Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of August 3

My usual personal update:

Coworker who tested positive four weeks ago still hasn't recovered taste or smell.

Working with my union to oppose reopening our school. Our district provided us their "plan" which isn't an actual "plan" but is literally just the abstract guidelines for schools parroted back to us. It includes stuff like "provide PPE" and "socially distance students". When we've pushed for specifics -- what kinds of PPE? how much? how will we fit all the students in the building given the distancing guidelines? do we have enough staff to cover additional environments? what's the actual protocol for confirmed infections? -- we've gotten non-answers. I think the district is waiting to see what the state and others are doing before committing to anything. Why spend the time, effort, and money on preparations if we're not reopening, right? It makes pragmatic sense but does not instill confidence that any sort of reopening will go well, which is also the current direction everyone is anticipating this heading. I expect a plan to have answers for lots of different outcomes, but this one has no answers and is basically a "let's wait and see". It's completely inadequate, especially this late in the game.

At this point many districts have reopened and are seeing cases, and as much as it pains me to see that, I'm hoping that shifts public sentiment from "schools need to be reopened to relieve parents from childcare and for the social-emotional health of our students" to "reopening schools in the middle of a pandemic is clearly irresponsible". I think unions, parents, and pretty much everybody should be heavily pushing the liability angle as a way of getting local leadership to listen. At this point it's clear many districts are unconcerned about exposing their students and staff, so maybe they'd take it more seriously if their jobs or district finances were on the line. Superintendents, school boards, mayors, and governors pressuring or choosing for schools to open right now should feel some responsibility for the outcomes of that decision.

I'm also working on some specific stuff that I won't share on here since it's somewhat identifying for me. I'm actually probably going to go a bit radio silent on Tildes regarding my personal situation a bit, simply because I don't want when and how I start school to identify my location. It is extremely important to me that my identity here not be connected to my real-world one, as I feel that is what allows me to speak honestly and frankly about a great number of topics.

Suffice it to say though, I am not returning to my job quietly -- especially if my safety and the safety of my students cannot be assured. I waver between extreme anger and profound sorrow about the situation. Sometimes I'm fired up with righteous energy and want to funnel it into something productive, and sometimes I sit and start to cry when I think about my husband and my dog how absolutely devastated we would be if something were to happen to any of us. I then take that feeling and multiply it across the families of all the students who will allegedly be returning to my school, and I find myself in a deep, unfathomable sadness when I consider the magnitude of personal loss that could arise from us reopening.

I keep coming back to the story of the Georgia teen who lost both of his parents. My heart breaks for that kid. And his parents are just two out of so many -- so very many more deaths. How much more suffering and loss do we have to endure before we see this for what it is and act accordingly?

Mexico has announced that it will not be opening schools, will broadcast educational content on TV

Teachers returned to a Georgia school district last week. 260 employees have already gone home to quarantine.

More tangential, but my aunt has been posting a lot of concerning things that are a bit on the "hoaxy" side, and today I had to say something about one of them. It was a series of pictures from a protest in Berlin... the protest was real, but the post claimed it had been nearly a million people (it was closer to 17,000 per most sources I could find) and the photo in the collection with the biggest crowd was from an unrelated event in 2019.

I very gently pointed it out to her and she took it really well. I explained how she could use a reverse image search to check for herself next time and she seemed receptive. We affirmed that we loved each other at the end, it was a really good talk. I don't think she buys into the worst of the conspiracy stuff and she is certainly not malicious, but she's always been kind of an odd bird and I hope I can bring her around a bit.

I think some of it is that she lives away from the rest of the family and it must be very lonely and very frustrating - she really wants restrictions lifted, and NB is one of the stricter areas for travel and for gatherings so she's missing a niece's wedding as well. :( I'm going to take it as a reminder to check in on her more often.

Facebook and Twitter both took down a video clip Trump posted today from his interview with Fox News this morning, where he said that children are "almost immune" to COVID-19.

As the article says, this is the first time that Facebook has actually removed something he's posted.

Another article on Axios from earlier today summed up some recent studies about how it affects children.

9 cases of COVID-19 reported at North Paulding High School

The Paulding County high school that became infamous for hallways crowded with unmasked students reported a half dozen students and three staffers in the school with COVID-19, the school district told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Saturday.

As the Coronavirus Comes to School, a Tough Choice: When to Close

These Tennessee school districts are already reporting COVID-19 cases after reopening

Chicago public schools will start the school year all virtual

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine tests positive for coronavirus

DeWine was tested as part of the "standard protocol" to greet Trump on the tarmac at Burke Lakefront Airport, the governor's office said in a statement. He is returning to Columbus, where he and his wife Fran will both be tested.

