If you're buying used, a Sienna in the previous 8 seater version, when the 8th seat was full size, would fit everyone really comfortably, with any car seat configuration. I don't like the newer kinds with the smaller second row middle seat as much. I could look up what model year they stopped making that one, if you want. I know they were making it in 2006, and I think switched sometime in the couple years before 2015. I find the Odyssey less roomy in the third row (and they never had the full size 8th seat). I'm not very familiar with the Kia minivan, but I think I recall their newer ones being fairly well reviewed when we were last looking. Have you looked at the Chrysler Pacifica since they remade it as a minivan, starting I think around 2016? I kind of regretted not waiting for the plug in hybrid of that to be released and buying that instead of the car we got instead a few years ago.

If anyone is curious where all this talk about the PCR cycle rate keeps coming from, I thought this was a pretty thorough explanation: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/no-covid-19-casedemic/ (spoiler: it’s one of those things that’s big in conspiracy circle camps seeking to downplay the pandemic and portray Covid19 as being purposely designed to control people)

Yikes. Hopefully they didn’t transmit.

Has she done anything else indoors with vaccinated friends first? I think I would arrange something like that with one of her vaccinated friends soon, as a way of easing up. I understand how it’s hard to go from not seeing anyone indoors to having a big group over inside; that would be hard for me as well. We’re slowly easing back in so we can get used to things and find our comfort level. We have just had our first (vaccinated) indoor visitor, and it did feel weird to break that barrier.

I don’t think you can make love of math (or any subject) happen just by doing the right things. Some kids are just never going to love certain subjects. In my experience, a time comes where you just need to get a kid through the subject they dislike as well as they can, as solidly as they can, even if they don’t like it. I wouldn’t see anything you say as being likely to be laziness that can be drilled out. In your place, I would actually be looking for a way to have him tested, as from your description, I would be concerned that a learning disability is holding him back. In the meantime, I would actually consider giving him something like Beast Academy (at a lower level, like 2nd grade) to work through on the computer to see how taking the reading out of it and giving him something with some interesting conceptual problems went. Perhaps along with playing some math games or maybe doing one of Kste Snow’s programs? (And I say that as a Math Mammoth lover. It’s the primary program I use for my kids for elementary math.)

I this article yesterday about how people can get out of a conspiracy theory rabbit hole or help others do so. I need to get better about not always trying to go the facts route. It’s been well demonstrated that doesn’t work and that kindness and friendship go a lot further. Anyway, thought some others might have people in their life they might find this helpful information for. https://amp.abc.net.au/article/100153732 From the conclusion: ‘After posting her views on Facebook, Tanya received a message from a concerned friend, who had a background in science. Over several Zoom calls, Tanya's friend explained how science works and how she separates fact from fiction in her research, such as tracking down reliable sources of information in a sea of content on the web and finding the right journal articles. After talking with her friend, Tanya realised the way she was gathering information online to back up the conspiracy theories she believed in was driven more by fear than logic. But most of all, it was her friend's compassionate approach that helped her see the misinformation she was consuming for what it was. "She took the time to explain a lot of things to me, giving me proper forms of research, rather than what I was doing," Tanya says. "It alleviated a lot of my fear. The world is not that bad, it's OK." Kindness from others has also been key to Mr Jadeja's recovery from QAnon. Shortly after he abandoned his beliefs, he wrote a Reddit post about how he had been misled and the guilt he felt for pulling his father into the rabbit hole with him. While he expected users to "rip me apart", he received waves of supportive comments from the online community. "It was like they gave me permission to retain some semblance of self-worth and dignity," Mr Jadeja says.’

Right. That explains why we were talking past eachother. I was thinking of the populations of kids who can't be vaccinated. And also in the context of the comments I made earlier that you were responding to, about whether with enough population coverage in the over 16s, could kids no longer need to be vaccinated. So, my comments were in considering a population of fully unvaccinated kids.

So, the short of it in this particular report looks to be that only 1% of the 52,000 people admitted to the hosptial for Covid were vaccinated, and the majority of those were admitted to the hospital within 7 days of their second shot. That is actually a tremendously good result! Makes me even more confident to be out and about doing things now that I'm vaccinated. Link to report: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/982499/S1208_CO-CIN_report_on_impact_of_vaccination_Apr_21.pdf

You're right that doesn't make sense. I expected the video to say it was out of 52,000 hospitalized people with Covid, but that's not what he said, but now I have found references to the study in a bunch of other sources, and they all say what makes more sense: "A total of 526 patients out of 52,000 (1%) had been vaccinated more than three weeks before they developed Covid symptoms and were hospitalised. Of those, 113 died. Most of them (97) were in the two highest risk categories, so frail, elderly or otherwise highly vulnerable." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/30/figures-on-covid-deaths-post-jab-show-vaccines-success-scientists-say I'm going to read this and get a good reference link.

Isn't that what school is? And extracurriculars like dance class, basketball practice, etc? That's what I'm thinking might allow pockets of it in kids even in highly vaccinated areas. It has to get in there first, though, and the high vax rate will help suppress that.

Oh, I didn't realize you were referring only to the risk to your kids in your particular area. I was speaking more broadly about kids everywhere; some will be at relatively low risk of contracting covid due to high vaccination rates, and others much higher risk due to low vaccination rates. I do wonder how that works with the kids in school, though. Don't they make their own population, such that if Covid gets into a school with unvaccinated kids, it might spread at a high rate among them, even if most all of the adults are vaccinated?

You're welcome. I appreciated that Laura said what minute marker to go to, because I almost never watch YouTube videos posted as info sources. This one was worth it for the explanation though.

