I think part of the problem with the 2-5 y/o mask requirements is that it treats that age band as one block. A two y/o has VERY different capacity to understand & comply with masking than a four y/o. Even within a year, a 24 month-old and 34 month-old are not the same!
I don't have a good answer, and I fully understand the tension and competing interests. I'm not interested in debating mask efficacy for kids. But I do wonder if starting masks at age 3 (or 4) might better honor child development while still meeting public health goals.
(To put a fine point on it, if the guidance from U.S. health officials is to not have a 23-month-old mask, I'm hard-pressed to imagine that having a 25-month-old mask is getting us a lot)
P.S. fwiw, I say this as someone whose youngest was 3 when the pandemic started and is a kid that has never blinked twice about masking; I'm very pro-mask.

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More from @ehaspel

19 Sep
📢ONE MORE TIME FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK📢

washingtonpost.com/business/2021/…
"Rossignol said she has lost 24 staff members since the pandemic started. Nearly all told her they quit because they can make more money elsewhere. She pays $12.15 to $14 an hour, depending on experience. Among her former employees...
...two are working as bank tellers now, one went to a trucking company. Many became nannies. Her best toddler teacher now works across the street at a paint store."
Read 5 tweets
3 Jun
Quick Thread: One thing I think we should start saying more loudly: the solution to the child care teacher shortage CANNOT BE COMPROMISING QUALITY.

This is, unfortunately and predictably, what panicked providers and policymakers are increasingly starting to consider.
The very next paragraph in that article from Iowa is:

One solution might be lowering the minimum age of staff members, said Bill Robinson, president of the Garnavillo Day Care in Clayton County. He asked DHS to consider it.

“Currently, you can’t have children younger than 16...
...[working] unless they’re with an adult supervisor. But you currently have kids driving cars at 14, and babysitting much younger,” he said.

Similarly, though I don't know local context, we just saw NE providers revolt against a plan to lower ratios.

klkntv.com/dhhs-major-chi…
Read 4 tweets
7 Dec 20
QUICK THREAD: I'm seeing this chart go semi-viral among people saying "look! schools and child cares are actually really risky!" So I think we should talk about what we're talking about -- which is that, yet again, definitions & denominators really matter.
First, let's talk definitions.

As @ByMoriah points out "in this data=2+ coronavirus cases in two weeks in the same setting"

And the data page also notes "The school building category includes all staff and students involved in any activities in the building in and out of...
...the classroom, such as community services and sports."

So, to recap: It's a weird definition to begin with, most states use 2+ reasonably epidemiologically-linked cases (e.g. a teacher & student in the same class)-- AND "school building" is broad.

coronavirus.dc.gov/sites/default/…
Read 9 tweets
27 Sep 20
THREAD: The way we talk about cases in child care programs & schools is continuing to inflate COVID fears and making it much harder than necessary to get our youngest students back in the classroom. Here's a really good example:

sfchronicle.com/bayarea/articl…
That sounds bad! 13 child cares & schools (out of how many, we of course aren't told). But in this case the ignored denominator isn't even the sin, the scatter plot is. The Chronicle article tells us that 30(!) cases are linked to 1 preschool. Obviously, that's not good! But...
That only leaves 32 cases for the other 12 sites. As we learn from this KTLA article, there was a family child care home with 9 cases. Now we're down to 23 cases for the other 11 sites. You see where this is going?

ktla.com/news/californi…
Read 14 tweets
22 Aug 20
KIDS & COVID: Media mistranslation in action. So, you may have seen the below article going around - it’s an AP story that has gotten picked up by a ton of outlets.

Scary headline!

Will it surprise you to learn there’s more to the story? Let’s dig in.

abcnews.go.com/Health/wireSto…
The subhead is really alarming: “At least 41 schools in Berlin have reported that students or teacher have become infected with the coronavirus not even two weeks after schools reopened in the German capital.” Whoa! But I was curious...
Does that mean OUTBREAKS (within-school spread) or someone infected showing up in school, which would just reflect the fact that some % of the general population is infected (& German cases are rising)?

The AP story doesn’t say.

Luckily for us, the original source does.
Read 10 tweets
21 Aug 20
CHILD CARE & COVID ROUNDUP, 8/21: In my opinion, there is a massively under-reported story going on, which is just how *few* outbreaks (multiple related cases) are happening in child care settings, despite being open through our long hot pandemic summer. Let's go around the horn.
First stop, Oregon. You may recall the below story went semi-viral at the end of June.

Well, you should also know that since June, this represents one of only THREE outbreaks in child care settings in the entire state.

(Source: oregonearlylearning.com/wp-content/upl…)

wweek.com/news/state/202…
Let's head to the desert and check out Arizona. AZ -- with an awful COVID surge earlier this summer -- is reporting SIX outbreaks in child care settings. (*CAVEAT*: Reporting positive COVID is voluntary in AZ, so assume the real # is moderately higher.)

azdhs.gov/preparedness/e…
Read 18 tweets

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