In 2001, conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist, a former ally of Ronald Reagan and small government proponents, famously said, “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
Well, the pandemic may have achieved that goal.
Here in the Northeast, we have been faithful mask-wearers and social distancers. As a result, we have been rewarded with a low infection rate, and life is slowly going back to normal-ish. Sure, we still wear masks everywhere, but we are going everywhere, and businesses are back in operation.
In the past few weeks, I have gone to physical therapy. I have taken Ian to a pile of doctor’s appointments – blood testing center, ENT, neurologist. Jonah has gone to the dentist and pediatrician. All those medical professionals are back to work within inches of other human beings.
We have had a pile of workers in the house to repair the water-damaged family room. Painters, an electrician, a plumber, the contractor have all been working hard downstairs.
We have gone out to dinner. Last night, I had a marvelous meal for my birthday. Before that, I got dolled up at the beauty salon and the nail salon for the first time since February. Restaurant staff, nail lady, and hair cutter – all back to work.
We refinanced our mortgage this week. So, Steve went down to the bank to move money around; bankers were back to business. The notary-lady sat in our living room – with a mask, mind you – and we signed a pile of paperwork. A chatty woman, she stayed much longer than necessary to tell us about her career and weight-loss regime.
I tell you this for three reasons. One is to point out that with proper precautions, we can still work and live through this pandemic, even before a vaccine happens. Two is to point out that a whole lot of people, not just those deemed to be “essential” workers, are back to work. And three is to tell you what they’ve been telling me.
Oh my. I’m hearing stories. And not good ones.
This pandemic has been very cruel on people who live on the margins of society. Those people rely on government programs for survival, and those government offices have been shuttered since March. I’ll share a couple of two horrible stories.
My physical therapist has a side gig working for Early Intervention. Early Intervention is a state program that identifies children under the age of three who have disabilities and then provides them with therapy until the age of three, when the school district takes over. Years ago, they diagnosed Ian with a speech delay at age 2-1/2 and provided him with therapy three days a week.
Early Invention hasn’t functioned since March. So that means there are kids — some with extremely rough versions of autism and behavioral issues — who have had no help for six months. All the research says that it is super important to do intensive work on children with neurological issues, while they are very young. Those kids might be permanently behind, because they’ve missed so much therapy. Families are trying to handle kids with behavior problems entirely on their own.
Older people aren’t getting the help they need either. I’m hearing stories about seniors who are completely neglected in bedbug ridden apartments, because social services hasn’t been there to check on them.
If schools stay shutdown this fall, then another major element of the government safety net won’t work. Again, the most vulnerable are going to be the poor and disabled. This is such a train wreck.
I’m not a huge fan of Bill deBlasio. I think he should have shutdown the city much earlier than he did. But I think he’s right to push for school to open up this fall, now that the rates are so low around here. Kids are going to die without schools.
I am extremely pessimistic about school openings this fall. Teachers are getting doctor’s notes to get out of in-person teaching. The plans for opening are very complicated and aren’t centered around education. If middle class parents give up and send their kids to private schools, they will NEVER go back and they will vote down every school tax budget.
There’s a sizable orthodox Jewish community in the New York/New Jersey area. They typically send their children to private schools, so when they move en masse to a particular community, they vote down all education tax bills for the public schools. They even run for school board positions, so they can more effectively cut funding to most public school programs, except special education, which they use. If middle class families leave the public system, this will happen everywhere. If they don’t use the public schools, they won’t fund them.
There is definitely a liberal case for reopening safely and ending the shutdown. I think we need to consider all options.
Apt. 11d 
There’s a good case, but the reopening is happening first in places where it mostly shouldn’t happen. Which is going to make it hard to stay open because of repeated reintroductions into other areas from areas where there is no control. Re-opening or not, the economy is still in lots of trouble.
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true and true.
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Yes, it’s so different in different places. I was looking at the NYT article this morning on excess deaths. The northeast has had a horrifying experience, enough to keep everyone (or enough people) sensible about masks and distancing, and has had a months-long low level of infection.
Here in the rural midwest, we have mixed compliance. Fabulous Teacher friend #1, who I’ve mentioned before, teaches in the college town public school district, where some people (including teacher friend #2, a recently appointed jr high vp, and TF#3, a grade school teacher) will support careful compliance, as will her principal. But it’s going to be a fight with some parents and students; not everybody is on board. And it is so politically charged, and our very small dot of blue (defined in city blocks!) is in a sea of red.
TF#4, who teaches in a much smaller and more rural district a ways away, has said there is zero compliance with/interest in masks and social distancing. Even though it’s the law, she knows that they will not enforce it or even consistently wear masks themselves. She is terrified to go back next week. TF#5 and TF#6, have taught there in the past but fortunately don’t have to go back. TF#7 – who subs a lot – will likely not do it this year because of his health concerns.
TF#8 runs the coordinated special ed program for several districts. He’s the one who is renting our church fellowship building either for teachers and students to work adequately spaced, or for teachers to use as their Zoom Home if school has to be cancelled.
It really is not only a region-by-region problem to solve, but a fine-grained problem in every single district. So I believe your analysis of NYC and NJ, but it’s so dependent on the curve and the culture.
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The Midwest, or a portion of it, has discovered and actively embraced performative assholeism.
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I think that we should open schools if it can be done safely (and not only if it I can be done with no risk).
But drawing from your article on Elizabeth, it is entirely possible (even likely) that 10% of Elizabeth’s teaching force has conditions that mean that they are at high risk for COVID (375/3900 union). For example, the CDC reports that nearly 1/2 of adults have hypertension and are taking medications and that 1/4 do not have their hypertension under control. With that criterion alone, nearly 1000 of Elizabeth’s teachers might be reasonably expected not to teach in the classroom (and I’m using 25%, not 50%, and that doesn’t include other conditions, like diabetes).
