As the latest COVID-19 surge has continued, so has the surge in overreactions to the coronavirus. Balancing risk with other factors is apparently still not tolerated, at least when it comes to children.
The latest example of this is Eatonville High School in Washington state. Until recently suspending the practice, the school was using wrist or ankle monitors during practices for contact tracing for students playing football, volleyball, soccer, basketball, and wrestling.
Naturally, news that their children were being forced to wear wrist or ankle monitors drew some backlash from parents, some of whom say they were not consulted about the decision.
This was clearly an overreaction by Eatonville, based on a general overreaction to COVID-19 among children. The monitors had limited utility when being worn only in practices, which allows them to quarantine close contacts only among the athletes who are practicing on a given day. The policy doesn’t account for the classes that students are attending, and, more importantly, all athletes were required to wear them even if they are vaccinated. It was another unnecessary intrusion.
Eatonville is in Pierce County, which has vaccinated 62% of residents over the age of 12. Pierce County, which has a population of over 900,000, has seen 27 COVID-19 deaths over the past two weeks.
Even if “community spread” were an issue, high school students are simply not at serious risk from COVID-19. Out of a population of roughly 73 million children in the United States, a total of 3,649 (roughly 0.0049%) have been hospitalized, and 385 have died from COVID-19. The risk is far lower for children between the ages of 12-17 who have been vaccinated, another point that Eatonville’s policy didn’t account for.
There is a recent surge in hospitalizations (and a somewhat smaller surge in deaths) due to COVID-19 over the past few weeks. But that surge is almost entirely due to unvaccinated adults. Just as forcing 7-year-olds to wear masks to go to school is an absurd policy that doesn’t address the problem, neither does forcing high school athletes to wear ankle monitors during practices. Some perspective on risk management would be greatly appreciated after 17 months (and counting) of COVID-19 restrictions.
