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why are they not requiring all students teachers and all other family members be tested before sending the child to school

5 million students in Texas schools, and another half-million or so teachers, administrators, and staffers.  Pretty sure we don't have anywhere near the testing capability for that.

If "we" are not willing to modify behaviors to limit spread, why are the numbers turning down?

The theories for this have been:

1.  The numbers scared people into limiting contact and wearing masks etc. (modifying behaviors);
2.  Additional government restrictions (in some states);
3.  Some kind of resistance in a sizeable percentage of the population so we hit herd immunity early.
4.  The virus has changed somehow.
5.  Something unknown.
6.  Some combination of the above.

If you get the numbers low enough, you should be able to manage the spread with testing and contact tracing. If you then allowed some kids to come back (keeping distance learning as an option for the others) and those kids physically distanced and wore masks, maybe it wouldn't explode.

My point was that Americans have decided they're just going to live with this thing, and they aren't going to limit their own behavior to reduce the spread. Which means you'll never get the numbers that low. So we're probably stuck waiting for a vaccine.

Yeah again, I think you're talking in generalities and this is very much a regional issue.

In Austin and other major Texas cities, the numbers for hospitalizations/ICU/vents have been on a decline since around 7/21. This is being labeled as a result of bars closing down again, mandatory mask-use directives in place in those major cities (and a few weeks later, across the entire state), and a general return to more strict distancing and less risky behavior.

But that's not going to change the fact that if you're concerned about child-to-adult transmission, then you're not going to believe the schools are any safer 6 months from now, than you currently do, because along with the belief I always see the "children are nothing but little petri dishes and it's bound to spread in schools" type of comments.  Which is true in general, but it seems to NOT actually be all that true with this particular virus. 

My family went on vacation in Michigan last week.  We stayed in Grand Haven but spent time in places like South Haven, Holland and Saugatuck.  Outside, most people did not wear masks.  Inside, everyone had a mask.  Most towns converted streets into one ways so restaurants could expand outdoor seating.  There were no scenes... no complaints... everyone just adjusted and tried to give each other space. 

I have no idea if I've had COVID or not... I do know, I would feel 10x more confident in not getting it in Michigan vs Missouri.  Each community is setting there own rules which has led locals to do their own thing most of the time. 

even though Mich has a death rate 3 times higher then Mo

If "we" are not willing to modify behaviors to limit spread, why are the numbers turning down?

The theories for this have been:

1.  The numbers scared people into limiting contact and wearing masks etc. (modifying behaviors);
2.  Additional government restrictions (in some states);
3.  Some kind of resistance in a sizeable percentage of the population so we hit herd immunity early.
4.  The virus has changed somehow.
5.  Something unknown.
6.  Some combination of the above.

I do think people are modifying behaviors. I don't think they're modifying behaviors NEARLY enough to get the numbers down to the sorts of levels seen in Europe or Asia where you'd call the levels very low. I honestly doubt it's possible to get numbers that low without continued lockdowns, which we don't have the stomach for at this point. 

Even then, it's questionable whether that's a good strategy. We haven't seen what will happen in Europe now that they're reopening, and what will happen when their kids go to school. Maybe they'll have a second wave and all that lockdown would have been for naught because I doubt they'll get that genie back in the bottle once they've opened.

As I've said, it's all about R0... And when it comes to behavior, this popular chart is pretty solid:




If people go out to a bar or brunch with someone not from their household and takes their mask off to eat/drink, you're immediately at "highest". If people go to a salon and get a haircut or get nails done, and both are masked, you're at "low" but still nonzero risk because you can't realistically distance. If you go out to the grocery store and everyone is masked and trying to stay far apart, you still have nonzero risk but it's very low.

The bottom is "practically none". If we all could do that, we could knock R0 down to basically zero and crush this virus. But we can't and won't all do that. Some people simply HAVE to be out of the house for work, and we won't accept a lockdown of that severity because of how severely even the limited lockdowns we have affected our freedoms. 

So behavior modification might bring down new case rates. It might even get R0 below 1, for a while, until people start getting lax in their behavior again. But R0=0.9 isn't going to get us down to case rates where testing and contact tracing would be sufficient within an acceptable timeline to get kids into school, and the minute we start seeing case rates dropping we'll likely see behavior change and R0 go back above 1 for a while. 

in Detroit

Detroit is by far the highest so if youre gonna exclude it then you have to exclude the St Louis area as well 

fine, Entropy wasn't vacationing in big cities

well I think you need to do at least 3 work sheets of analysis on this in the spirit of this thread