(And, doctors shouldn’t be giving notes without evidence — if they are, they are not doing their job. But the numbers you are citing do not suggest that teachers are asking for notes without underlying conditions, or that doctors are giving them).
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bj said, “But drawing from your article on Elizabeth, it is entirely possible (even likely) that 10% of Elizabeth’s teaching force has conditions that mean that they are at high risk for COVID (375/3900 union).”
A whole lot of NE teachers have already had COVID. I don’t know what the current estimate is, but I’ve seen as high as 25% for NYC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/roughly-25percent-of-new-york-city-has-probably-been-infected-with-coronavirus-dr-scott-gottlieb-says.html
At a minimum, the teachers, workers and kids who have had COVID can safely go back to school.
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Can go back to school for maybe up to 3 months.
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In NYC, the Dept of Education reported that approximately 15% of teacher requested to be virtual only. This was less than the 20% they had projected.
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On the other hand, NJ is an example of a US region that is doing well and where the coronavirus conditions are reaching the levels that makes it reasonable to open (2.5% positivity, cases staying stable, 58 cases/14 days/100K population (statewide, county wide, Cumberland, Gloucester, Salem, Camden, and Passaic are problematic. I don’t know where those counties are, but I’d be keeping track of them ).
And, if conditions are safe enough, opening what they can (K-5, special ed, far from educational justice) if they cannot find sufficient staff seems like the right solution.
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Those counties either have large urban centers or more Trump types. Southern Jersey is a problem.
To be fair, people in NJ took the shutdown to extreme lengths. We barely left the house for months. I know some people who are only just now going to the supermarket once per week. But it worked. I’m happy that we did it. Wish everyone would follow the same script.
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I went to Stop and Shop yesterday for the first time since March 13. It was my husband’s birthday, and I wanted to get him an ice cream cake (traditional birthday food here). I couldn’t exactly have him do that. 😀
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I got sent to pick up my birthday cake.
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WA state (and especially Western Washington) did the same but we still experienced a resurgence in mid June. I think complacency with an air-spread virus (and with community spread) is dangerous. The virus has been insidious, and we are not going to be “done” with it (anywhere, including in island nations) for a while. NJ & NY might experience different resurgences as they open up (masking may play a role, as well as a greater number of people who were already exposed) but presuming the virus isn’t there is a bad public health plan. People and governments need to have a plan for resurgence (everywhere, including in island nations).
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Yeah, we’re preparing for resurgence. My plan is to eat to the bottom of the pantry by the end of August, and then do a massive shopping spree to bulk up again. I am seriously rethinking our home setup, so it’s maxed out for work/school usage. I’m hoping to get one more haircut in before things shut down again, but this one should last 3 months.
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I will plan on inventorying our pantry when you restock :-). It can add a marker to my calendar. I have also been considering the revamping of our spaces based on everyone being here all the time. I think everyone has to have a comfortable space to be alone to work, but also to retreat and rest. We have underused spaces in our house because people (except me) spent so much time outside of the house that when they were home, everyone wanted to be in the common spaces.
I’m not up for any serious remodeling, though, so mostly my planning is expanding the usability of outdoor spaces and under-used spaces by cleaning clutter & adding usable furniture.
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And, all the institutions need transparent policies in place about what happens in case of a coronavirus detection. Who is informed? Who is advised to quarantine? Who should be tested?
As people step out in our neck of the woods (where I hope we are seeing cases trend downward again to the point where we might say we have control), we’re encountering contacts. Our local (outdoor) pool has been open for distanced lap swimming. A staff member (a lifeguard, we believe) tested positive at the beginning of this week. The pool has been closed (temporarily, potentially, but, since this will happen again, they nee a policy). Another family I know has been having a child participate in gymnastics (we don’t know the details) and the coach tested positive last week. The family has all been tested. Are they required to quarantine? What if the child has a fever?
And, I’m using the word “required” but what enforcement will we engage in, as well?
Kiddo has a friend in Melbourne and she says she encountered an anonymous ask page in which a teen said “my boyfriend is being bad, not following the coronavirus rules. Should I break up with him? Should I report him?” Kiddo was surprised that the overwhelming advice was “Call the police!!” “Report him!!!”. She doesn’t think that would have been the advice in our neck of the woods (and we are in a blue area where there is high compliance).
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Intrigued at the idea that life getting back to “normalish”. There are probably people behaving that way in our neck of the woods (which is not doing as well as the NE, but is doing pretty well and getting better, hopefully). But, I am certainly too risk averse to feel that way. I don’t know when I’m going to be willing to eat in a restaurant (but it is not yet). I do worry that my “not yet” will become a habit, rather than a real risk assessment. A big part of the decision is that if I am worried, it wouldn’t be fun, which is the goal. I do like to eat in restaurants, so unlike some activities (hair cuts, nail salons, gyms) I do desire to go out to eat.
We have been 1) ordering out 2) having our house cleaned 3) letting kids hang out (outside, distanced, masked, but we are not watching), 4) lap swimming (until the pool closed). I’m considering letting the teen living at home drive a friend in his car, but haven’t had that one happen yet. The kid not living at home has been driving with friends.
I think that how the rules interact with personal risk assessment and reward and the lack of official guidance is having an effect on experiences. I really want to see our caseloads decrease to the point that I feel that the virus is “in control.” But, I fear that isn’t going to happen (at all). Others are comfortable taking more personal risk and thus feel that things are normalish.
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The big thing that isn’t going to go back to normal soon and that’s tanking huge parts of the economy is business/conference travel. The money I used to see spent on that and don’t see now was tremendous. Drunk young people can keep bars going, tasteless fools watching Smashmouth can boost rural South Dakota, but from what I can see, the people who keep the airlines, hotels, and expense-account restaurants going have decided to stay home for the duration. Or stay at their cabin.
