The biggest plus with Corvid and mask

[johnson86-1]

I agree it's not just the kids wearing masks. They are taking a ton of other precautions as well - and hopefully those will not be necessary after this school year is over, but there's no doubt it's help limit the spread of normal sickness. These are just from my kids in 5th & 1st grade:

- Kids / teachers wearing masks
- Temperature checks before entering school
- Desks are spread out. I know my oldest kid sat at tables of 4 up through at least the 3rd grade. Now my even first grader has his own desk spaced away from others.
- Classes are not mixing at all (at least in elementary). If someone's not in your class, you will never interact with them at school.
- Eating lunch in class rooms / not mixing with other classes at lunch.
- Playgrounds are closed. Individual classes do have time outside but aren't allowed to play on playground equipment. But again - the classes are isolated from each other.
- Hand sanitizer everywhere
- Fewer kids riding buses. A lot more parents are doing whatever it takes to drop off / pick up their kids.

We have or have had all of those at one time or another except for the desks being spread out. And one other we have that your kids school probably has to is that they are much more active about monitoring kids for symptoms and sending them to the nurse to be checked out. They don't let kids sit in class with a runny nose or cough. But at this point, all that's left are:

1) temperature screens to enter
2) no water fountains; everybody has to bring a water bottle
3) masks (which I really think are worthless ased on watching kids wear them)
4) hand sanitizer/hand washing emphasis
5) monitoring kids for symptoms other than fever

To my knowledge there hasn't been any impact from dropping the other restrictions. Also, while they used to keep the classes separate, they never kept after school care separate by class, so I'm not sure how much point there would be regardless.

I could see any of the remaining precautions other than masks making a big difference. I'd be happy for them to continue all of these other than the masks and shutting down water fountains (although I think encouraging kids to bring their own water bottles would be great). Doing daily temperature screenings (not before entering though; just as part of kicking off the day) and being a little more cognizant of kids showing symptoms besides fever (even though this has the potential to be a huge pain in the *** for us because of our kids having allergies) would I think cut down on the spread from children coming to school while sick without putting too much strain on the school or parents.

 

[tenureplan]

Mine play with some neighborhood kids without masks. They hang out with another group of friends with masks half the time and without masks half the time, depending on location. Then they have some friends that they have hung out with only with masks.
Its 50/50 if added all up, so definitely more mask use than before which was 0, but it also isnt an always situation.

If you include sports, then they are around their friends/peers with masks a lot more than without masks.
We just do whatever the other families are comfortable with and call it good. It seems half dont care and half do.

You sure it was 50/50 and not 51/49? Do they have to fill out a survey after playing with other kids?

 

[SheltonChoked]

Been a good while since I have had sick leave. Really like not having it. The bad employees managed to use exactly their sick leave each year. The good employees left a lot on the table. You do have people come to work sick because they don't want to burn their PTO while sick, but that's a better tradeoff to me than having the poor employees get better benefits than the good employees. And trying to account for that in other ways doesn't fix the problem because then people will feel like they is punishment for taking sick leave. Much easier to just tell people they get X days of PTO that they are free to use however they want.

Or you could just give people time off if they are sick. Tell the employees you'll Require a DR excuse.

Making people burn PTO means people show up sick (and get more people sick). Giving x number of sick days means people feel like they are missing something.

 

[mstateglfr]

You sure it was 50/50 and not 51/49? Do they have to fill out a survey after playing with other kids?

good point.***

 

[mstateglfr]

Or you could just give people time off if they are sick. Tell the employees you'll Require a DR excuse.

Making people burn PTO means people show up sick (and get more people sick). Giving x number of sick days means people feel like they are missing something.

You think requiring employees to go to a doctor every time they arent well is a good idea? Holy **** thats inconvenient. Have a migrane? Instead of staying at home and resting, go sit on the phone for an appt, drive to the dr, then go thru the process and pay $ just to get a Dr note.

 

[PineGroveBully]

How do we know that covid numbers rose with a mask when you have nothing to compare it to? That’s not even the point being made. We are talking about flu numbers. When it is known scientific fact that kids are high spreaders of influenza then it’s not an earth sharing discovery that if you add a layer (or 2) of protection that anything spread via droplets will be hampered.

 

[johnson86-1]

Or you could just give people time off if they are sick. Tell the employees you'll Require a DR excuse.

Making people burn PTO means people show up sick (and get more people sick). Giving x number of sick days means people feel like they are missing something.

Unfortunately, the bad employees don't mind burning a $40 co-pay and making our insurance rates worse if that means they can get a "free" day of work. And I don't want good employees to have to go to the doctor in order to use a sick day and really don't like micromanaging employees to begin with. There's no perfect solution, but just going straight PTO has seemed to work the best. What I have not liked is paying out PTO also, which basically means you have no time off and the PTO is just to top up paychecks for pay period where time is taken off. Not a huge deal but see too many employees try to not take off any time in order to get more money, which I think is bad for them and the employer in the long run.

If we had a lot of public facing employees, I might feel differently. The downside to have waitresses or retail workers deal with the customers while sick would be bigger.

ETA: just realized I missed the point of your post. That's probably not a bad idea in some settings, but the most problematic employees are going to view that as unlimited sick leave. And I'd worry about running into a potential problem if you start denying it for some and not for others.

Just as an example of how ridiculous it can get, I once had an employee act shocked after he was let go after missing something like 45 days of work in his first nine months of employment. THought we were just monsters for letting him go because of excessive absenteeism. He would just call in sick for anything and everything and it was not a position where we could just have somebody miss basically a week a month. Can't imagine how many days he would have missed if he had been getting paid.

 

[HotMop]

You know what other virus I miss? 17ing Norovirus. When you go to the bathroom thirty times a day but each time you're not sure if you need to sit and brace for the squirts or bow before the throne to puke your guts out. Like beef macaroni night but it lasts two days.

Care to share your Beef Macaroni recipe?