jackk – that’s a somewhat odd question. Of course I care about the deaths. And I care about the people killed by child abusers and cancer and by drunk drivers. I insisted my kids sat in car seats and buckled up even when it made me unpopular among other parents (ie “no, I can’t drive your child without a booster seat”). I don’t give them medication that was not prescribed to them (ie. “i’m sure it’s strep, just use the antibiotic left over from the other kid”) serve alcohol to minors, let strangers spend time alone with my kids etc. I care. And when I can do something to change it, I try to do so.
Right now I work in a public school with strict covid prevention guidelines. 3 fathers have died since september. It is tragic. You have decided they have no underlying conditions but I don’t know that. I do know, however, that the kids who are masked and sitting behind screens ETC have spread omicron to each other like wildfire. For three weeks, beginning a week after thanksgiving, we had HUGE numbers of absences. One week the district had more absences than they will ever admit in writing. Three weeks later…It’s gone. we are not seeing anymore spreading or infections or absences. So what did I walk away with? The preventions did not help, the herd immunity worked, over 99% of the infections were mild to asymptomatic, and the damage that these kids continue to suffer from the mask wearing is overloading the special ed team with serious long term damage.
Does that mean I don’t care? No. It means that I am watching long term suffering (that you and other won’t even acknowledge) of too many children that is being perpetuated in order to “sheild” these children from not-very-real dangers. If parents were found to be inflicting these types of damage on their kids, the authorities would have been called. And I mean that. There is serious developmental, academic, social and emotional damage here. Do you care?