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bj said, “A big part of the decision is that if I am worried, it wouldn’t be fun, which is the goal.”
I mostly feel the same way, that if I have to wear a mask while doing it, it better be something I have to do, or at least it shouldn’t be something that takes a long time. I am thinking of hitting the kids’ clothing store and the downtown independent bookstore once school starts, but these wouldn’t be long visits. I haven’t “gone shopping” any place but the grocery in 5 months.
We haven’t dined in in 5 months and we’ve doing home haircuts for the past 5 months. My husband does a more than adequate job on my bangs and he and our son cut each others’ hair.
I just found out that there are going to be 16 kids in our youngest’s 2nd grade class. 10 kids will be in the classroom and 6 will be remote. Class starts next week. In the upper school, the kids are not supposed to have drinking bottles in classrooms, because they’re not supposed to remove their masks. They’re supposed to keep a bottle in their locker and can ask to be excused to have a drink. (They don’t want the kids going to their lockers en masse between classes.) Likewise, the drinking fountains are being switched to bottle-fill only.
“I think that how the rules interact with personal risk assessment and reward and the lack of official guidance is having an effect on experiences. I really want to see our caseloads decrease to the point that I feel that the virus is “in control.” But, I fear that isn’t going to happen (at all). Others are comfortable taking more personal risk and thus feel that things are normalish.”
I think a lot of the problem is that people’s intuitions or their situations aren’t going to line up perfectly. I think it’s practically impossible to find people in real life whose “rules” are identical to yours. For example, my good friend is way more worried about campus food and drive thrus than we are. On the other hand, her family has gone on two big road trips, whereas I haven’t been more than 20 minutes from home in 5 months. I even run into similar issues with my husband, where we have different risk intuitions. So it’s easy for both parties to look like crazy risk-takers to the other party. And nobody really “knows” at this point what is and isn’t riskier–it’s all guess work.
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“So it’s easy for both parties to look like crazy risk-takers to the other party. And nobody really “knows” at this point what is and isn’t riskier–it’s all guess work.”
Yes, this is definitely true. Distance, both short range (6 feet, 12 feet, . . .) and long range (trips), numbers of people, contacts (food, doors, swimming pools, benches), people (numbers, but also particular people), . . . . It is guess work, but, we do have to make decisions based on that guess work, and in spite of having imperfect knowledge. You are pointing out the problem in having everyone make their own individual decision, without relying on those who have better (if still imperfect) knowledge. If we had stricter guidance, we would all be making more similar decisions (even if they were imperfect). Then, we might have more realistic assessments of risks. Might.
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bj said, “You are pointing out the problem in having everyone make their own individual decision, without relying on those who have better (if still imperfect) knowledge. If we had stricter guidance, we would all be making more similar decisions (even if they were imperfect). Then, we might have more realistic assessments of risks. Might.”
There have been so many revisions in the expert opinion over the last 6 months that a lot of people (including myself) are disenchanted with experts. In a constantly evolving novel situation, who is really an expert?
One thing I’m kind of bitter about is playgrounds. There were about two months this spring where we probably could have totally safely taken our 7-year-old to the playground rather than keeping her cooped up or taking endless walks, but a) we didn’t realize it at the time and b) the playgrounds were closed.
Ditto beaches, state parks, etc.
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Yeah, yesterday they said it was friday and today they say it’s saturday.
There is and continues to be poor messaging. But, in a constantly changing situation, the people who know about epidemiology, the immunologists, the virologists really do know more. They can’t be authoritarian experts and they shouldn’t be. But, they do know more than those of us without the expertise, even when we are in a novel situation. For example, I first learned about dengue and worse reactions on exposure is one of the worries that need to be considered about vaccines from someone who knows more than me.
We know there are at least two issues with the changing guidance on playgrounds: 1) crowds, which are still a problem and 2) the contact hazard (which people have become less concerned about).
My head will explode of New Zealand really concludes that the virus traveled there in freight. But, my head explodes a lot recently.
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The work NY has done to control the infection rate is what gives me the strength to send my kids to college there this fall. S is actually flying to MN tonight to drive back with a couple of friends. I had her check in to Southwest last night 2 hours after check-in started, and she was in the A group, so I am thinking that means her flight will not be crazy full. (In the past, if I was 15 minutes after check-in became available, I was in the mid-B group.)
Because of my hypertension, I could probably get all online classes, but as Honors director, I prefer to teach a section of Honors comp in the fall term, and all our first-year comp classes are on the ground. I’m going forward with that despite reservations. 😦 I am thinking of bringing a fan to campus so I can ventilate the classroom effectively.
Today is Aug 13, and I still do not have my daughter’s financial aid package. I just called and “a counselor has been assigned to review her application.” Argh.
It’s been 5 days since our weekend trip to visit with my family, and so today I have a cough and am convinced I caught the rona from them. In other news, the pollen count here is through the roof. I guess we’ll find out which one it is soon enough.
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Be careful with the fan and make sure you are using it in a way that reduces risk. A fan could blow virus around in a way that doesn’t help. I don’t have the right advice to offer, but maybe there are sources to look at.
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Oh yeah, not planning on flying anytime soon unless unavoidable.
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For those of us who are sending the kids to college, what’s your policy about returning home? No visits until Thanksgiving? Testing and then stay in the bedroom until the test comes back negative? We’re so close to Jonah’s school that we like him to visit often, so we can make sure that he’s eating properly and all that, but I don’t think that’s going to work next semester.
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I’m finding this one really hard. Kiddo is living by herself in a studio this summer (while remote interning). We have not been seeing her much. There have been a couple of car trips in which she has been driven by her dad and we have spent two days with her (helping her set up). But we are not seeing her as we would wish and she is not, for example, doing laundry in our house.
