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Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of October 26
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
Quick personal update (it's been a while since my last one):
Schools in the US aren't going to be able to stay open. I don't think we'll see the same unilateral closures we saw in the spring, but I think there's going to be a whole lot of individual whack-a-mole going on for the rest of the school year. We have laid the groundwork at my school to pivot between in-person and remote models by cohort as needed, and we're now talking about dropping back to remote as a "when" not an "if". Case numbers are rising in my local area (as they are in much of the US), and with winter approaching, it's only going to get worse. I fully expect to hop back and forth between remote and in-person learning multiple times this year.
I actually think we'd be seeing more closures already but, without the ability to mandate tests, basically nothing happens should parents refuse to test as all the protocols are only initiated in the event of a positive. You might have seen the article about the "mom code" where parents are advocating against testing their kids as a way of keeping schools open, and I can confirm that this is precisely what's happening already, and not just in Utah. I don't think it's as outright malicious or calculated as the article suggests, because I also think there's a HUGE social pressure to not be the case that messes things up for other people.
Kids know when someone goes home sick, and kids know when someone doesn't come back the next day -- it's incredibly obvious and every empty chair simply becomes the seat for another elephant in the room. But, if the parent doesn't test, they don't have to report, and as far as all the protocols are concerned, nothing has happened and we continue on as normal. No positive test means no contact tracing, no disclosure, and no quarantining of others. No parent wants to be the one to have to report and potentially shut down classes or the school, in addition to potentially dealing with a whole bunch of blame should other students or teachers fall ill afterwards. Thus it's easier to just assume the worst and quarantine anyway and not put yourself in the community's crosshairs. Plausible deniability carries a lot of weight, unfortunately.
Personally I have a lot of anxiety surrounding schools. My kids aren't quite old enough but soon.
In Massachusetts, it was left up to each individual town how they wanted to handle closures. My town opted to stay full remote. Now they're being forced by the state to reopen and bring students back in, apparently because our Corona virus numbers are so low. Real galaxy brain logic if you ask me.
The Trump administration offered Santa Claus performers a deal: promote a Covid-19 vaccine, and they'd get early access to it. The plan has been called off.
Why did COVID-19 hospital death rates drop? A new study from NYU offers several clues
Mayor of Los Angeles:
The "essential relief" he's talking about is...checks notes...a $20 discount on parking tickets if you pay within 48 hours.
User from a super niche country in ME here, just got over with another curfew, beaches recently got closed again, schools are probably opening in November, yada yada
How's it coming along for y'all?
I will let the Brussels Times' wonderful article from today summarize the situation here in Belgium:
L_CKD_WN
Looks like they're going with the lockdown now: Belgium imposes lockdown, citing "health emergency" due to influx of COVID-19 cases
Yeah … it sucks. I'm pretty heartbroken at the thought we're going back into lockdown for probably another 6-8 weeks :(
And it won't be the last either… I'm expecting another one in March or April…
As @kfwyre noted in last week's COVID thread, wastewater testing is catching on with schools:
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/26/925831847/colleges-turn-to-wastewater-testing-in-an-effort-to-flush-out-the-coronavirus
This was a great article and helped give a lot more context to what I stumbled onto last week. Thanks for posting it and for the ping.
Also, the Boston wastewater data is now updating daily and it does not look good.
It really does not look good. I can see why though—the pandemic fatigue is rampant. I went to City Hall to vote yesterday since my mail-in ballot never arrived after 3 weeks of waiting, and the lack of compliance downtown is unreal. And let’s not even get into how unsafe the voting process they’d set up there felt. If you or anyone else in Boston has yet to vote in person, I’d recommend steering clear of City Hall.
I'm not actually in Boston -- I'm just a curious onlooker. Good to hear from someone on the ground there though, although disappointing to hear people aren't taking things seriously. I see the same thing where I am, unfortunately. Some of my coworkers are meeting up in the same rooms, unmasked, to talk and eat lunch together.
Stay safe. I really hope there's some other reason that explains the wastewater spike and that it's not foretelling huge spread for your city.
COVID-19 Deaths Are Rising, But Fatality Rates Have Improved
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A room, a bar, and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air
Nicely written and seems plausible?
Watching A Wave Come In
Iran's Covid death toll may be four times the government's official tally, says top doctor
AMP link seems to format itself like it's on mobile. Normal link seems fine.
Non-AMP link:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/ncna1245028
'Stay at home' from Thursday, says PM in new England lockdown