Exposure to common cold coronaviruses can teach the immune system to recognize SARS-CoV-2

Researchers caution: It is too soon to say whether pre-existing immune cell memory affects COVID-19 clinical outcomes.

Note that cross-reactivity could help, hurt, or have no effect. The thing is, the immune system is very complicated.

Took both forms of the COVID-19 test, today. So far, I’m negative on the antibody front (which is apparently accurate up to 7 days before its taken). Kinda surprising, to me, as I haven’t adjusted my way of life, much. Figured I would’ve contracted something considering the amount of times I use public transportation and shop for groceries and what not.

Well, the next result (in about a week from now) will tell me if I have it as of today.

So based on current CDC information, at this point anywhere from 8.8% to 35.4% of the US has contracted covid. I think at think point we really don't have a choice but to acknowledge that herd immunity might be how this problem gets solved rather than holding out for a vaccine. I'm sure covid will have a long tail, but current infection numbers are unsustainable, especially given that the most likely vectors are also the most likely to already have adapted T helper cells because they've already contracted covid.

We obviously are no where near out of the woods, but I don't think covid has much of a path forward in the face of current policies. 1% infected a week just can't be maintained.

2019 Puyallup High School grad hospitalized with ‘COVID complications’ dies

A reminder that no one, even young & healthy people, is invulnerable to covid.

The Puyallup baseball team will dedicate its 2021 season to Eli and plans to retire his No. 21 jersey this spring.

From Carl Bergstrom on Twitter:

This is an infuriating new frontier in #COVID19 #disinformation.

Here we a professional-looking website claiming to present results from a randomized controlled trial of hydrochloroquine.

No authors or affiliations are listed, just a twitter account

[...]

Someone has put a lot of work into this sham report, and that someone doesn't want to be identified. Not only are no authors or affiliations listed, but the ICANN registry information is shielded. This—along with the dreadfully misleading analysis—should be an enormous red flag.

[....]

Meanwhile, the consequences were predictable. This is already being presented as serious science on FOX News.

How many viewers, having been told that RCT's are the gold standard, will know that Country-RCT is a made-up term that isn't randomized at all?

Brazil passes 100,000 deaths as outbreak shows no sign of easing

The virus killed 50,000 people in three months, but that number doubled in just 50 days. There have been more than three million confirmed cases so far.

The pandemic is yet to peak but shops and restaurants have already reopened.

[...]

Cases have accelerated in recent weeks in the countryside, particularly in southern and western states, while the situation seems to be improving in São Paulo, the most populous.

Meanwhile, the number of infections has declined in northern states - including Amazonas, which was an early hotspot - and in Rio de Janeiro, where pictures of crowded bars and beaches outraged many earlier this week.

The annual Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle rally is still happening. It starts Friday and runs for 10 days.

It usually draws half a million people from all over the country. Most of whom ride in, which means they're also probably sleeping in hotels and eating in restaurants on the way there and back.

"As a city, there's nothing we could do, we're not able to put up roadblocks and say, 'You can't come in,'" he said. "And it was quite obvious that we were going to have a lot of people here, even if we didn't call it the rally. The issue is if we did not officially sanction it as a rally, then we would not be able to prepare for it."

A little over-dramatic in some ways (which is pretty normal for his posts), but I thought Scott Galloway's post today was quite good: The Great Distancing

I recommend not reading the comments though.

The coronavirus is never going away

The most likely scenario, experts say, is that the pandemic ends at some point—because enough people have been either infected or vaccinated—but the virus continues to circulate in lower levels around the globe. Cases will wax and wane over time. Outbreaks will pop up here and there. Even when a much-anticipated vaccine arrives, it is likely to only suppress but never completely eradicate the virus. (For context, consider that vaccines exist for more than a dozen human viruses but only one, smallpox, has ever been eradicated from the planet, and that took 15 years of immense global coordination.) We will probably be living with this virus for the rest of our lives.

Influenza might be another useful point of comparison. The “flu” is not one virus but actually several different strains that circulate seasonally. After pandemics like 2009’s H1N1 flu, also known as swine flu, the pandemic strain does not simply disappear. Instead, it turns into a seasonal flu strain that circulates all year but peaks during the winter. A descendent of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic strain is still the seasonal flu today. The seasonal peaks never quite reach pandemic heights because of building immunity in the population. Eventually, a new strain, against which people have no immunity, comes along and sparks a new pandemic, and then it becomes the new dominant seasonal strain.

In this way, the long-term outlook for COVID-19 might offer some hope for a return to normal. “I think this virus is with us to the future,” Ruth Karron, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins, told me. “But so is influenza with us, and for the most part, flu doesn't shut down our societies. We manage it.”

My state's governor has announced the reopening of schools in my state will be delayed a month. (article is PT-BR)

So all that's gonna be delayed a month...

...I should probably stop waiting and do something.