She has been keeping a log of her interactions (a good one). So, I sometimes decide whether something will be OK based on the log. But, it’s all arbitrary. And, she isn’t a partier and is quite risk averse and in spite of that I am not seeing her like I would choose.
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Jonah has been super responsible, too. He and his friends all got tested before and after a weekend trip together. But he’s going to be a high-rise dorm/apartment set up. He needs to go for his mental health. I am not even that worried about him, if should get sick, because he’s in tip-top health. But I don’t want him to infect me, who will infect my mom. We have to come up with some safety protocols, but haven’t developed them yet.
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I agonize over what to do with E if he gets sick or exposed. Meanwhile, my sister thinks it’s fine for him to go visit her and my niece (1 year older than him) on the weekends to play video games and hang out. I think she’s crazy (she has stage 4 cancer!), but then her husband works in a school so she’s living with risk all the time.
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One of the things that I worry about is that the flexibility to avoid risk (which our family has) becomes a determination and demand to avoid risk to the point where it might be counter productive. I think of the current thinking about childhood in the modern age, where risks are so low that we become fearful of taking any risks, including the risk of a skinned knee or a B.
I came up with a plan to deliver a car to my kid so that we could do a remote, distanced outing together. It was a little bit like the chicken/fox/river problem, as is a lot of my thinking around the virus. Except that there is exact no solution and the foxes only eat the chickens some (unpredictable) amount of the time.
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My daughter’s college in New York is doing everything they can to discourage visits to kids and kids leaving the area. And I’m all for it. I’m frustrated by the parents on the school’s Facebook page who are already talking about their kids coming home for various family weddings, etc. I feel like every new contact potentially puts all the kids and the school year at risk. I understand the frustration but these aren’t normal times.
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My college is having students sign a pledge not to leave the county until the semester is over. Penalties for violating this policy are pretty strict. We are located in a small remote rural county so the kids are likely going to be a bit stir crazy by the time late November comes around.
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Let me be the first to suggest drinking beer on isolated bridges. Worked for us.
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My work is reopened, but if it doesn’t change it’s not long-term $$ viable – the limits and spacing requirements are partly responsible (I don’t think masks are the reason although we require them) but there also are a lot of people who just haven’t come back yet. My staff all came back. I’m mostly working from home but have gone in to inspect and direct.
I saw one of our students who has special needs and spoke with his mum. His family has clearly been
I too am allowing outside playdates even when the kids aren’t fantastic about staying 6 ft apart, trying to fill up particularly my youngest child’s social well before the fall. I think we’re all treating these last few weeks before school starts here as the Golden Age before Next Plague. I’m not getting my hair done though, I’m aiming for a length that permits a messy greying bun. We had mostly given up eating out a few years ago but we have just had our first takeout since March (it was a child’s choice after allergy testing.)
For myself though I am exhausted. Work starting up means that I am working full time without childcare, as so many have been, and the nature of my work is a lot of emotional work – customers’ fears, staff needs – and although my husband is lovely, his work is nuts too and he feels like his job is our base, which is true, and he is at his desk seriously 12-4 hours a day to the point I am worried for his physical health, never mind mental. The last few days I’ve been up at 5 to get things done and also get my younger child outdoors biking with me knowing that if I don’t do it before 8:30 it’s not going to happen, and he does so much better with it.
I have that weird feeling like…we are lucky (we are) and should be joyful (not so much) and instead it’s just – tired tired tired. We don’t really have a break on the horizon. I know we’ll get through it but I do have that wish that things were better.
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My work is reopened, but if it doesn’t change it’s not long-term $$ viable – the limits and spacing requirements are partly responsible (I don’t think masks are the reason although we require them) but there also are a lot of people who just haven’t come back yet.
I’ve gone to shopping for necessities a couple times a week and takeaway, but with a few exceptions I haven’t done more than that. What might kill small businesses is that I pay close attention to the ones that enforce mask wearing by their employees and customers. Sometimes I will say something but sometimes I just leave. And when I leave those places it is for good. I’m not planning to go back even after the pandemic is over. So far, I haven’t had to write off anyplace that is completely irreplaceable. A deli I liked, the liquor store I favor, my favorite taqueria, some other places, but nothing that I can’t substitute for elsewhere.
I wish I could say that I hope their business model supports the loss of my commerce as well as anyone else who feels as I do, but the truth is that I don’t. I’m really indifferent as to whether they go under or not.
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That makes sense Jay and my behaviour is similar. My work is a Martial Arts academy (includes after-school care) so I think it’s less about our staff behaviour and more about how people are feeling about non-essential activities these days. We installed no-touch faucets and hand sanitizers, reduced our schedule, reduced class sizes to maintain 6ft distancing, we don’t have any contact between ourselves and our students, and we already had filtered, separate HVAC units for each room. Masks are mandatory for our staff, and for customers (in Toronto indoor masks are required but there is an exemption for vigorous exercise, but we chose to make them mandatory for exercise as well.)
But…here we are. I feel like some of our students care a lot, and some are indifferent – I don’t blame them either way, everyone is doing their best. It is why I’m in school on the side.
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I have to say that here in Northeast NJ, we have a 100% compliance on mask wearing in stores by customers and workers. We saw that behavior in NC in June, when we went to check on Steve’s folks though. I have to say that I’m puzzled. Mask wearing isn’t very difficult. At this point, I own a dozen in different colors and patterns.
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Here in Auckland NZ – we’ve just gone back into lockdown after 3 blessed months of normality – following an ‘unexplained’ community transmission event. Money is on it ‘escaping’ from mandatory quarantine of incoming travelers via quarantine staff. Currently 14 cases, & expect to rise again today & for the next week, or so….
