Stop Reckless Covid Quarantines? Lie By Omission
Truth-telling is the new enemy in #ReturnToPlay as public health fear-messaging continues
(Photo Credit: ABC 7 Chicago)
We are at a phase with Covid where the path to least resistance is not to listen to public health messaging any longer.
Government agencies are forcing reasonable folks into a moral dilemma—is lying by omission really a lie?
(Sounds like a uncomfortable conversation topic all parents of pre-teenage children have had at one time or another.)
I’m going to run through some Covid numbers here.
In late February, the number of new COVID-19 positive cases in the 12-17 age bracket in Illinois was 859. This was the the lowest number since early October 2020. Then, as we hit March, cases began to slowly rise.
Between the week of April 3rd and 10th, the number leaped from 1,510 to 2,253, the largest one-week percentage increase in four months.
(graphic courtesy Illinois Department of Public Health)
What happened?
Young people between the ages of 12-17 starting taking more COVID-19 tests.
Here is a another graphic from Illinois Department of Public Health that shows the number of diagnostic tests in Illinois since July 2020:
Below is a testing graphic just from the month of April.
As shown in the graphic, three times in April the daily testing threshold peaked over 100k.
Be comparison, not once in the month of March did daily testing numbers reach 100k. When the daily number of tests exceeded 100k on April 8, it was the first time 100k tests were recorded in a single day since March 4. That March 4 date the only time in the month of March when daily testing reached or exceeded 100k.
What happens when more tests are given? We don’t have to be Johns Hopkins data science researchers to figure that out, but one more time for posterity—more tests, more positive cases.
So why all the testing in April?
Schools are driving much of it. Testing for in-season athletes has been a requirement for many school districts since January. Many statewide Boards of Education approved rapid, point-of-care COVID-19 testing as a condition to five-day-a-week in-person learning beginning in the third term, or the week after spring break, early April. Wanting their kids back in school, parents agreed, but its safe to wonder if they are having buyer’s remorse.
Especially if they have a child that plays sports.
Because sports continues to get blamed for the “COVID surge” amongst young people. The consequences, unintended or not, are public health-ordered quarantines and shutdowns.
Look on the IDPH website. Under the category of "Contact Tracing” are five sub-categories. One is “School Outbreaks” that lists, by county, schools with active case counts labeled as “outbreaks” (five or more, according to IDPH).
Included in the graphic, it lists the school, the number of cases, then the “source” of the outbreak.
For example, where I live, in Lake County, it lists three active outbreaks:
Carmel Catholic High School
5-10 cases, Students, Source: Sports
Deerfield High School
5-10 cases, Students, Source: Sports
Deerfield High School
11-16 cases, Students, Source: Sports
Notice one commonality—all outbreaks are sourced as coming from sports.
But the loose “association” definition given by IDPH makes this labeling wildly unfair and scaring parents into testing their children.
And no one wants their child to be the source of an outbreak.
What’s happening instead? By testing, they are now the originators of a worse outcome—quarantine and isolation.
I coach a youth football team that is playing a spring season. The league is independent, not school-sponsored.
We had to shut down for almost two weeks after a positive test by one of our players earlier this month. If the parents of the child had not told anyone about the positive test, nothing would have happened. He would been home for a week or so before returning and we would not have had to disrupt our season and our player’s routines.
A large group of our kids attend a private school. Wednesday, their assigned school cohort was ordered to go home for two weeks after a positive COVID-19 test. I obtained a copy of the email sent to parents, and here are two excerpts worth re-publishing here:
Your child should not report to school and should avoid public places during this time.
If your child does not have symptoms, it is recommended to be tested 5 to 9 days after your child's exposure to a positive case on Tuesday, April 27, 2021
So the school is encouraging parents to test their asymptomatic children?
Right off the front page of the IDPH How-To-Keep-Healthy-Children-In-Isolation Playbook (they call it something bureaucratic and official like, “School Guidance For Local Health Departments.”)
“Avoid public places at this time?” What? A reckless recommendation that should be ignored completely.
Another section of the letter says this:
Close contacts of positive cases are encouraged to call their healthcare provider to arrange for testing
There it is! If parental peace of mind requires a COVID-19 test, then do so. But realize the potential cost—not expense of the test, but to the mental well-being of the child.
Why can’t I go to practice? What did I do wrong? I don’t even know that kid.
If a test garners a positive result, keep those results private.
“He gets bad allergies on occasion, thank you for asking” is all a parent needs to say if asked about an absence.
Lie by omission.
Because by telling the truth, the damage is much worse than two or three days of the sniffles.
This “abundance of caution” nonsense has to stop. No lives are in danger here.
Here’s what we know about Covid—the majority of people in this country are under the age of 50. 1 in 50,000 people who get Covid under the age of 50 actually die of Covid. Think about that…if Wrigley Field was completely filled with people under the age of 50 all with Covid, statistically, slightly less than one person would die (by the way the Cubs are playing of late, that number may be marginally higher).
So what are we doing here? All needless quarantines do is continue a ridiculous charade driven by authoritarian public health agencies, emboldened by an iron-fisted governor and enforced by schools that remain fearful of a virus that is not harmful to children or vaccinated teachers.
I speak for the overwhelming majority of youth coaches when I say this—I’m responsible for 25-30 kids this spring. For them to get better, they need to be at practice. I’m interested in their emotional and physical well-being, front and center.
I don’t give a damn about their contact trace status.