Attendance in the Lee County School District dropped to 81% just nine days after the first day of school.

Less than two weeks into the school year, a Kentucky school district has canceled in-person classes for the rest of the week after nearly a fifth of its students came down with Covid, strep throat, the flu and other illnesses.

The Lee County School District, which has just under 900 students, began classes Aug. 9 but noticed attendance drop to about 82% on Friday, Superintendent Earl Ray Schuler said.

By Monday, the rate dipped to 81%, and 14 staff members called in sick, Schuler said.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If only there was a cheap easy to use way to stop germs from spreading through the mouth and nose of people…

  • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
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    Covid, strep throat, the flu, and other illnesses, i.e. covid covid covid and covid, but a lot of our parents have a very particular way of approaching what they’re willing to accept about why their child is sick.

    • SneakyWeasel@lemmy.world
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      Probably missing the point, but RN I’m stuck with a horrid ass flu that makes my entire muscles sore, couldn’t sleep yesterday because of cold sweats, and just all in all feel like garbage, and you could not imagine the relief I felt when tested it turned out to not be COVID (And yes, I am up to date with the COVID vaccines).

      • harmonea@kbin.social
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        (And yes, I am up to date with the COVID vaccines)

        This doesn’t really seem to matter with all the new mutations that are loose right now. The spouse and I are up to date as well, but we still caught it ~3 weeks ago after avoiding it for 3.5 years. We healed up fine, but it sure did suck. Looking forward to updated boosters.

        Seems like everyone I know around the world (thanks, internet) is getting it right now, even if they’ve been taking things seriously.

        • Foggyfroggy@lemmy.world
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          If you’re alive the vaccine helped. It wasn’t meant to be a never-get-it vaccine. Just that if you did catch it your chances of dying were lower.

          • harmonea@kbin.social
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            I tried to be as clear as possible that I appreciated the vaccine, still plan to keep it up to date, and don’t blame its inability to catch every mutation, and someone still needs to get lecturey about it…

            • Foggyfroggy@lemmy.world
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              My bad, the way your sentence was worded it seems like you expected the vaccine to prevent infections not just severity. It’s an important point that is subtle.

      • Tolstoshev@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Did you test for flu and get positive? I’ve been hearing a lot about false negatives with the newer strains. They’ve mutated enough that they don’t trigger the antibodies in the test, is the theory.

        • Melkath@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          So far as I have heard, yes, mutations are emerging because people keep getting reinfected and reinfecting others, but the anosmia symptom is still pretty consistent.

          Might not trigger a test, but if you suddenly cant taste your dinner, you have covid.

            • BadIdeaKitten@lemmy.world
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              If we’re throwing around anecdata, I was a first responder during COVID and several people I worked with lost their sense of taste and/or smell. I would guess at least 25 percent temporarily and I knew a couple who still had altered senses many months later, including one who could only taste sweet properly and everything else tasting like sulfur. The first few times we worked together I thought she was trying to give herself diabetes. Protein shakes didn’t taste good either.

              My daughter had COVID in January and lost her sense of taste and smell - it was the only symptom she had. It took about three months to regain her senses, and she still has one food ingredient (we think it’s a red dye) that tastes like she imagines licking a dirty bathroom floor would taste. Whatever it is, it’s in some nacho cheese flavorings and red Sour Patch Kids. It’s an improvement from everything tasting like bathroom floor, though.

            • Melkath@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Oh shit.

              24 people and 22 didnt have anosmia.

              Anecdotal, but news to me.

              Thanks for sharing.

      • Silverseren@kbin.social
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        The Covid test kits are largely useless with Eris, doctors have been finding. It’s mutation that lets it escape immune detection also seems to let it escape the test kits primary measurement methods.

        So you absolutely could still have Covid.

    • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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      No parents wanted to do covid tests, so a good trick is to stop carrying covid only tests and only provide covid/flu combo tests.

      • time_lord@lemmy.world
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        Our local hospital just switched from covid/flu/strep tests to individual ones, because they can bill more for 3 tests than one.

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    This has to be fake news. I was told that it was a hoax, and if it wasn’t a hoax, it would be gone in a few days, and if it wasn’t gone in a few days bleach injections would kill it, and if bleach injections didn’t kill it, then horse tranquilizer would kill it, and if horse tranquilizer didn’t kill it…

  • Player2@sopuli.xyz
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    Schools find out diseases are infectious. Can our top scientists figure out something to do about it? More at 11

    • FoxBJK
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      The school knows exactly what’s up. They just can’t say “COVID” in a place like Kenfucky without hundreds of parents screaming at the top of their lungs.

  • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    The highest attendance will be in a small district. The lowest attendance will be in a small district.

