexistent. It was amazing. >
  
  If you didn't have therapy for it at the time, you might reconsider. 
  IIRC there's a grass-specific (pretty much all grasses but JUST grasses) therapy that's not even injected, but I only heard about in passing because I'm literally allergic to every form of grass and every common tree, so I get injections.
  They have helped tremendously. What I call "incredibly bad" now was an average day before I started.
  With the rush methods or cluster methods, they can get you up to maintenance dose in months not years. I did rush (fill you to the gills with steroids and antihistamines than just keep injecting you every 15 minutes until they notice the faintest reaction, then stop) and after that I had about 5 months of stepped up doses before I hit full dose.
  It's just a monthly shot, and a 20 minute wait, now. (Well, except beginning of the year, New vials mean they cut the dose and I do weekly shots for January, and the monthly thereafter) >
  
  I think they might be drops. I have folks that swear by them and my sister developed bad dog allergy and pollen in college. She went on the drops and helped tremendously to the point where she doesn’t even notice if a dog is around (and adopted one). Not covered by insurance in a lot of cases. 
  I just need to schedule some time with an allergist to see what kind of options are out there. >
  
  "In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, the leading causes of death among children and young adults ages 0 to 19 included perinatal conditions, unintentional injuries, congenital malformations or deformations, assault, suicide, malignant neoplasms, diseases of the heart and influenza and pneumonia."
  2019 would have been before Covid, the article doesn't rank them in order. >
  
  To be clear, Covid is the 8th leading cause of death in children. Similar to influenza rates before 2020. >
  
  And yet people get upset when you compare COVID to the flu >
  
  For me, it's more than people confuse the flu with the common cold while doing this and compare covid to the flu in order to downplay the severity. 
  The flu kills a lot of people every year, including otherwise perfectly healthy teenagers. The flu is not to be fucked with. >
  
  This is probably off base, but I’ve always felt that over the counter medicines advertising themselves as “cold & flu” medicine has made people over the years/decades kind of lump them together, as if the flu is just a somewhat worse cold. I had the flu when I was in college, and despite being on “cold & flu” medicine the entire time, I was fucking MISERABLE. I was basically bedridden, only leaving my room in order to grab food or to shower to try to warm up (I still felt freezing even in the hot water). I really hate when people downplay the flu. >
  
  Yup, I've only ever had a proper flu twice in my life and they've humbled me. Flu will mess you up. >
  
  Same here. Flu suuuuuucks >
  
  By this time, anybody who hasn't already been vaxxed isn't going to be.  This is one of the results. >
  
  Vaccination isn't enough. The US is averaging >10,000 COVID deaths per month and a significant portion of those people are vaccinated. Our public health response to this ongoing pandemic is garbage and vaccination alone won't save us. >
  
  
  Vaccination isn't enough
  
  And in your estimation, what exactly would be "enough"? >
  
  Something that will lead to fewer than 12000 deaths a month whatcha think? How about mask mandates during periods of high transmission? How about new building requirements to improve ventilation in schools and other high-risk facilities? You think we're doing enough? lmao >
  
  You can't protect stupid people from themselves forever.
  At this point, let em die. >
  
  And they’ll go out and infect others. Others like myself who are high risk or others who are the definition of high risk/immunocompromised. Yeah, no, try again. >
  
  So what are you asking for here? Do you have a solution? >
  
  I mean, there are tons of proposed solutions (of course no one thing going to 100% work but they can build off of each other) like air filtration, lockdowns, mask mandates, but they get rallied against, so… >
  
  So you don't really have any solutions.
  It sucks you're high risk, but the vast majority aren't. Your needs won't come ahead of theirs. It's just human nature. >
  
  Jesus, imagine still calling for lockdowns in 2023. These people are nuts. >
  
  Tl;dr - 8th most common cause of death at a rate of 1 in 100,000, less than 1% of covid deaths were kids under 18. >
  
  Screw that, keep reading. 
  “Pediatric deaths are rare by any measure. It’s something that that we don’t expect to happen and it’s a tragedy in a unique way. It’s a really profound event,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases.
  "...Just because the numbers are so much lower in children doesn’t mean that they’re not impactful."
  The researchers’ analysis of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that there were 821 Covid-19 deaths in this age group during a 12-month period from August 2021 to July 2022. That death rate – about 1 for every 100,000 children ages 0 to 19 – ranks eighth compared with the 2019 data. It ranks fifth among adolescents ages 15 to 19.
  Covid-19 deaths displace influenza and pneumonia, becoming the top cause of death caused by any infectious or respiratory disease. It caused “substantially” more deaths than any vaccine-preventable disease historically, the researchers wrote.
  If we could reduce the number of children dying, shouldn't we? The answer is yes, full stop. The number of children that are fully vaccinated in America is shockingly low, and with a vaccine that could have prevented something like 90% of those deaths!? Shameful. >
  
  
  However, a lot of people are using this article to criticize in-person learning. 
  
  I haven't seen that at all?
  Most kids should be vaccinated, same with teachers. Kids should be allowed to stay home if sick without penalty. Past that, I've never seen someone argue against in person learning since after 2020. >
  
  
  I haven't seen that at all?
  
  In other posts where the topic came up, hundreds of redditors jumped to the assumption that in-person learning was being criticized, despite no evidence to that effect.
  Maybe it's a media trope or something?  I don't know.