My husband's a high school teacher and back to full classes (only he's teaching from home this week because of an outbreak at his school 4 days after they went back full time 🙄....but anyway....), and after trying a bunch of different things he's settled on a happy mask doubled with a surgical mask, as being relatively comfortable and seeming to give pretty good protection. he likes the way the happy mask has the cone shape and doesn't sit right against his mouth and how light it is.

Right. And we're finding out all kinds of things now about how there WERE plans to respond early on and they were shut down by the administration at every turn. The USPS was going to send masks to every household, and they were told not to. The CDC proposed a mask mandate on all public and commercial transportation and the white house refused to even discuss it.

Well, this thread took a turn. I'm sorry so many people are indeed having trouble finding testing sites this year. But coming back to say that after my initial scare I found a local public high school (not the one we're zoned for, which ignored my e-mail) that let us register no problem at all. I hate that this is such a source of stress every year. And this year we're relying on AP exams more than usual because I don't want my 11th grader doing in person dual enrollment classes (he's doing one online, but he's not a huge fan of online classes in general).

This post from a local facebook group about a high school near me might give some insight into suspected vs. confirmed cases. And into a lot of things, really.

In the data the article cites, more than 90% of the schools have mask mandates for students and teachers.

It's true--her evidence for schools not being superspreaders seems to be entirely that "I haven't heard many stories about big outbreaks like in colleges." I haven't either, really, but I'm not ready to run to the Atlantic with my findings.

Wow--that's sobering--I hadn't done that math lately, and apparently I had a rosier view of things based on my own area's improving-until-recently numbers. It's confirmed (my midwest numbers). That's why I'd like to see more information about what a "suspected" case is when it comes to school numbers. I can't imagine any reason why a school self-reporting data would "suspect" a covid case unless it was probably a covid case. So I'm assuming it's because parents don't have to report tests (whereas health departments DO get all the data on test results). But I don't know, because she doesn't say. And that 48,000 figure is from now, yes? When numbers have been rising rapidly overall over the past few weeks. It was lower just a few weeks ago when she was collecting the data she reports (and her numbers for confirmed cases are worse for just high schools, incidentally: .207 for students and .39 for staff). So AT BEST she can say that reopening schools has meant that kids now have about an average risk of infection compared to the rest of the US population with its current really terrible numbers, (though one argument for reopening was that kids have a much LOWER risk), that high school teachers "only" have about twice the risk, and that you're pretty sure that even though numbers started going back up after schools reopened, that isn't WHY numbers are going up, although you really don't have any data to support that. If you assume the suspected cases are actual cases, things look way worse than that. And this is with tons of precautions in place in most schools (more than 90% of the schools that reported had mask mandates for staff and students, for example, and most were hybrid rather than full time). I mean, to be fair, the title isn't "you aren't more likely to be exposed to covid in a school than in other places" (it seems that you are, based on her data) it's "schools aren't superspreaders." And I will agree that the worst case scenario where there are a lot of classrooms or schools where half the kids get covid does not seem to be happening, and that's a relief.

I don't know what the numbers for kids in particular look like nationwide, but that 740/100,000 number is as high as overall numbers just about anywhere in the country right now. Like if you look at the very reddest of the red in the NYT map of hotspots (mostly Wisconsin and other places in the midwest right now), they have incidence rates similar to that. Pre-school openings, at least, kids were overall much less likely to have covid than adults, so I'd be very surprised if kids who aren't in school have a higher overall incidence rate than the worst places in the midwest right now.

The chart says the .15 is for 9/14-9/27, so two weeks. I mean, it's a minor quibble--either way it's a high rate, much higher than the previous 2 week period, and gets much higher still when you add in "suspected" cases

She claims that community spread is not increasing as a result of schools opening, either, but her argument for that seems to be entirely anecdotal (basically, "numbers aren't going up yet in Florida or Georgia.") She says, "I’ve read many stories about outbreaks at universities, and vanishingly few about outbreaks at the K–12 level." ....which is not a particularly rigorous argument. I mean--doing that kind of granular analysis would be really difficult--there are a whole lot of schools, each with a different reopening plan and taking different precautions, each with different initial levels of community spread and different factors that might be affecting spread after schools reopened. But...

