The Official Coronavirus Discussion

[matmosphere]

I also think it won't last long. I would not be surprised if they close everything down within a month or so and go virtual for everyone.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the is how it goes. I know the district around where my father-in-law teaches plan to close down if just one student test positive. They aren't advertising it with the opening plans but they have told the teachers to be ready to go virtual at the drop of a hat. If one student or teacher in the school test positive that Schoo, and any school that a sibling of that student goes to will close for 14 days. Sounds to me like a recipe for school being mostly closed, and occasionally restarting and probably closing again quickly thereafter.

I really hope the mask schools at least get it together and mandate mask inside the building. Everything I've read suggest that mandating mask in school was a key to schools that did manage to successfully reopen last spring.

I think I'm going to homeschool my kids this year, because it will allow us to have some continuity, and I have the luxury of being a stay at home parent right now.


I know that the general consensus is that switching to virtual school in the spring was a disaster, but people have to remember, that all happened really fast. Teachers and schools were forced to completely change everything and develop whole new systems without time to prepare or try out things first. I think that if the decision to do virtual school was made early and there was more time to prepare for it things would work far better than in the spring.

[somnif]

The university in my town officially announced they'd be doing physical classes, with the president doing a masterful job of blame shifting onto the students.

But see...

I taught microbio lab for a couple years at the uni. One of the first things we teach (seriously, day one, bullet point 2) is how to properly wash your hands. We did it literally multiple times each meeting.

And I was still correcting people's form at the end of the semester.

If folks can't follow safety rules in a class literally designed around "how to deal with potentially pathogenic goop", what on earth makes them think the rest of the student body will.

Honestly not sure if I'm glad the furlough nonsense meant my contract wasn't picked up this semester or not. What a mess.

[jimilee]

Hopefully, the magnet school will be a little more taken care of inside than public schools, just have to worry about her being a carrier and bringing it home. I'm sure it will work out.


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[diablochris6]

My school district is still going full steam ahead with students being in school all week, with no alterations to bus routes, and class rotations...and that is with our cases over double what they were in March and April. We will try and social distance or use masks if we can't within the classroom (and let's face it, public schools don't have the resources to social distance within a classroom). With me being a teacher, I have to go to school, and that means two of my kids have to go to their elementary and the youngest to daycare. I'm hoping the district will come to a conclusion that we should push back the start date to the end of August, but they already pushed it back just one week and are sure that their plan will work enough, even if it seems scant on crucial details. I have a feeling that Covid-19 is going to catch us with our pants down again.

[matmosphere]

My school district is still going full steam ahead with students being in school all week, with no alterations to bus routes, and class rotations...and that is with our cases over double what they were in March and April. We will try and social distance or use masks if we can't within the classroom (and let's face it, public schools don't have the resources to social distance within a classroom). With me being a teacher, I have to go to school, and that means two of my kids have to go to their elementary and the youngest to daycare. I'm hoping the district will come to a conclusion that we should push back the start date to the end of August, but they already pushed it back just one week and are sure that their plan will work enough, even if it seems scant on crucial details. I have a feeling that Covid-19 is going to catch us with our pants down again.

I don't believe anyone has had a chance to pull there pants back up.

Insert string of butt jokes here....


In all seriousness though, be careful man, that's a lot of new possible vectors for this thing to get into your house. I would be in the exact same position if I hadn't taken this and last year off from teaching so we could travel for my wife's job. Until March I was pretty unhappy about not being able to be in the classroom, now I feel kinda lucky I guess. I suppose if I have to take a few years off teaching then a pandemic isn't a bad time, but I still miss it.

[davent]

My school district is still going full steam ahead with students being in school all week, with no alterations to bus routes, and class rotations...and that is with our cases over double what they were in March and April. We will try and social distance or use masks if we can't within the classroom (and let's face it, public schools don't have the resources to social distance within a classroom). With me being a teacher, I have to go to school, and that means two of my kids have to go to their elementary and the youngest to daycare. I'm hoping the district will come to a conclusion that we should push back the start date to the end of August, but they already pushed it back just one week and are sure that their plan will work enough, even if it seems scant on crucial details. I have a feeling that Covid-19 is going to catch us with our pants down again.

I don't believe anyone has had a chance to pull there pants back up.

Insert string of butt jokes here....


In all seriousness though, be careful man, that's a lot of new possible vectors for this thing to get into your house. I would be in the exact same position if I hadn't taken this and last year off from teaching so we could travel for my wife's job. Until March I was pretty unhappy about not being able to be in the classroom, now I feel kinda lucky I guess. I suppose if I have to take a few years off teaching then a pandemic isn't a bad time, but I still miss it.

My wife's last day employed as a teacher was Dec.31, 2019, a date picked a few years earlier, thanks her lucky stars daily.

Stay well, the powers that be sure aren't doing those in the trenches any favours. Houses made of cards...
dave

[alanp]

Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea...