Now at Level 3 – so mandatory social distancing, only supermarkets open, all other customer-facing businesses click and collect only, non-customer-facing businesses mandatory social distancing and infection protocols (masks, etc), schools closed except for children of essential workers, everyone to work from home if possible,
In the last lockdown, it was really, really evident that businesses busted a gut to try to keep operating as much as possible – lots of really creative solutions, and determination to keep at least some cash coming in. Following mandatory instructions about face-to-face contact – but being creative within these. Many staff took pay cuts (despite the Govt salary guarantee) – and/or reduced hours.
Government agencies (including local government), nada. Staff stayed at home, and by and large, did nothing (on full pay). Teachers taught online to some extent (some great, some average, some abysmal) – interestingly it wasn’t necessarily the same grading as for in-person classes – some fabulous in-person were abysmal or absent online).
Libraries closed (not even click and collect – as other businesses did) – and remained closed for a good 2 weeks after everyone else opened up again.
Any government employee who’s job involved in-person relationships just shut up shop. (Social welfare, for example, didn’t re-deploy all those social workers to answer phones – they just let their existing call system become overloaded. [Of course, there were some outliers, but this is what the majority of us saw]
What we saw, was heavily unionized government workplaces prioritizing the health of their employees – over the community services they are paid to provide – while taking home the same pay. Note, this didn’t apply to heavily unionized businesses (e.g. public transport – contracted out to business) – they kept running (under strict anti-infection protocols – but running).
While the rest of us didn’t have that option. And have just had a hefty rates (local govt tax) increase to pay for it all (expect national tax increases after the election later this year).
So lots of positive feeling for Jacinda Ardern (PM) and Ashley Bloomfield (Director General of Health – civil servant rather than politician) – in leading the response against Covid — but not a lot for the bumbling of the various government departments. At the moment the ‘Jacinda factor’ is outweighing the contempt for the government (and particularly local government) response. But that won’t last forever. Particularly if it turns out that incompetence in border security/quarantine has let Covid back into our country again… And particularly as the various tax increases start to bite…..
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Ann said,
“Libraries closed (not even click and collect – as other businesses did) – and remained closed for a good 2 weeks after everyone else opened up again.”
We’ve had curbside library delivery in our town in TX for nearly the entire pandemic, even when a lot of other stuff was closed. It’s been a huge morale-booster for our family. I believe the library is open to foot traffic now, but we’re going to stick with curbside delivery as long as they keep it going.
The private therapy place my youngest goes to has been open all summer. They had one staff COVID case at the end of June, closed down an extra day to clean, and kept on rolling. My youngest flunked a number of temp checks around that time, so who knows? I kind of blanch at the fact that one of the staffers there is way pregnant and still working face-to-face with the public (even if masked), but knock on wood, they seem to be doing OK. (The staff wears masks and they work with smaller groups of kids than they normally do.)
One of the complications here is that it’s too darn hot to be outside. Our highs this week are around 100 Fahrenheit. I needed to get the kids out of the house today because we had cleaners, and there’s really no place to go. My husband was able to take the kids to Sonic for lunch in the car and a walk in the wooded city park, but it must have been HOT.
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Public service message:
bj already knows this, but just in case anybody doesn’t know, masks with valves are bad news.
They protect the wearer but spew the wearer’s exhaust on passersby.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/13/cdc-mask-guidance-masks-valves/
I kind of wish that the CDC hadn’t taken 5 months to get around to publicizing this, but better late than never!
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If this Post Office election stealing effort isn’t stopped very quickly, the September protests are going to be much larger than those so far.
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Keep this handy:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world
That’s active participation of about 6.8 million Americans nationwide, 180,000 or so in the national capital area. More in the capital would obviously be better.
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If middle class families leave the public system, this will happen everywhere. If they don’t use the public schools, they won’t fund them.
I guess that this could happen, but that would mean that all those $500K homes will become $250K homes overnight. If people want to kill their home equity by throwing such a tantrum over the inability of everyone else to control the virus to the point that the
public daycare centersschools can open then I guess that is their prerogative. (This is why empty-nesters continue to fund schools and are concerned about school quality, BTW.)The Hasidic communities doing this are the most extreme case of this happening but driving suburban house prices down is a feature for them, not a bug, so I don’t think they were too bothered by this consequence. Others, their mileage may vary.
Of course, where this defunding craze will hit a wall is constitutional education mandates, which exist in a lot of states, including (I believe) New Jersey. This is what happened in Kansas, when Brownback tried to starve the beast (because so many of his Evangelical and Catholic constituents had their kids in private schools anyway). He ran into the requirement in the Kansas constitution to provide a public education for everyone and the (Republican) KS supreme court told him “nope.”
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I think you are being overly sanguine about the effect of what you are calling a temper tantrum or pique on public education. Our state has state-funded education (i.e. a state allocation for public allocation). Our constitution has words that brings tears to my eyes about the responsibility of the state to provide an education: “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex. ” I still would like to know how a group of all white men (a surprising number from the Midwest & Scotland) came up with those words. Republicans in the state occasionally try to repeal the words.
We had a long running constitutional case to put funding and support behind the clause. The court ruled repeatedly in its favor. But, its hard for courts to make legislatures do much and I see only minor benefits coming from the cases. The funding requires the support of the population.
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And, I’m having a hard time being supportive in my own city, when the union is negotiating for health criterion that would effectively eliminate in person education for even our most vulnerable students through what I would expect would be the rest of the year.
The criterion: <25 cases per day in the county for at least 3 months (also decreasing hospitalization & a <5% positivity, which I consider potentially achievable). We have had 3 days with <25 cases in the county since the pandemic began. And, the negotiation request is not to reach those criterion before we open schools, but before any in person education is offered, even for special education students, for whom there is currently a vague reference that students who cannot be served without in person education would potentially be provided it.
My own child needs school, not a teacher, We can provide him with teachers in the family who will provide adequate (and in some cases) superior education. But for students who need a trained teacher with special skills — demanding <25 cases in the county seems pretty much analogous to me to doctors asking mothers to deliver their own babies.