I am aware that she's approaching things from a particular perspective, but I'm still surprised that she'd use that data to claim something it does not appear to say at all. She seems to just be counting on people to read it and think, "well, those numbers SOUND pretty small." I expected that my main quibble would be with how self-reported school data is really unreliable and non-standardized so it's hard to draw conclusions from it; I was taken aback that her data actually made me feel like school reopenings are going worse than I thought they were. I would genuinely like to understand why she (and presumably other people, since The Atlantic published this) think these numbers are reassuring. And I'd like to hear more about the "suspected" cases, since including them vs. not is the difference between "well, schools aren't all THAT much worse than other places right now" and "holy crap; schools overall have numbers as bad as the very worst hot spots in the country! We'd be better off vacationing in Wisconsin than going to a high school."

Brown economist Emily Oster is in the Atlantic with this article this week saying that the risks of school openings have been overblown https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/schools-arent-superspreaders/616669/. Here's the heart of her argument: Our data on almost 200,000 kids in 47 states from the last two weeks of September revealed an infection rate of 0.13 percent among students and 0.24 percent among staff. That’s about 1.3 infections over two weeks in a school of 1,000 kids, or 2.2 infections over two weeks in a group of 1,000 staff. Even in high-risk areas of the country, the student rates were well under half a percent. Okay, so, first of all, an infection rate of .13 percent in students and .24 in staff equals 130 and 240/100,000 respectively, which is....not good. I don't know anywhere that classifies anything over 100/100,000 as anything other than a high level of community transmission. But then if you dig into the data, it gets much worse: https://statsiq.co1.qualtrics.com/public-dashboard/v0/dashboard/5f62eaee4451ae001535c839#/dashboard/5f62eaee4451ae001535c839?pageId=Page_1ac6a6bc-92b6-423e-9f7a-259a18648318 I don't know where she's coming up with .13 percent for students, because the graph lists it at .15 for 9/13-9/27, for a rate of 150/100,000. More troubling: the rate DOUBLED compared to the previous two week period. And MORE troubling, if you look at confirmed and suspected cases instead of just confirmed, you get a rate for students of 740/100K. I don't know why the numbers are so much higher for suspected and confirmed except that it's my understanding that parents are under no obligation to report testing results to schools (or to have their kids with symptoms tested in the first place, of course). So for real--am I missing something? I believe I've said before that my formal training in statistics consists of a single college class more than 20 years ago. Because it looks to me like this data that's supposed to reassure everyone that school openings are going FINE actually show that schools are some of the most dangerous places in the country to be right now. I guess if you want to argue, "it could be worse!" these numbers work....but if you want to argue that kids in schools are less likely to have and spread covid, it seems to show just the opposite. Edited to correct link to data.

oh! I asked the same question a few weeks ago and e-mailed the company for their testing info: ....my current Happy Mask worry is that I'm wondering if the filter material is really supposed to be washed as many times as they say it is.

Good to know! I also found out last night that they've extended the deadline for adding homeschoolers without paying a late fee...so if I don't find somewhere else I can circle back to my first choice next year when there might be more clarity about what things will look like in May (one way or the other; if they do them online again my 11th grader will be THRILLED 🙂 )

We've done lots of cities on RV trips. Some of my favorite cities to visit are DC, Boston, NYC. St. Louis is a surprise favorite that we've been to more than once. We haven't made it to Chicago yet, but it's on my list. For smaller but still cities, we've really enjoyed Charleston and Savannah and, another surprise--Birmingham. As far as RVing....most but not all cities have at least one reasonable option in or near enough to the city (I consider "near enough" to be within a half hour drive in most cases). The Philadelphia KOA is very nice and very close. In NYC there's Liberty Harbor right in Jersey City, on public transit, but we stayed at Croton Point Park to have more room to spread out (and not have to negotiate Jersey City with the trailer)--train right outside the park and a 50 minute ride. St. Louis has a casino with an RV park and a beautiful view of the arch. If you don't need hookups, Chicago has a truck parking lot they also let RVs use (as well as some city-run parks outside of downtown that are supposed to be nice). We're planning a trip for next summer that will take us to DC, Boston, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Detroit, and Cincinnati. When I was looking at it, I thought: "that's a whole lot of cities!" But we've got good campgrounds and transportation options lined up everywhere (we are skipping Toronto because I wasn't thrilled with our options there), and I think it will be fine. ETA: I don't know where you are in the planning process, but if you want specific campground recs for any of the cities, let me know!

oh--or are you just saying you found a place and signed up even though it was expensive to make sure you had somewhere?

