"An abundance of caution"

[pjohns]

Whether public schools should now re-open is a reasonable question--I personally believe that they should, as the incidence of Covid-19 is very low among young people; and as carriers, they reportedly are not very effective--but that is a subject for a different discussion.

No, what really concerns me is the decision by our local county's school board to delay re-opening "out of an abundance of caution."

These are weasel words--"an abundance of caution"--that I have heard far too often.

Using the same sort of logic, one might decide never again to get behind the wheel of a car, "out of an abundance of caution."

One might even decide never again to go swimming, "out of an abundance of caution."

In short, the desire for a reasonable amount of caution is certainly a good thing; but it can be taken too far.

Comments?

[donttread]

Whether public schools should now re-open is a reasonable question--I personally believe that they should, as the incidence of Covid-19 is very low among young people; and as carriers, they reportedly are not very effective--but that is a subject for a different discussion.

No, what really concerns me is the decision by our local county's school board to delay re-opening "out of an abundance of caution."

These are weasel words--"an abundance of caution"--that I have heard far too often.

Using the same sort of logic, one might decide never again to get behind the wheel of a car, "out of an abundance of caution."

One might even decide never again to go swimming, "out of an abundance of caution."

In short, the desire for a reasonable amount of caution is certainly a good thing; but it can be taken too far.

Comments?

I have heard from reliable sources that the COVID death totals for persons under 55 is just 11,000. Of course it's difficult to confirm because such reassurring information seems to be difficult to find. I'm sure my source had to use bits and pieces of info from CDC to put that numer together. It can't be far off because the median and average age of death is around 83.
I mention this because of your comment about not driving. If this stat is right people under 55 are probably at as much risk from dying in a car accident as they are from COVID! And children at LESS risk. Yet would anyone , even "if we save one life it's worth it 4th grader King Andy" suggest we drop speed limits to 40 and 20 in town to save lives "in an aubundence of caution" ? Of course not. Would the 30 year old teachers shaking in their boots because they aren't math teachers vote for a 40 MPH commute to work? Not likely.
I love your term "weasel words", BTW
We have to continue to fight back with logic, math, and reality and call them on the numbers and their "weasel words" at every turn. My source also looked at grapghs which show how the NY death tolls dwarf the states they have focused the panic on this week, yet King Andy is banning return from those states after threatening RI with alawsuit when they took action to stop travel from NY!
Like the article below that talks about the death rate in MAY being lowered from the "never was gonna happen" 3.4 % apparently predicted by WHO to .26% In early April Neil Ferguson dropped his death estimates to less than 10% of what he originally thought! Why was the over-reaction not throttled down with changes like that? How do we hold them accountable?


https://in.dental-tribune.com/news/n...inst-whos-3-4/

[Peter1469]

The effort to keep the kids out of school is political.

Get the kids back in school. The harm of keeping kids isolated far outweighs the dangers of the COVID.

[donttread]

The effort to keep the kids out of school is political.

Get the kids back in school. The harm of keeping kids isolated far outweighs the dangers of the COVID.

Don't you just love some politician or even teacher talking about "the safety of the children"?

[pjohns]

I have heard from reliable sources that the COVID death totals for persons under 55 is just 11,000. Of course it's difficult to confirm because such reassurring information seems to be difficult to find. I'm sure my source had to use bits and pieces of info from CDC to put that numer together. It can't be far off because the median and average age of death is around 83.
I mention this because of your comment about not driving. If this stat is right people under 55 are probably at as much risk from dying in a car accident as they are from COVID! And children at LESS risk. Yet would anyone , even "if we save one life it's worth it 4th grader King Andy" suggest we drop speed limits to 40 and 20 in town to save lives "in an aubundence of caution" ? Of course not. Would the 30 year old teachers shaking in their boots because they aren't math teachers vote for a 40 MPH commute to work? Not likely.

It sounds good to say that saving "even one life" is worth whatever sacrifice we may need to make, in order to accomplish that.

But serious people consider the trade-offs necessary.

For instance, we could save lives--and many more than just one--if we were to simply submit to any aggressor state, and renounce all warfare, under any circumstance, whatever.

But would we really be wise to do that?

[stephenpe]

Don't you just love some politician or even teacher talking about "the safety of the children"?

so you think teachers by and large care nothing of student safety. Hell, man that was job one for me from 78-2017.......I figure if I got them inside alive and without life threatening injuries it was a good day.........

[donttread]

It sounds good to say that saving "even one life" is worth whatever sacrifice we may need to make, in order to accomplish that.

But serious people consider the trade-offs necessary.

For instance, we could save lives--and many more than just one--if we were to simply submit to any aggressor state, and renounce all warfare, under any circumstance, whatever.

But would we really be wise to do that?

Hell we could save thousands of lives by dropping speed limit but who'd be for that?