    Smaller samples show more variation.

  • Silverseren@kbin.social
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    The Eris variant seems to be massively spreading here in the midwest. I know several people that have gotten it and, unfortunately, the test kits don’t seem as effective in detecting this variant unless you’re significantly along in symptoms. Meaning you’ve been contagious for a while already.

    Additionally, Eris appears to have a different method of symptom development where you have somewhat minor cold symptoms after a few days and then it goes away. Then, a week later, you get much stronger and worse symptoms. The latter stage can be detected by the test kits, the former can not.

    So you’re contagious for a full week or more before you can even confirm you have Covid, making many people think they have the flu instead. (Which is also something you should isolate for and not expose other people to, but we have a bunch of idiots that live here in the US.)

    • Melkath@kbin.social
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      Which is also something you should isolate for and not expose other people to, but we have a bunch of idiots that live here in the US.

      Amen.

      I still mask and social distance wherever possible.

      For a while I believed we had a shot at stopping covid from becoming endemic, but here we are, with endemic covid, which will never not be a problem again.

      Beyond covid though, I haven’t gotten any other kind of sickness. It’s been a nice few years not getting colds 2 to 3 times a year.

      Conventional wisdom says plagues come in 3 waves. By my count, we have been through 2, and recent news certainly makes it sound like 3 is imminent.

      • Silverseren@kbin.social
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        At the very least, dealing with Covid has significantly improved our medical science and technologies. mRNA vaccines and other innovations will be incredibly useful in the future and are already branching out to be used as treatments against other diseases, even some forms of cancer.

        • digitalgadget@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          As someone suffering with an illness similar to Long Covid, I too am pleased with all the medical innovations coming.

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    As conservatives cheer. The only thing conservatives love more than people being sick is people being uneducated.

    Conservatism is a plague in desperate need of a cure.

    • abaddon@lemmy.world
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      I don’t disagree about conservatives in general but what about this article caused you to post this? The article indicated the district was shifting to online learning, encouraged better sanitation and vaccination.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    Nice, a whole one state over, I’m sure germs can’t travel this far though, we’ll be fine.

    • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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      Bring back the chin diapers!

      I’d be for it if idiots actually understood how to wear them.

    • digitalgadget@kbin.social
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      I went to the emergency room when I was 19 because I couldn’t swallow it hurt so much (they were not very sympathetic).

  • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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    Cases of covid are very low in Kentucky so it’s likely RSV, Flu, and Strep that are the reason. Those are high.

    • Silverseren@kbin.social
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      Many states have minimized or even completely eliminated their Covid reporting systems, so I don’t trust the numbers whatsoever. We know from wastewater treatment and other national measurements that the Eris variant is spreading massively, causing a new large wave of infections to form, since its primary mutation is one that helps it escape immune detection.

      I really hope that new booster vaccine aimed at Eris comes out sooner rather than later.

    • Melkath@kbin.social
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      Reported cases of covid are very low in Kentucky so it’s likely RSV, Flu, and Strep that are the reason. Those are high.

      FTFY.

      Sidenote: We are seeing an emergence of more virulent strains of Covid, a virus that shut the world down because of its extremely virulent nature. The rest are just as infectious as they ever were.

      New covid, spreading through a population where the most vulnerable have already been culled. Increasingly severe long covid effects, lower ICU risk, and much, much more infectious. That is until the strains that are more severe occur, because we all know, the more infectious the virus, the more mutations emerge.

      • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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        Covid won’t shut things down, that only happened because we didn’t have a defense against it and how bad it would be. Turns out it wasn’t that bad except for select groups of people too stupid to get vaccinated.

        • Melkath@kbin.social
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          Vaccination makes you a carrier, it isn’t magical virus killer juice.

          Covid is virulent enough that at endemic capacity, it will mutate too wildly to keep up with vaccination.

          We shut down to stop it from being endemic, but idiots couldn’t be bothered to mask up and social distance, so it went endemic.

          Mark my words, wave 3 is coming for everyone.

          Edit: I need to say I got the vaccinations.

          They reduce fatality.

          What I’m not jazzed about is endless boosters because of dipshits.

        • ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world
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          It was quite bad until we 1) got an effective vaccine and 2) the post-Delta mutations became less deadly over-all. If we get another bad mutation things could get ugly again.

            • Melkath@kbin.social
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              You just refuse to listen to reason.

              You are the equivalent of someone so terrified of HIV that they decide that they are going to refuse to be afraid by fucking everyone they can raw dog, while proclaiming “live in fear you losers!”… until you reap the consequences of your idiocy.

              Only difference is that this isn’t HIV, and the mutation you create is going to kill everyone.