onfocus

"And so, like countless other Americans, my family awaits the unveiling of our district’s plan for bringing kids back to school, which will be delivered over Zoom, because it’s not safe to hold a public meeting."

If we still can't hold public meetings, how in the world can we hold public school? I'm grudgingly coming around to this view. We need teachers and staff to be healthy and that means keeping them away from kids right now. As difficult as it is, I think we need to continue to have kids learn remotely until the virus is under control. I think that means we need an overhaul of work and school expectations but I don't see any movement anywhere that makes me optimistic that will happen in the next month or two.

"New students matriculating at schools offering fully online programs will not receive visas, per ICE. Students who are already enrolled at such schools will be required to transfer or leave the country."

The cruelty is the point.

"Hospitalizations and deaths are both lagging indicators, because it takes time to progress through the course of illness,” Caitlin Rivers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told me late last week. “The recent surge started around two weeks ago, so it’s too soon to be confident that we won’t see an uptick in hospitalizations and deaths."

Interesting look at covid-19 data that seems contradictory at first.

“You shouldn’t have had kids if you can’t take care of them,” is comically troll-like, but has come up so often, one might wonder if you’re supposed to educate your children at night. Or perhaps you should have been paying for some all-age day care backup that sat empty while kids were at school in case the school you were paying taxes to keep open and that requires, by law, that your child attend abruptly closed for the year.

Cathartic read, and no solution in sight as the infection rate ticks up.

"Any mask that incorporates a one-way valve (typically a raised plastic cylinder about the size of a quarter on the front or side of the mask) that is designed to facilitate easy exhaling allows droplets to be released from the mask, putting others nearby at risk,” the order says."

I'm seeing valve masks quite a bit more in the wild and I always cringe a bit. We're trying to keep our breath to ourselves.

"At the end of the day, many experts also say that any face covering is better than no face covering. Do your best to find a mask that is breathable and that you don’t mind wearing, and you should be in good shape."

Most places are requiring masks now because they work. Wearing one doesn’t hurt much and might even help a lot.

"At every crucial moment, American officials were weeks or months behind the reality of the outbreak. Those delays likely cost tens of thousands of lives."

The weakness of positive thinking visualized.

"The main reason is obvious: the respiratory droplets thought to carry the virus have a much greater opportunity to disperse harmlessly outside, particularly if there are breezes to carry them away."

Indoors is still cancelled.

"Among 1,001 child contacts of these six cases there were no confirmed cases of COVID-19. In the school setting, among 924 child contacts and 101 adult contacts identified, there were no confirmed cases of COVID-19."

Super small sample size here but I hope this holds up with more investigation.

“It took us ten years — between 2009 and 2019 — to create 22 million jobs. And we’ve lost 30 million jobs in two months.”

This is a tough read but it sure seems like we can expect a long, rough road ahead.

Cowie said state officials never expected each county to meet every indicator all the time. Public health authorities plan to monitor progress and offer support to counties. But they have no plans to push for new closures based on what they’ve seen so far.

Oregon has detailed criteria that must be met (loosely) for opening counties but only vague criteria for closing them again.

"The juxtaposition of images in the news of farmers destroying crops and dumping milk with empty supermarket shelves or hungry Americans lining up for hours at food banks tells a story of economic efficiency gone mad."

Ironically, optimizing industry for efficiency has made it less resilient when faced with different market conditions.