The LA public school year starts on August 18, Entirely Online.
Some school districts are getting skittish with in-person learning and delaying it as coronavirus cases surge across the U.S. Some districts are pushing off school start dates by up to several weeks, while others like LAUSD plan to start the school year with online-learning only.
“The skyrocketing infection rates of the past few weeks make it clear the pandemic is not under control,” said a joint statement issued by LAUSD and the San Diego Unified School District, which also will start the school year online.
Both districts said they would continue planning for a return to in-person learning in the new academic year as public-health conditions allow. They plan to launch online learning on their originally scheduled opening dates: on Aug. 18 for Los Angeles and Aug. 31 for San Diego.
President Trump has demanded school districts open to in-person learning or risk losing federal funding. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has also pushed for reopening.
Trumpian Bluff
By what authority can Trump cut funding for schools that open online?
His threat is another obvious Trumpian bluff that is headed nowhere.
Trump’s economic advisor Larry Kudlow tried the carrot approach.
“I think the president would be willing to consider additional funding for state and local governments if the schools do reopen, so that’s perhaps an incentive,” Mr. Kudlow told Fox News on Monday.
Opening Safely
School Districts get Recommendations from Health Experts
One look at the picture is all it should take to the the foolishness of the ideas. Schools would need three to five times the number of teachers to provide adequate spacing.
The Case for Reopening Schools
The Wall Street Journal editorial board makes The Case for Reopening Schools.
The evidence—scientific, health and economic—argues overwhelmingly for schools to open in the fall. Start with the relative immunity of young children to the disease, which should reassure parents.
Only two children under age 18 have died in Chicago—fewer than were killed in shootings in a recent weekend. In New York City, 0.03% of children under age 18 have been hospitalized for Covid and 7.5 in one million have died. The death rate for those over 75 is more than 2,200-times higher than for those under 18.
Parents and teachers understandably worry that children might spread the virus. But a recent retrospective study of schools in Northern France, from February before lockdowns, found that “despite three introductions of the virus into three primary schools, there appears to have been no further transmission of the virus to other pupils or teaching and non-teaching staff of the schools.”
Teens appear to be more infectious. Yet schools that have reopened in most countries, including Germany, Singapore, Norway, Denmark and Finland, haven’t experienced outbreaks. Some schools in Israel had outbreaks last month after class sizes were increased, but most infections in both teachers and students were mild.
In any case, these risks can be managed as the Trump Administration has suggested in its guidance to schools: Space desks six feet apart, stagger class periods, make kids wear face coverings when possible, keep them in the same cohort, and have them eat, play and learn outdoors as much as possible. Teachers can also wear face shields, and schools can use plastic barriers in higher-grade level classrooms to separate them from kids.
Two Unanswered Questions
- Where are schools supposed to get the space or the teachers to move desks six feet apart?
- What are parents who would normally be working supposed to do?
An office at home with kids running around is not like an office without the kids. Online schools will be a major disruption for many parents.
Mish
Public schools continually “need” more money and the public has no recourse but to submit to tax increases. Are school administrators ever obliged to cut costs or live within restrictive budget limits? Does the public ever have any say in funding public school and government worker pensions, many times the retirement benefits that most of us will ever see? But I digress. Why shouldn’t there be some “Trumpian” oversite at some level of this unbridled spending? Yes there are new expenses due to the pandemic, but there are also savings – busing, utilities, probably many more things that I wouldn’t think of. Aaah, but there are always those escalating pension costs we just have to submit and pay for. Don’t ever question those. Trump is the only one who is brave enough to speak up for the lower 90%. I for one am just happy for some pushback.
I own a small private preschool and kindergarten in coastal NC. Our governor just today announced a virtual learning and limited in person instruction for the new school year. We have now been flooded with requests from families who want to enroll their children with us now, as our school is deciding to stay open.
I’m noting that these are all well to do families who can afford to pay the tuition and do not want to subject their children to virtual learning and the parents want to continue working.
Children from families with less means are having to deal with whatever options the public schools have.
Everyone has an opinion. Doesn’t mean it is worth listening to.
If a school board uses Zoom to discuss reopening, I’d suggest they not reopen.
Defund the public schools and as mentioned upthread sell the real estate. Cost savings should enable parents to teach their own children or pay private parties to do so.
I saw a headline today (didn’t have time to read the details) that the virus is spread readily from an infected person to those downstream of the air conditioning vents when they are in relatively close proximity to the infected. Two other relevant cases I’ve seen were in a restaurant and a call-center type of office environment. Such businesses will likely have to re-engineer their A/C operation and allow more space per employee or seated customer. Plus use the Plexiglas screens. Great time to be in the Plexiglas business.
