4,200 children have lost a parent to Covid in New York State.

[ChavvySexPond]

Why do you think 4.200 children in New York State have lost a parent to Covid pushing them into single parent poverty or the care system?

And do you think it will happen here? Or are we protected by having the National Health Service?

uhfnyc.org/news/article/uhf-report-4200-children-nys--lost-parent-covid-19/

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/champ.gothamist.com/champ/gothamist/news/more-children-ny-state-have-lost-parents-due-covid-19-911-attacks

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thecity.nyc/platform/amp/health/2020/9/30/21494764/thousands-of-new-york-children-lost-a-parent-to-covid-19-study-finds

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8791297/amp/More-4-000-New-York-children-lost-parent-coronavirus-report-finds.html

Tragic, and yet we're sending schools back with no risk reduction at all as cases soar.

Why won't the government learn?

Reducing transmission is the only thing to prevent this. Sadly, we're not trying in schools - no money, no extra TAs, no small classes, no SD, no masks.

It HAS happened to children here of course, there just aren't any news articles about it...perhaps the data has not been made public?

It will continue to happen if we carry on pretending like it's only very poorly and very old people who get very ill from COVID. The NHS unfortunately cannot protect children from the impact that losing a parent at a young age will have, no.

@Whatshouldicallme

The vast, vast majority of COVID deaths occur in people who are over the age of 80 with underlying health conditions.

Of course there are unfortunately a very small number deaths in other age groups but this is no different to other diseases.

And do you think it will happen here
Unlikely. Most of these deaths happened in the first wave when NYS was hit early and very hard. We do have some interventions in place now to prevent a similar situation, albeit far from perfect.

The vast, vast majority of COVID deaths occur in people who are over the age of 80 with underlying health conditions.

Do the vast, vast majority of these New York health workers look over 80 to you?

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/15/nurses-surgeons-janitors-first-us-health-workers-to-die-covid-19

How about them?

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/29/us-healthcare-workers-who-died-from-covid-19-nurses-security-guards-technicians-transporters

@IloveJKRowling

Tragic, and yet we're sending schools back with no risk reduction at all as cases soar.

Why won't the government learn?

Reducing transmission is the only thing to prevent this. Sadly, we're not trying in schools - no money, no extra TAs, no small classes, no SD, no masks.

Exactly this.

Gosh. That is what terrifies me. Im higher risk and having to live with the cognitive dissonance of sending kids to school/to friends houses when it could kill me and leave them without a mum.

[quote Ecosse]@Whatshouldicallme

The vast, vast majority of COVID deaths occur in people who are over the age of 80 with underlying health conditions.

Of course there are unfortunately a very small number deaths in other age groups but this is no different to other diseases.[/quote]
Interesting wording.
Deaths in "other" age group are unfortunate.
Are the vast majority of deaths not unfortunate?
I'm sure you didn't mean to be ageist and dismissive of the elderly.

[quote cbt944]The vast, vast majority of COVID deaths occur in people who are over the age of 80 with underlying health conditions.

Do the vast, vast majority of these New York health workers look over 80 to you?

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/15/nurses-surgeons-janitors-first-us-health-workers-to-die-covid-19[/quote]
That's awfully sad but still doesn't stop the fact the majority of deaths are in the over 80s.

True that that figure won't equate to 4,300 dead parents, but I wonder how many of those kids have lost a single, only parent? Likely disproportionate number because of deprivation, higher risk public facing jobs etc.

@TheSeedsOfADream

Clearly any death is unfortunate. But I think it’s important to challenge this scaremongering that some seem to indulge in promoting the idea that COVID is a death sentence.

The vast majority of people are at extremely low risk of death or serious illness from this virus and that message should be shouted from the rooftops.

So far there have been 3310 male deaths from covid and 1732 deaths in the age range 45-64yo. Making a total of 5042 in that age range.*

I'm in that age range (with 3 dc) and most of my friends with children are also in that age range, so I think there's a good chance that a fair number of those are parents, and probably a number have more than one child. So it could easily be that sort of number of children have already lost a parent to Covid in England and Wales.