What do you mean you paid up instead of looking around? Have they changed things so that you don't have to find a school that will give you seat for the test anymore?

I e-mailed the small private school where we've done AP testing before, and they got back to me to very politely and apologetically tell me that we couldn't test there this year because they're not allowing any extra people in the buildings right now and don't know whether that will change by spring or not. Which makes perfect sense, but for some reason it hadn't occurred to me that I might run into this particular issue. I guess I need to start e-mailing other schools (sigh), but curious if anyone else has found the same thing or, conversely, if anyone's found a place already that WILL let your kids test? (and if anyone's found one in the metro Atlanta area, please tell me where it is!)

Yeah, I think they're manufactured in Taiwan, but what I'm saying is that I think, based on the lab stuff they sent me, that they order the inner filter layer from this other manufacturer that's been around for awhile and then insert it into the shell they've designed. The masks on the website the labs reference don't look anything like a happymask; they look pretty much like a surgical mask, and they sell them in bulk.

Okay, so for anyone who was wondering, Happy Mask got back to me super fast and sent me the lab reports which do indeed say what they say they do (I mean, as far as I can tell from my non-scientist perspective). I noticed that the brand name listed on the report, though, is Ilife PTFE. So I googled and found this site with the exact same lab reports they sent me posted on the site: https://www.ilifeptfe.com/home_english.html I gather that what's going is they source the inner filter layer from this company and design/make the outer layer themselves.

Thank you! Yeah, that's kind of what I was starting to think...good fit and comfortable enough to wear all day are probably the more important factors. He does already have a couple of Happy Masks, but I'm going to suggest he try surgical masks and the Sock Fancy masks that I like and see what's the most comfortable and fits best when he's in it for 8 hours at a time. He also has face shields and I bought him an air purifier for his classroom, so....best we can do, I guess.

Yeah, I'm totally fine with a less than perfect mask for myself and for my kids who don't have a lot of exposure and aren't particularly high risk, but I do want the best thing I can find for my husband who might be in a room with a bunch of people for 7+ hours a day soon.

we already have several, and he's been wearing them...I just wanted a little more data when things get more real and there are actual students. The non-happy mask mask I usually use isn't a thin knit, it's 2 cotton layers plus a poly layer in the middle, and I like that it fits all the way over my chin and has adjustable ear straps (it's the ones sock fancy makes, although I ordered mine from a local store with fancy prints on them). So I feel like those fit better/have better coverage....but is the filtering better with Happy Masks? I mean, they say it is, but I feel like I should probably trust but verify, you know? Anyway, I definitely won't CALL 😆, but I will e-mail unless someone here has the lab report.

So not to be cynical, but....has anyone actually taken a look at the lab results Happy Mask claims on their website? If no one else has it, I'll e-mail them and ask for them, but I thought someone else might have already done the legwork since they come up here a lot. DH is a high school teacher who will have students in the classroom soon, and Happy Masks are part of our keeping him safe plan...but I want to make sure the evidence that they're better than a regular old 3 layer cloth mask or a disposable surgical mask or whatever is actually legit.

You might take a look at a site like Trusted Housesitters as well....they match people who need a housesitter with people looking for a place to stay (generally no money exchanges hands; stuff like who pays utilities on long stays is negotiable). We have an RV, so we've never done the housesitting end of things, but we've found housesitters for our own house through them, and it's been a great experience. We do long trips in summer, and we've had the same family here for three years, staying between a month and two months. ETA: generally there's pet care involved, so you'd need to be okay with that.