I am hoping that this is a negotiating point and the union will work towards an arrangement that shares the risks and benefits, ultimately, but negotiating positions that get me angry (and I am a knee-jerk teacher supporter) are problematic for the future.
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bj said, “The criterion: <25 cases per day in the county for at least 3 months (also decreasing hospitalization & a <5% positivity, which I consider potentially achievable). We have had 3 days with <25 cases in the county since the pandemic began. And, the negotiation request is not to reach those criterion before we open schools, but before any in person education is offered, even for special education students, for whom there is currently a vague reference that students who cannot be served without in person education would potentially be provided it."
Wow, especially to the bit about special education. Also, why 3 months of fewer than 25 cases a day? Surely 3-4 weeks would be essentially the same? As we've seen with recent outbreaks in Europe, NZ, etc., having sustained low numbers doesn't mean it can't flare up again.
Another issue is that COVID may be with us for many years, but it may ultimately be more manageable, like flu.
"My own child needs school, not a teacher."
That's basically my 10th grader. My 2nd grader, on the other hand, needs both school and a teacher.
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Some stats from the CDC:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/cdc-mental-health-pandemic-394832
“The data also flags a surge of anxiety and substance abuse, with more than 40 percent of those surveyed saying they experienced a mental or behavioral health condition connected to the Covid-19 emergency. The CDC study analyzed 5,412 survey respondents between June 24 and 30.
“The toll is falling heaviest on young adults, caregivers, essential workers and minorities. While 10.7 percent of respondents overall reported considering suicide in the previous 30 days, 25.5 percent of those between 18 to 24 reported doing so. Almost 31 percent of self-reported unpaid caregivers and 22 percent of essential workers also said they harbored such thoughts. Hispanic and Black respondents similarly were well above the average.”
I have to note that (even under normal circumstances) murder-suicides committed by parents of autistic children are common enough that nobody is surprised to see another one in the news. 31% of unpaid caregivers being suicidal ought to give us pause.
“Roughly 30.9 percent of respondents said they had symptoms of anxiety or depression. Roughly 26.3 respondents reported trauma and stress-related disorder because of the pandemic.
“Another 13.3 percent of respondents said they have turned to substance use, including alcohol and prescription or illicit drugs, to cope with stress from the pandemic.”
I have seen it said (and I would tend to agree) that some of the store mask rages we’ve seen may in fact be the individual suffering a mental breakdown on camera. A lot of people just aren’t doing well, and they don’t have healthy outlets right now.
Also related:
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/08/13/901627189/u-s-sees-deadly-drug-overdose-spike-during-pandemic
“Jennifer Austin, a recovery coach who has struggled with addiction, usually hosts Narcotics Anonymous classes at this Salvation Army center in Ogdensburg, N.Y. They’ve been canceled because of the pandemic, leaving more people vulnerable to relapse and overdose.”
“New data from around the U.S. confirms that drug overdoses are spiking during the coronavirus pandemic, rising by roughly 18%.
“Reports collected in real time by the Washington, D.C.-based group ODMAP — the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program, located at the University of Baltimore — also found a significant spike in the number of fatal overdoses.”
“”The longer people had to isolate it was relapse, relapse, overdose, relapse, overdose,” said Jennifer Austin, who coaches people with substance abuse disorder in Ogdensburg, N.Y.”
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Thanks for that stat about suicidal caregivers, Amy. I’m going to use it an essay now.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/county-that-tried-to-ban-private-schooling-is-allowing-private-paid-learning-hubs-in-public-school-buildings
Montgomery County in MD (one of the big inner ring DC suburbs) has public schools closed but is going to be renting out classroom space to private companies.
“The in-school “Learning Hubs” approved by the county this week will have instructors in classrooms with about a dozen students throughout the school day. Instructors will guide students through the academic work required by remote learning in a classroom with other students, so as to provide “that social and emotional connection that school does provide kids,” in the words of Joe Richardson, CEO of local camp provider Bar-T, which is one of two companies planning to open these hubs in mid-September.”
Sounds nice!
“Kids After Hours, another organization that runs after-care in public schools, will also be using Montgomery County Public School buildings to run learning hubs. Kids After Hours will be using 25 MCPS buildings to run such in-classroom programs.
“Richardson explained that his programs would be much safer than the public schools felt they could be: “We have a lot more flexibility: We don’t have to deal with transportation or food, and we can control our class sizes, because we have wait lists at times…. We know we can just say 13 children and 2 staff, and that’s all that one classroom has to be.””
“Bob Sickels, founder of Kids After Hours, told me that his program had similar plans. They would minimize time in the hallways, require masks for students and teachers, and sanitize heavily. The program will cost $300 a week. The school day will include recess times and “lunch and snack” times, Richardson says.”
Ironically (if that is exactly the right word), Montgomery County was quite recently trying to keep county private schools closed while simultaneously renting out their space to these for-profit school daycare companies.
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I think ultimately one of the reasons why there isn’t a parent revolt in rich blue suburbs/cities (Montgomery county, NJ, NY, our town, . . .) is that a lot of parents aren’t ready to send their kids to school. I’m not. I was relieved that we won’t be trying to balance a hybrid model or school for my kid (who would want to go, and would be very upset if i was choosing to keep him home). So, by making school remote, they’ve made my job easier.
There are parents of younger children, of children with special needs, of families who are less risk averse who might want schools, but if that’s less than half of the parents, it’s hard to get a movement going. Even while being angry at union negotiations in our town, I am focused on other people’s kids, not my own, and I don’t really know for sure what those other people want.
I think that concern about schools opening among many parents part of the politics, too.
