Covid-19: American Acceptionalism

Yup, that's exactly how my GF and I see it.

 

I wish our teachers shared your views. Our school is k-8, 45-50 kids per grade split into 2 classrooms per grade. 5-8 is the “middle” school. Those kids have lockers and rotate between science, math, English, and social studies throughout the day. They plan to continue to rotate them so they can use “specialized labs” in each class. Which tells me all I need to know re: their approach. It’s obviously in person based with tweaks to make it virtual friendly rather than the other way around. It’s also colossally dumb as kids will be forced to spend time choreographing complex room and locker changes. They’re bringing 4-6 different sets of infection spreading middle schoolers into each classroom every day. A group of us offered to donate for the construction of two wired and covered (but not enclosed) classrooms in the parking lot. Think permanent outdoor beer garden with a hard roof to protect against rain like the attached photo (sans the drunken soccer fans). We know the folks who built this and how much it would run.

 

This is the first day of school in Paulding County, Georgia.

 

I also just don't understand the need to rush. Granted, I may have a skewed perspective, but all four of my grandparents put their lives on hold for 5+ years during WWII and the world didn't stop spinning. I spent over a year as a refugee, and while I did go to school, it was definitely a curtailed educational experience. In high school I was a near straight-A student, though, so the effects weren't lasting. Let the kids play Minecraft or whatever until we develop a vaccine. Fvck it.

 

This whole thing has made me realize:

I'm lucky to not have kids. I'm also lucky that while I have a gf, I live alone at the moment.

I'm also supremely jealous of my sister right now. She has complete freedom from work, only has to check her phone every now and then. Meanwhile, I still have to get work done. While I'm grateful to be employed, I have a ton of books and video games I'd like to get to.

Ah well.

 

Dutch infections going up fast:
https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/aantal...88-nieuwe-gevallen-in-een-week-tijd~ab0dfaf4/


2588 new cases in a week, compared to the firts week of June with 432.
Percentage of positive tests also went up from 1.1 % in the week of July 20th to 2.3 % last week.

Flashpoints are Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Overwhelming majority of the new infections are youngsters, but the ones taken to hospital are 60+ yo.

To curb the spread the Rotterdam and Amsterdam burgomasters impose mask wearing in busy parts of the city. That could become a major issue as judicial scholars warn it's against the constitution and against the European Human Rights and thus probably will be defeated in court. The only way it could stand is when the mask wearing is being put into a law. The burgomasters use a tool they have, a kind of local state of emergency, but that can only stand if the measures are effective and efficient. Given the opposite opinions by experts that's going to be a hard case to make.

 

????
It's posted here.
It's a link to an article.
It's available on pbs, TMZ, truthorfiction, and probably some others I don't know about.

Your statement isn't really clear about whether this is official BigSoccer policy or your personal position. If it's the former, then announcing the latter isn't necessary, as you have the option of getting it removed. If it's the latter... well, everybody's got one, as they say.

I shared the image itself on my own FB page this morning as a "Caption this!" contest. It came from some news source or another, and can be found on Google very easily. If Snopes gives it a thumbs-down, I'll remove it from my page.

 

Just saw an interview with Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the NIH ( Dr. Fauci's boss) on the current state of the fight against Covid-19.

I will list some of the highlights for you all but watch the interview if at all interested in the topics he covers.

Dr. Walter Isaacson is the interviewer.
- Leads with topic of the Russians developing their vaccine but skipping Phase III of the trials. He thinks that's a bad idea, obviously.

Vaccines.
- Vaccine trials on going. Each vaccine candidate will need about 30k volunteers for Phase III. Looking to find many volunteers in most vulnerable populations.
- Messenger RNA vaccines trials are being backed by the NIH. This particular method has never been successfully developed to completion but they are hoping this works as it has the great advantage of a fast build of the vaccine and deployment. Pfizer is also working on their version of MRNA vaccine and currently launching Phase III.
- No Emergency Use Authorization will be forthcoming from the FDA unless there's a compelling result in the trials. It is too risky to rush the vaccines to market.

Treatments.
- Dexamethrozone (sp.? it's a steroid) and Remdesivir have shown good outcomes in treating very ill patients with the virus in the studies being done.
- Convalescent Plasma studies are also being done and hopefully will yield some results.
-Monochloral (sp.?) Antibodies studies are also starting shortly. These are developed by a process of taking antibodies and "purifying" them and creating a solution that can be given to infected.

Other issues.
- Gives his opinion on School openings. Pretty much thinks as most of us also do, that they should be dependent on local conditions being favorable.
- Testing. Labs are backed up due to many different issues. He is hoping Point of Care testing will be available soon - possibly as soon as September. Seven companies are currently developing candidates. NIH is investing $250m to speed up the process,
- Why the bad outbreak in the US? His answer is we didn't follow the CDC guidelines and opened up too early. Obvious.
- Finally, a message for people of faith as he himself is. Really, some lovely thoughts on this, even for those that are not spiritual.

Please forgive any errors or misspellings, I took quick notes.

 

All this is well and good but I'll wait for Trump's take on this!

 

Whatever idea we had that this was going to be seasonal is gone. It doesn't seem to have any particular weakness to heat like the flu and it doesn't need humans bundled together indoors for extended periods to spread well. It spreads at any unprotected contact, slowly and then quickly whenever it gets a chance. And kids all over the world keep giving it that chance. Unless a nation has absolute control over the spread and over people's movements over borders, this will always be around and will flare up at any time.

