On Sunday, July 19, Inweekly had The Political Matrix poll 1,000 parents which children in Escambia County public schools. Â Nearly two-thirds of them are uncomfortable about Superintendent Malcolm Thomas opening the schools next month.
| Total | % | |
| Extremely Comfortable | 188 | 18.8% |
| Very Comfortable | 88 | 8.8% |
| Comfortable | 84 | 8.4% |
| 360 | 36.0% | |
| Uncomfortable | 182 | 18.2% |
| Very Uncomfortable | 170 | 17.0% |
| Extremely Uncomfortable | 288 | 28.8% |
| 640 | 64.0% |
Mobile County, Ala, has moved to opening its school to Sept. 1st and will hold classes online for the first nine weeks. The poll found that 59.2% of the parents would prefer following Mobile’s lead and delay reopening to September. Â Only 30.7% want them to open in August.
| Total | % | |
| Moving Opening to 9/1 | 592 | 59.2% |
| Opening in August | 307 | 30.7% |
| Undecided | 101 | 10.1% |
The majority felt schools should require students to wear face masks.
| Total | % | |
| Yes | 657 | 65.7% |
| No | 247 | 24.7% |
| Undecided | 96 | 9.6% |
Only  about 40% were satisfied with the information the district has supplied them on reopening.
| Total | % | |
| Extremely Satisfied | 134 | 13.4% |
| Very Satisfied | 101 | 10.1% |
| Satisfied | 157 | 15.7% |
| 392 | 39.2% | |
| Unsatisfied | 219 | 21.9% |
| Very Unsatisfied | 137 | 13.7% |
| Extremely Unsatisfied | 196 | 19.6% |
| 552 | 55.2% | |
|
Heard anything from them
|
56 | 5.6% |
METHODOLOGY
The persons sampled were Escambia County likely voters with a voting score of 85% for the general election cycles. The voters called were those only with landlines and were called using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system during the hours of 4-8 p.m. on July 19. The Margin of Error for this study is +/- 4.5% with a confidence level of 95%.
I do not have any children in school therefore I will not have to make a choice but If I did, I would never put my children in the situation of getting sick. or bringing that virus to the family.
I realize that families that need to work will have no options and my heart goes out to them. I I will pray for their children and their families.
And meanwhile there is mounting evidence that the rate of covid transmission is *higher* in younger people–which the 33% rate in Florida (prior to the DOH jumping in to do their data manipulation) and the 50% rate in Escambia County certainly bear out.
Thankfully there are medical experts putting out proper epidemiological analysis. The following study in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal appears on the CDC website:
“Contact Tracing during Coronavirus Disease Outbreak, South Korea, 2020”
Young Joon Park1, Young June Choe1, Ok Park et al
“We showed that household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was high if the index patient was 10–19 years of age. ”
“the highest COVID-19 rate (18.6% [95% CI 14.0%–24.0%]) for household contacts of school-aged children and the lowest (5.3% [95% CI 1.3%–13.7%]) for household contacts of children 0–9 years in the middle of school closure. Despite closure of their schools, these children might have interacted with each other, although we do not have data to support that hypothesis. A contact survey in Wuhan and Shanghai, China, showed that school closure and social distancing significantly reduced the rate of COVID-19 among contacts of school-aged children (8). ”
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-1315_article
We need to delay our school opening.