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Science magazine has an article comparing different countries’ experience in opening up school. There isn’t a clear-cut verdict on whether it’s dangerous or not. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/school-openings-across-globe-suggest-ways-keep-coronavirus-bay-despite-outbreaks
I think the school system’s adult employees will be far more likely to infect each other, than to be infected by children. So, for example, staff meetings should be online. No workplace parties. No joint coffee breaks in the teachers’ lounge. No carpooling among staff, unless their families are “podding.”
I’ve been keeping an eye on the Johns Hopkins’ site tracking state trajectories. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states
I don’t see a clear picture of “good” states and “bad” states. Sorry. I do see that having a huge spike in deaths leads to a rapid drop in deaths, perhaps because it leads state officials to pluck low-hanging fruit, such as not bringing infectious patients into nursing homes, closing public indoor spaces, etc.
Most of states and territories with the most concerning rise in cases today did NOT see a huge spike in the late winter: California, Hawaii, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, Missouri, Idaho. Rhode Island is, as often the case, an exception. New Jersey is trending up today.
Mobility across the United States (and in Italy, Germany and the UK) is above the January baseline, according to Apple’s mobility tracker. https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility Transit is the exception, as one would expect. On a related note, Europe is facing a surge in infections: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53747852
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“Rhode Island is, as often the case, an exception.”
Heh. There’s a reason I live in MA.
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But opening up schools can mean selectively opening up schools. If day care centers can operate in schools (as Amy describes above for Montgomery county) and as they do in my neck of the woods, those — let’s call them what they are, if they are for K-5 kids– schools can open in the school and be staffed by teachers. If we can’t open enough of those (and that isn’t just a staffing concern, it is also a distancing concern), we can allocate them by need and lottery.
Again, I don’t think schools in areas like Texas, Georgia, Florida, and California can open safely (aside, potentially, from pockets), but in other places (and, frankly, in any place where forms of day care for school age children are open), schools can open for those children, staffed by taxpayer funded teachers.
I haven’t heard more about whether students in school-sited day cares in our school distric are going to be able to do remote school, and I do suspect that one of the sticking points is that if they are doing school in the day care, there will be others who will question why those students can’t do school in school with teachers.
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“I haven’t heard more about whether students in school-sited day cares in our school district are going to be able to do remote school, and I do suspect that one of the sticking points is that if they are doing school in the day care, there will be others who will question why those students can’t do school in school with teachers.”
This sounds similar to our situation with schools open only for the children of essential workers – which is what we have here at the moment.
School site is open, children are socially distanced, and heavy cleaning/sanitation protocols. Supervised by non-contact teaching staff (often principals and senior leaders – so kids not inclined to muck around). They learn ‘on line’ in the same way the rest of the class does.
So teachers are teaching remotely (usually from home) with some students in their own homes, and some physically at school.
Right now, numbers are really limited (think some people made alternative arrangements for the first couple of days) but expect they will trend up as we settle in for another 2 weeks of lockdown.
Parents seem to be accepting this – and understanding that it’s not possible for teachers to teach both in class and online at the same time.
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Cranberry said, “I think the school system’s adult employees will be far more likely to infect each other, than to be infected by children. So, for example, staff meetings should be online. No workplace parties. No joint coffee breaks in the teachers’ lounge. No carpooling among staff, unless their families are “podding.””
Yeah.
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Cranberry said, “Mobility across the United States (and in Italy, Germany and the UK) is above the January baseline, according to Apple’s mobility tracker.”
My parents have a tourist shop on the Olympic Peninsula of Western WA, and they’ve been setting sales records and seeing enormous traffic. Some of that would be out-of-staters, but a lot would be Washingtonians.
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Like, say the New York Times, suggesting, “Should public school systems provide teachers for small group instruction?”
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It’s interesting that the first mother covered in the article has the option of using her local public school in person: Like many parents, Ms. Rodriguez, a single mother and nursing assistant in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was deeply dissatisfied with the online instruction her school district provided last spring. Facing more of the same this fall — her district is offering an in-person option for now, but she isn’t comfortable sending her boys — she set out to create a more basic, and affordable, type of pod: one where parents take turns with child-care duties so they can go to work most days while their children attend online school together at home.
I would not at all assume that a “learning pod” would be superior to instruction offered by teachers. Only the very wealthy would be able to hire a teacher away from a school system. Those are the people sheltering with their housekeeper, driver, executive assistant, nannies, etc. Otherwise, well”, if you live in a neighborhood, think of the most vague neighbor you know. Are you comfortable letting her or him teach your child how to find Poland on a map?
But the fact that a parent with access to a real classroom feels that a small learning cooperative with other parents would be superior, is a real indictment of the instruction offered last spring.
To be annoyingly pragmatic, I’d say Betteridge’s law applies. (Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.) And the money runs out pretty darn quickly if you try to increase the level of services offered, while tax revenues plummet. A worst case scenario for the system as a whole would be to fire teachers who are refusing to do their job, and distribute the money among the parents. I’m not advocating for that, but at least here in the suburbs, the entire system relies upon parents to show up to vote for the schools. Without parental support, it collapses.
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I agree that we are seeing serious fractures in how people think of public education. People are concerned that they are potentially going to get nothing (neither education nor day care nor special services). And that is my worry.
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Some notes:
–After 3+ week of about 20% positivity, followed by 2+ weeks in the teens, our county in TX is starting to have some blips of 8-10% positivity, which is good, especially considering that the college students have started coming back and have been circulating here for a couple of weeks already. Our positives have gone from a peak/plateau of about 3 weeks where 1 county resident in 2500 was getting sick every day to the current situation to a very nice, fairly consistent downward slope, with 1 resident in 8,000 getting sick per day.
–I’m guesstimating that 3% of our county residents have had COVID. I’m taking total deaths, multiplying by 100 (assuming a 1% death rate), and then dividing the county population by that number, which gives you under 3%. If the fatality rate is 0.5%, then the total percentage infected in our county is under 6%. This is all very rough, but it gives you an idea.
