Oh, that’s good to hear (masking, not flu).

I wonder if the flu is what seems to be hitting schools my kids are at.

I will add the following: our students lack the research skills required to audit an LLM essay for errors. They don’t arrive on campus with these skills; we teach it to them over four long years. So throwing freshmen in the deep end and saying “swim your way to a shore of rectitude” is folly.

💯

Totally get why the horn blowing happens with slow moving cargo and passenger rail, but no serious high speed rail can work if they have to do that.

High speed rail needs dedicated rail with under or overpasses to avoid level crossing.

And, no, it might not be a bridge. It might be a car that drives itself into a food market, or an AI-generated code patch that opens a dam and destroys farmers fields.

Or it might be subtle, like an AI tools tweaking the concentrations in a medication to make it toxic.

I couldn't agree more

There are so many problems like this that are easy on paper, but in practice, there is a lot of nuance

Having a kid in kindergarten means constant colds, any reduction in disease spread would be welcome by everyone!

… in person, to observe how daycares work all year round … and to apply best practices to verify what works best in day care settings.

They should be teamed up with early childhood educators to listen and understand the learning and living dynamics in those spaces the whole time.

You’re right. The day care environments are complicated and dynamic. Lots of individual needs.

We need to find better best practices that make a dent in disease transmission.

Personally I would love to see professional engineers and industrial hygienists study a few dozen daycares…

There are no absolutes and no fool-proof ways to make this happen.

So layers are needed.

That means cleaning surfaces, little hands, mouths, etc. But it also means air cleaners and masking. Air cleaners all the time. And masking more often than now. And that means having them on hand.

I think that we're closer to agreeing than not. I think that the evidence, as it stands, is complicated but also incomplete.

Day cares and other spaces with children of all ages should be made to be the safest we can make them. The air needs to be clean.

Source: academic.oup.com/eurpub/artic...

Even just supplying the respirators so that it is a practical option would be a step in the right direction.

The evidence is simply not strong enough to support that position. Whereas, it is incontrovertible that disease spreads in daycare.

This study indicates impact but admits to insufficient data.

Mitigating potential harm by having masking be temporary during high disease periods is one option.

Like, that’s how low the bar is.

For instance, shouldn’t we be requiring, by law, that all daycares and kindergartens have supplementary air cleaners?

Shouldn’t employees be, at minimum, be supplied with and encouraged to use KN95, Q100 or N95 respirators? I’m not even saying to require them to be used. Just supplied.