 

If they'll do it to their own kids, they're sure as shit do it to anybody else. Teachers need to quit. Period.
You know things are bad when child labor laws offer more protection than the educational system. This is a coalmine without a canary.

 

Maybe I've just missed it, but why are Teachers' unions not speaking up more? I was under the impression they were pretty strong in many parts of the US (I could be totally mistaken of course).

 

The Australian state of Queensland has declared the whole of NSW and the ACT to be a Covid 19 hot spot which means borders are closed to all people who have spent time in those areas within the last 14 days. Qld residents returning after 1AM saturday from those new hot spots will need to quarantine for 14 days. There are some limited exemptions. NSW currently has around 15 new infections a day (mostly in Sydney which was already a hot spot). There are state elections in QLD in October which I strongly suspect was a significant driver in the decision.

Question for US citizens: Would closing the border in your state in the lead up to an election be seen as a plus or a minus for the leader that did it?

 

Teachers are people with political leanings, just like ditch diggers or dentists or drawbridge operators. Their unions are gonna reflect the values (or lack thereof) of the state they teach in. There's no reason to expect that a teacher in a red state would refuse to place him or herself in danger of contracting a virus if the president s/he voted for says it's a hoax and wants them in the classroom.

 

A-governors can’t close borders. Edit: there’s case law to support it, but irrespective of constituent support, there would be huge political fallout from outside the state. At least with the current admin and probably with just about any.
B-it would be viewed negatively in probably 90% of the states.

It’s also not particularly feasible here as many of our large metros are on state borders. Take my current state of Missouri (pop 6 million). St Louis is in the eastern side of the state (2.8 million), but downtown is on a river overlooking Illinois and 800k of STL’s 2.8 million live in IL. It takes me about 9 minutes to get to IL and I can see it from my street about 10 blocks east. It’s the same thing on the western side of the state with Kansas City. There are a lot of essential workers who live on the other side of the border from where they work. Same thing with DC, Maryland and Virginia. Or NYC and New Jersey and Connecticut. Or Chicago and Indiana.

 

Here's another COVID obit:

 

At least 450,000 of the 1.6 million people who commute into New York City every day commute from neighboring states.

And I think it's unconstitutional to stop people from traveling between and through states.

 

On the interwebz:

1290670194046558212 is not a valid tweet id

 

Oh dear...

Even though some of those slots were denied for first responders and the hospital’s own doctors, Gov. Kevin Stitt’s parents were given same-day appointments following Stitt's positive test results, according to documents reviewed by The Frontier.https://t.co/fWht51NEjz

— The Frontier (@readfrontier) August 5, 2020

 

As I've said previously, I have two small kids. One was to return to daycare, and the other was supposed to enter this year. I do not want to send them back, so long as my wife continues to be laid off, but I still have deep reservations about them going there. I'm very glad that I don't have to make the incredibly difficult decision about whether to send a 6 year old to school or do virtual learning especially because my kids don't know how to use technology. We never let them have it before.

While you consider yourself lucky in that sense, I consider myself lucky that I'm getting time with my kids that I normally wouldn't. On a typical day, I'm leaving at 6:15 am and getting home around 6:30 pm. When I walk in the door, it's time to eat dinner, and then I have about an hour with my kids before it's time to settle them in for bed. This is the best I can hope for since some days see me driving to North Jersey and DC which may or may not allow me to make it home by bedtime, and also making trips by plane taking me away from my family completely. Now, I start work at home at 7am, my son comes up to greet me and get a morning hug shortly thereafter. When I stop down for lunch, my daughter gets super excited to see me, and then I have lunch with my kids, then 3 days out of the week my son joins me in the room where I'm working, so he can play soccer or play with his cars and blocks. He enjoys popping up behind me secretly during video calls, pretending no one can see him. Lately, I've been putting soccer games on and he'll pretend he's one of the teams and he'll kick the ball around. I've gotten pretty good at curling free kicks with a mini soccer ball while sitting at my desk. I wrap up work at 4:30 and the rest of my day is spent playing with kids or going for walks.

I'm not happy with the pandemic, but without it, I wouldn't have this time with them. I'm getting 3 hours back that I normally wouldn't have, plus I'm able to stay up later since I don't have to be up so early, so it's more like 4+ hours. I wouldn't have time for reading. I wouldn't have time for Football Manager. I wouldn't have time to fix the broken shit in my old house. I wouldn't have time to work on my Spanish exercises that I've been working on since 6th grade when I first wanted to learn it. (Hablo espanol mucho mejor ahora!) Grateful is probably the wrong word, but I'm certainly trying to make the most of what I've been given.

I don't know how long this is going to last, but I'm definitely going to miss this time being home when this is all said done. I wish it hadn't taken a pandemic to make it happen.

 

You could always get a new job.

 

Well that's an awesome silver lining story, Kensington. My son came back in mid-March when his school shut down, and he's just an interesting kid. As a young lad on the spectrum, he had to struggle with learning the art of conversation and other social niceties, but man, did he inculcate them. Him leaving the house left a much bigger black hole than when his sister preceded him.

On a related note, my wife's side of the family has instituted regular zoom calls every other week. While we didn't have the regular family reunion in May, we have, by this measure, talked much more in depth than we would if we were socializing over double-ender, three bean salad, BBQ, and cheese tato topper.