–School backtracked and is banning gaiters and polyester masks. They recommend surgical masks or cloth masks with cotton content. My husband queried them with regard to KN95s (which is our preference for our 10th grader) and they said that’s OK. We prefer the fit, seal and breathability of the KN95 for the 10th grader. That’s also what my husband will be teaching his college classes in. (They are the somewhat shadier Chinese cousin of the N95.) My husband and son have a set of masks that they will rotate through during the week. The rest of the family is going to be wearing Israeli Sonovia cloth masks with an added metal nose piece to adjust fit, and washing weekly. They are supposedly antimicrobial.
–My younger two kids are starting classes next week. All of the younger kids are supposed to do carpool line (as opposed to being walked up to the door) and all of the kids will be doing temperature checks as they go in. I anticipate that this is going to take FOREVER.
–They don’t want parents in school for social stuff, but they really, really want parent volunteers to come and facilitate dual instruction.
–My youngest will have a therapist coming to school to work with her several days a week. The therapist will need to do a temperature check, wear a mask and do hand sanitizer. My youngest will be one of 10 kids physically in the classroom at the beginning of the year.
–It has occurred to me that if all goes well, having the kids in school but without extracurriculars this fall or evening in-person school meetings is going to be kind of awesome, assuming no massive COVID outbreak. I know of at least 3 school families (including one doctor family) that got sick while schools were closed, so a certain baseline of COVID has to be expected, school or no school.
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what is your schools policy for dealing with covid+ in the school?
will they send a class home if a student/teacher tests +? how about family members? Teacher’s family?
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bj said, “will they send a class home if a student/teacher tests +? how about family members? Teacher’s family?”
As I recall, the rules are:
–Gotta quarantine if a member of household has COVID.
–Gotta quarantine if there’s been close contact with a person with COVID (I believe that’s either being coughed on or sneezed on or after 15+ minutes in close proximity).
The rule at our school is that the little kids need to have masks up when they are close to each other and grades 4-12 will have masks up at all times indoors. I can see how you could still have transmission that isn’t covered under those rules, but hopefully no superspreading?
I vaguely recall that the CDC (or somesuch) is telling schools that they need to relax their maximum sick day policies, as this repeat-grade-if-you-miss-10-days stuff is not well-suited to fighting a respiratory pandemic.
Has anybody talked about requiring a flu shot for school (barring medical excuse)? It would be a good idea.
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This sounds good:
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/08/cheap-daily-covid-tests-could-be-akin-to-vaccine/
“A Harvard epidemiologist and expert in disease testing is calling for a shift in strategy toward a cheap, daily, do-it-yourself test that he says can be as effective as a vaccine at interrupting coronavirus transmission — and is currently the only viable option for a quick return to an approximation of normal life.”
““These are our hope,” said Michal Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “We don’t have anything tomorrow, other than shutting down the economy and keeping schools closed.””
“Mina, a member of the Harvard Chan School’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, said the paper-strip tests have already been developed and their shotgun approach to testing — cheap and widespread — provides a way back to the workplace, classroom, and other venues.”
“The tests, which can be produced for less than a dollar, can be performed by consumers each day or every other day. Though not as accurate as current diagnostic tests, they are nonetheless effective at detecting virus when a person is most infectious, Mina said. If everyone who tests positive stays home, he said, the widespread effect would be similar to that of a vaccine, breaking transmission chains across the country.”
“The Food and Drug Administration, in charge of approving diagnostic tests, has held up approval because the tests aren’t as accurate as nasal-swab, lab-based tests. While that would matter if they were intended as an individual diagnostic tool, Mina said that from a public health viewpoint, they are accurate enough to provide critical initial screening on a large scale. Positive test results could be followed up by a visit to the doctor and a more accurate nasal swab test or, if illness weren’t that severe, by daily testing until a person is negative.
““Everyone says, ‘Why aren’t you doing this already?’ My answer is, ‘It is illegal to do this right now,’” Mina said. “Until the regulatory landscape changes, those companies have no reason to bring a product to market.””
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I don’t know what Mina is talking about. A cheap saliva test was approved by the FDA recently according to Andy Slavitt: https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1294663077741367297
It’s worth pointing out that this is not a profit-making venture.
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Wendy,
I believe the issue is approval for mass home use. Similar strips are already in use overseas.
There’s also a difference between approving it and the federal government ordering up billions of these. A billion may sound like a lot, but that’s only three days of tests for every person in the US.
And yes, people are going to wind up making money from selling tens of billions of dollars in pharmaceuticals. That’s not a sin, especially not in the context of a viral outbreak that is literally costing trillions in lost productivity and hundreds of billions in lost tax revenue.
The US has ongoing problems with being penny wise, pound foolish about COVID.
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Here are some photos from a small Central TX public elementary school and how they are distancing kids:
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Central-Texas-elementary-shares-look-at-the-start-15481778.php#item-85307-tbla-4
I’m sure this is rather carefully staged, but the concept is excellent.
Great Schools says that Thrall Elementary has 268 kids total, so it’s a good size for the experiment.
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For parents who suddenly need to teach their own children at home, we were able to help our youngest learn to read with this program: https://www.readingtlc.com/index.php
At the time, it used dvds. It’s all on line now.
The good thing for our youngest was that he was smart enough to use the pictures and verbal patterns in early reading materials to get the teachers off his back without doing the reading. The texts used in this program did not have illustrative pictures, thus in order to get the rewards for answering the questions correctly, he had to pay attention to the lesson.
There is now a link to a dyslexia risk assessment tool on the International dyslexia association. I happen to think it would be a great step ahead if schools did this sort of screening for all their students as a matter of course. https://dyslexiaida.org/screening-for-dyslexia/
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