I really don't know why we're not seeing more of that. I keep seeing that same thing over and over as well. In reply, so far I'm mostly just seeing responses from nurses and physicians working on Covid wards, saying that either all, or almost all of their patients are unvaccinated. I think publicizing the numbers would be super helpful. Is there any reason that couldn't be done. **Eta: What I wrote below is what the video says, but doesn't match what other sources say the study was about. What I found subsequently is this: "A total of 526 patients out of 52,000 (1%) had been vaccinated more than three weeks before they developed Covid symptoms and were hospitalised. Of those, 113 died. Most of them (97) were in the two highest risk categories, so frail, elderly or otherwise highly vulnerable."** Previously written: It was of 52,000 fully vaccinated individuals, 1% of them had to be hospitalized. He said most of those infected were people who were infected shortly after the second jab, without waiting for full immunity (I'd like to see the full breakdown on that--most studies count "fully vaccinated" as being two weeks past the second shot, but it doesn't sound like this one did). From the number who died, it comes out that 0.2% of fully vaccinated people in the study died of Covid, almost all of whom were in the highest risk categories. Which does further show that we can't count on the vaccine alone for the most vulnerable of people, even though it still results in the illness being mild for most of them who contract it anyway.

I definitely get that. I'm usually a wait-and-see person with vaccines as well, but like you say, weighing against covid and continuing to stay home, combined with everything we know about the vaccines and how they work and their safety profile, my 15yo got it the second day it was available. And my older kids, I couldn't have stopped them from getting it even had I wanted. to. All three were so eager and excited to be vaccinated so they can start doing more things and not worry they are going to spread Covid to other people. *I'm* so excited for my college kids to have a more normal college year next year, hopefully (the oldest goes to a school that is mandating vaccines, so that is going to help immensely in letting things start back up again). I hope getting Covid will start becoming rare. I'm not yet seeing enough places with high enough vaccination rates for that to be true. For sure, if everyone who can get vaccinated would go do so, we could get in a situation where vaccinations for kids became rather moot. Maybe all the "we can't sacrifice the kids for the adults!" people could put their money where their mouths are and get vaccinated so that the kids really didn't need them. Yeah, you're almost certainly right. It's just that the last several times she has said it, I'm the only one who has responded to that part of her post, and she doesn't see my posts, so I expect she is blissfully unaware that there actually are lots of studies showing the vaccines do dramatically reduce transmission. One would think people would be glad to know that.

I understand the worry. Try to keep in mind the doctors treating these kids are still saying what they have seen from Covid in kids was worse and more frequent, and so far the rate of this isn’t higher than would be expected even if those same kids hadn’t been vaccinated. It’s possible it could turn out to be a real effect, but enough have been given at this point that it seems highly, highly unlikely it’s going to turn out to be anything other than a very rare effect. PS— could someone let Pen know that we actually do know the vaccine decreases transmission significantly? A lot of her posts are predicated on her not being aware that we have lots of studies now showing that it does that very well.

I’m glad they’re paying attention and looking into anything that might come up, even when it’s extremely rare. Wanting to include this for anyone who doesn’t click through to read the story: ‘At the moment, the number of cases of myocarditis reported after vaccination does not appear to be greater than would normally be seen in young people, according to the C.D.C. But members of the agency’s vaccine safety group “felt that information about reports of myocarditis should be communicated to providers,” the report said.’

I went to the store today and the new sign out front said that masks were “encouraged” for unvaccinated individuals. Before this, they have been required everywhere. This is not what the CDC guidance was supposed to mean.

That’s strange. It’s working for me in Safari on my phone. If you’d like me to look up a particular state, let me know and I will screenshot it and post it for you. Here’s an excerpt from the beginning: ”The rosy national figures showing declining case numbers led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to loosen mask recommendations last week and President Biden to advise people to take off their masks and smile. But adjustments for vaccinations show the rate among susceptible, unvaccinated people is 69 percent higher than the standard figures being publicized. With that adjustment, the national death rate is roughly the same as it was two months ago and is barely inching down. The adjusted hospitalization rate is as high as it was three months ago. The case rate is still declining after the adjustment.”

You can look at it by state to see how much discrepancy in risk between the two groups depending where you are. I would expect the places with spikes in rates among the unvaccinated will continue to shift and change as it has done all along, with those areas with higher unvaccinated rates presumably at a higher risk of having a surge in that area.

I think this needs to be made more clear to people as well. I think a lot of unvaccinated people feel like they are pretty safe now because numbers are lower in their area, but I don't think it's been well explained that their own personal risk is much higher than their local case rate would suggest, unless they are in an area with negligible vaccination. As that article shows, there are many places in the US where the risk to the unvaccinated is still as high as it was back in January. I know The Washington Post previously had no paywall on any of their Covid coverage, so hopefully this still falls under that. Is it still not working? I just tried and it worked for me.

Thanks. That’s enough for me to decide it wouldn’t be worth seeking out in my case. Unless/until we hear otherwise, T cell response seems like it would be hard (impossible?) to detect the difference between vaccine-induced or disease-induced T cells response. Maybe this would be useful for someone with a compromised immune system to know if they mounted a protective response to the vaccine?

There are lots of vaxed t shirts out there now. If someone was particularly self conscious about this, wearing a shirt could be one way to put people at ease. Im still not seeing anyone unmasking around my area.

I’m trying to see how this might be affected by vaccination, and so far I can’t find anything that addresses that.

I’ll have to look into this. I figured I’ll just never know if what I had in March 2020 was Covid. I don’t really have a good justification at this point other than curiosity, though. My doctor tested my antibodies in October, because I had enough going on that could have been post-Covid stuff, but that was negative. That was almost 6 months after I was sick.

That is interesting. All I can think is maybe it’s unvaccinated people wanting to protect themselves from all the vaccine supposedly floating through the air 🤷‍♀️😂.