New Jen's Horde


Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Always interested in the pandemic news!

 
Closing schools reduced flu deaths in 1918

Cities that quickly closed schools and discouraged public gatherings had fewer deaths from the great flu pandemic in 1918 than cities that did not, researchers reported on Monday....

"Cities in which multiple interventions were implemented at an early phase of the epidemic had peak death rates about 50 percent lower than those that did not," they wrote in their report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In Kansas City, no more than 20 people could attend weddings or funerals. New York mandated staggered shifts at factories. In Seattle, the mayor told people to wear face masks.

No single action worked on its own, the researchers found, it was the combination of measures that saved lives.
I thought this was interesting, and I wonder if that means anything for us homeschoolers.

I thought, when we decided to homeschool, that we'd spend a lot less time being sick than we would if the kids were in school. That doesn't seem to be true. I think it's because we're always out and about so we're getting exposed all the time. I do know some families who are homeschooling for health reasons, and they do tend to catch less as they are home more and more careful about their contacts.

Also, before I started homeschooling, I thought that my kids wouldn't learn all the vile and nasty things those public school kids teach each other all day at school. Now, with a few years under my belt, I believe that much of that stuff just manifests itself whether they've heard it somewhere else or not. I think it's just hardwired into their brains in utero.

For instance, even though they're not in school, they've shown natural ability in such things as playing "mercy," and announcing "I see London, I see France..." Of course, they didn't quite show proficiency with that one, because they were pulling up their shorts and saying, "I see London, I see France, I see *my own* underpants." I never said they were geniuses.

Long post short (too late), I'd like to think that homeschooling will keep us healthier in the event of a major pandemic, but judging by all this other stuff I doubt that our methods of homeschooling will be any protection.

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Comments:
I don't know about that. With homeschooling, we can make the decision to instantly pull ourselves and our children out of activities if a pandemic occurs whereas public schoolers have to fight the bureaucracy to do the same.
 
My kids don't get sick that often. And when they do it's generally allergies. I like to think I built up their immune systems by putting them in daycare at an early age. Expose them to germs and all that.
 
I think we catch most of our colds from DH who gets them from work from all the people who come to work sick from the colds their kids brought home from school.

We hardly ever catch anything that's going around from hsing.
 
We do get colds from those who struggle to work and sneeze away.
 
I wouldve've sacrificed my life & done homeschooling had there not been a good Catholic school in my area (the public school was an uncertifiable disaster).

It's a challange to homeschool. I admire you for doing it.

I'm just glad I didn't have to come this close to murdering one
of my children ;-)
 
There are germs EVERYwhere.

Homeschooling doesn't protect kids from exposure to less than wonderful things if the homeschooling mom has a warped sense of humor and thus passes that on to her offspring who are, after all, just sponges sopping up all they see and hear. :)
 
i wish i had had the money to send my kids to private school. when i think of home schooling, i think of the kids getting a more one on one education, it's too easy for them to get left behind with the big classrooms we seem to have here. i don't know how homeschooling would have worked out for me, even just trying to help them with homework leaves them frustrated with me.
 
I often wonder why writers about the flu pandemic seldom mention that it occurred at the end of WW I and that a lot of the deaths may have been, in part, due to the stress, anxiety, and other debilitating effects of the war. I suspect a lot of folks had degraded immune systems at the time either from the war or famine or not having "American Idol" to buck up their spirits.
 
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