Kids need education, I'm not sure how feasible it is to have no schooling for a year or two. Kinda weird -- the only option seems to be homeschooling in the circumstances, but outlets like the NYT have been running op-eds on how home schooling perpetuates white supremacy...

[aion]

Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea...

Kids need education, I'm not sure how feasible it is to have no schooling for a year or two. Kinda weird -- the only option seems to be homeschooling in the circumstances, but outlets like the NYT have been running op-eds on how home schooling perpetuates white supremacy...

I mean... NYT op-eds aren't really a good reflection of what people actually think, moreso just what people in positions of influence want people to think. Some are good but some are reeeeeally awful. (Recent example, Senator Tom Cotton, "Send In the Military", June 3 - NYT now puts a disclaimer at the top saying they regret publishing it.)

[aion]

"We can virtually eliminate the virus any time we decide to... and we could do it in a matter of weeks."

This guy (Andy Slavitt) has consistently been one of the most level-headed & thought-provoking voices on COVID the past few months. Well worth your five minutes!

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1287524301499965441.html

[LaceSensor]

I guess it makes the most sense to post this here.

I woke up today feeling really deflated about the world as it is today, mid pandemic.
For obvious reasons everyone must feel like worry, concern for family etc, but also the simple things like lack of freedom to do anything normal.
I think being cooped up and 99% not really left the premises since early March is taking its toll.

As I mentioned in another thread, we had a coronababy (ie, born mid crisis, early May) so that has informed a lot of our decision to not risk anything.

I guess what really bummed me out especially today was two things. Firstly, I sold a pedal and wanted to use the post office, and it just sucked wearing a mask, muffled speech, not being able to interact with anyone, waiting outside etc. I know this all sounds like first world problems but still, for some reason it just worn me down today. SEcondly was an article about a young man in HK who had the virus (confirmed by genome sequencing) back in March if I remember right, and now in August (having been to Spain, returned via the UK, and been screened on arrival in HK) has the virus again. Confirmed again by genome sequencing, and definitely a second infection event because the viral sequence shows mutation variation so its a different strain. Mercifully for him he was reported asymptomatic (not so good for others, perhaps?) whereas he was hospitalised the first episode.

But what this means is even with vaccines, this shit is just never going to go away.
Im a scientist, I work for one of the worlds largest lifescience companies, our CEO and leadership team members are always on the news and even met with the US administration inc Trump. So I know more than the average person, we are actually one of the leaders in developing testing and diagnostics for this, so this isnt just a knee jerk "im angry at the world" response, its kinda feeling like a bit of helpless despair.

I imagine now being a dad is amplifying these feelings. It really hits me in the gut when none of my friends have even met my daughter...

Anway, this is fast becoming a rambling rant but I havent any other vacuums to spew into right now, and Madbean feels somewhat anonymous to me so I would say things here I might not other places. Thanks for understanding.

[jimilee]

Hey man, it's all good. I'm always traveling between Atlanta and Nashville, and  I've been able to since March. I don't like being cooped up in my house all day everyday. I don't like that people can't see me smiling when I do make quick trips and my apartment pool is finally fixed after being closed all last summer and we can't use it.
Yeah, I'm mad as hell that it hasn't been taken serious by a large amount of people, so it seems to have affected more people than it had to BUT I've had you guys to talk to and interact with. Make the most of it and look forward to the time when we can't get out again.


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[alanp]

I'm feeling kinda guilty at working right now, given how so many people have been unemployed for months, now, through no fault of their own, or their ex-employers. (Freezing worker, here, lamb slaughterhouse (although we're also doing bobby calves right now.)) Work has been incredibly strict since Corona started.

What is compounding the guilt is being thoroughly sick of nonstop full days. We've been on six day working weeks (Sunday night through to Friday night) for a couple months, now. Holiday for the whole site was end of June, start of July for three weeks, right in the middle of winter, previous to which was also nonstop, but looking back I did enjoy five day work weeks back then. I'm hoping things will start to slow down a wee bit.

So, feeling partly guilty, partly mildly happy, and partly tired.

[peAk]

Kiddo goes to his 7th grade classrooms tomorrow

Houston, TX

Sucks but what can you do?

[matmosphere]

Kiddo goes to his 7th grade classrooms tomorrow

Houston, TX

Sucks but what can you do?

Good luck. I have the luxury of being able to homeschool this year. I'm not super excited to do it, but I don't know if I could handle putting my kids on a school bus this year.


I'm traveling today. Amazingly airport in America had pretty much 100% compliance with mask. Airport in Europe, not so much at all. It's fairly nerve racking. I'm kinda looking forward to fourteen days of isolation after this.

[culturejam]

Every grade except for Kindergarten and 1st grade are 100% virtual in my district. My kid is going into 1st grade, and we have the option to do all virtual, but we've opted for her to do in-person. It's 8:30 - 12 M-F, and the class size is about 10 kids. Small enough that they can actually maintain at least 6-foot spacing. And we've hired our next door neighbor's daughter to do afternoon support. She *just* graduated from college and can't find anything steady work-wise. Win-win, I guess.