Source of data:
Figure 3

The vast vast majority of those 5000 people in the 45-64 category would have had underlying health conditions @Witchend.

People under 80 without underlying conditions have far mor exchange of dying in a car or domestic accident than being killed by COVID in a year.

Obesity is a significant issue in America, even more so than it is over here. Many of the people in the above links are over 40 and obviously overweight which I would guess hampered their chances of survival significantly.

[quote Ecosse]@TheSeedsOfADream

Clearly any death is unfortunate. But I think it’s important to challenge this scaremongering that some seem to indulge in promoting the idea that COVID is a death sentence.

The vast majority of people are at extremely low risk of death or serious illness from this virus and that message should be shouted from the rooftops.[/quote]
I totally agree with this. But you're speaking to the wrong crowd on here, @Ecosse. Lots of posters love the scaremongering, the awfulness of it all and just won't believe anything positive.

Okay guys.

So the deaths are disproportionately likely to be for people who are

• elderly
• Black or Hispanic
• BMI over 35
• have other conditions

So are some of you suggesting that these deaths don't matter very much because either you don't think these people are very important?

or you don't fall into these groups so, well, who cares?

Because this is how some of these responses are reading.

And actually, if we don't properly protect schools, and teachers in schools, this is the message that is being conveyed.

That as a country we don't much care about the safety of teachers or children or vulnerable families.

Most of them will survive and those that don't are acceptable collateral damage.

Myself, I think this is a disgusting attitude.

@BrazenlyDefying

So what is the positive side to 4,200 children losing their parents? Please do explain, as the upside of this escapes me.

I don't get the "But the majority of them would have health conditions" line.

Surely most people will have lots of friends with "health conditions"? Probably more than you know will have asthma or diabetes or high blood pressure. Probably a few are overweight. I hate this "othering" of health conditions.

You may well not personally mix with people over 80 so pretty sure you're not directly passing it on that way. But on the school run I'd imagine a fair proportion of parents have health conditions...

Chilling. This really worries me, that I may leave mine to fence for herself.
At least in UK you have the NHS and welfare, to help in these situations. Some of the documentaries about US proverty in some big cities is scary. People who are working, yet homeless as they cannot afford any sort of accomodation.

@herecomesthsun

No one is suggesting that deaths don’t matter. But people die all the time from all sorts of things- we just don’t have a daily broadcast of them.

We know exactly which groups are at risk from this virus. Personally I would reintroduce shielding on a voluntary basis to protect these groups.

Obviously there isn't a positive, happy clappy side to any death.

But as others have said you have to put any figures in context. Size of the population, total number of families affected, age of the parents, underlying conditions.

There was none of that in the OP - it was all designed to stoke fear and scaremonger.

And actually, if we don't properly protect schools, and teachers in schools, this is the message that is being conveyed.That as a country we don't much care about the safety of teachers or children or vulnerable families.

I think it's pretty clear that as a country we don't care about this. Actions speak louder than words. Rather than continuing to sink money into test and trace and making a profit for Serco we could have employed more TAs, used community spaces, etc etc etc.

It's not the child's fault if their parents had a high BMI FFS or if they're diabetic or with any other underlying condition. They're still bereaved regardless.

Opening schools as we have in the UK is utter madness.

Putting it in context:

In a pandemic it is likely that some children will be bereaved.

If we open schools without mitigation measures (as in pretty much every other country in the world) there will be a large number of AVOIDABLE child bereavements.

This is the issue.

There isn't the excuse now that we don't know what works. The scientific consensus is clear:
Small class sizes, masks, social distancing, use of community space, blended learning where none of this possible, excellent and timely test and trace. Fund schools to do this.

WE have none of this. So the AVOIDABLE deaths will be huge and disruption to education will be far worse than in other countries with proper mitigation in place (Italy, S Korea, pretty much anywhere to be fair).