I think the best solution is cutting the class size by asking half of the students to distance learn. Truly only essential workers kids need to be in school. The problem with the way they’ve defined essential workers is it basically includes everyone and shouldn’t.
The United States has a real problem when it comes to moral issues. Our culture has adopted the practice of casting aside ethics when those ethics conflict with money.
The simple principle that people’s health takes president over making money is lost on the vast majority of the population.
The problem with ignoring ethics and morality is that ethics and morality have been developed over thousands of years based on the experience of the consequences of ignoring them. Ethics and morality were developed because of the negative results of acting contrarily. The result of ignoring morality in order to make money is that it seldom works.
As we are seeing with the early reopening of the economy and the downplaying of the health risks of the virus, the result has been a resurgence of the virus and the corresponding decline in business.
A second wave of business failures is now the likely outcome, as many businesses are in a very vulnerable position having barely survived the initial wave.
If we continue to ignore the health threat this virus presents, and allow our ethics to be compromised by putting money before people, we will continue to reap the opposite results from what we want. Those are the lessons taught by ignoring morality.
Time to sell the lot of them for medical experiments.
South Africa is reopening schools now, this might provide more insight on how that evolves
In Spain plans are too reopen fully in September, UK also. Personally I think it is going to be chaotic, especially if there are still larger outbreaks going on in any country. I think though that keeping schools open is going to be a priority for governments now, because organising anything else is going to be difficult for society as a whole without them functioning.
“..because organising anything else is going to be difficult for society as a whole without them functioning.”
That’s likely it.
A population freed to feed their family, with only one parent toiling directly for the printing beneficiaries, is not what those leeches want to see the world revert to, after decades spent roping people in and enslaving them under guise of various Dear Leader promoted progressive agendas.
Surprised even you picked up on that side to it, though it was intentionally left open to suggestion. I did seperate the ability of society as distinct from government management (in this case schooling), but somewhere in the fog of it all are various interests beyond average people missing their way of life or trying to keep their business afloat, with a priority of keeping the existing system functioning because that is what the whole system is scaled to, a format of activity that has little slack in it as a whole anymore even while the overall level of prosperity is high.
Step 1: Move classes online.
Step 2 (5-10 years down the road): Sell school properties to fund insolvent pensions.
You read it here first.
We home schooled our daughter and she is in law school right now and was just selected for the legal review. We worked two different shifts and pulled it off. Much better education than the public propaganda system.
Good idea, or send your children to private schools and tell the public schools you will not pay taxes for nonexistent services.
And when the county sheriff repossesses your home and evicts you, what legal advice do you have for that?
Sorry, but you must pay for the state supported schools even if you home school.
If she’s going to law school, you failed her.
Orange County education leaders want schools to reopen without masks or social distancing
Exactly my point–Boards of Education are more political animals than not.
Dubious message and dubious reasoning and only hearing from a limited number of speakers.
Closed loop, bad decisions.
The School systems are concerned with money first, second and last. Miss-educating children is simply the cover they use to rob the public…..
Their concern is that people are beginning to realize they are expendable…
All members of the Education Board must be required to stay in a class the whole day everyday like the students do, not sipping cafe in their offices.
Well, that’s certainly a way of eliminating complaints from many of the parents … eventually …
And perhaps even reducing class size … eventually … and thereby increasing social distancing “naturally”.
And of course Augustthegreat’s mandate must absolutely be part of the plan … so as to … eventually … eliminate many of those morons from the school board!
Say what you will about Sweden’s approach but they never stopped sending their children to school or destroyed 30-40-% of buss./jobs and their death rate is equal to the US.
Since we missed the opportunity to emulate S Korea or New Zealand which was probably never possible in the US following the Swedish approach is the only logical way forward..and we have to move forward.
Sweden has really done no better than its neighbor states economically. And comparing the average Swede to a US citizen is kind of a joke.
“Since we missed the opportunity to emulate S Korea or New Zealand which was probably never possible in the US following the Swedish approach is the only logical way forward..and we have to move forward.”
We still must move forward in some rational, logical manner don’t we?
It’s probably worth considering that Sweden is part of a larger economy that is itself part of a global economy thats been brought to it’s knee’s. Under those circumstances I wouldn’t expect a steller or even average economic performance.
“We still must move forward in some rational, logical manner don’t we?”
…
Absolutely. Except we’re not doing that … any number of images can be found of US citizens acting irresponsibly.
…
“Our study shows that individually driven infection control measures can have a substantial effect on national outcomes, and we see Sweden as a good example of this case. Higher levels of individual action would further suppress the infection, while a complete lack of individual action would likely have led to runaway infection, which fortunately hasn’t happened.”
– Dr. Peter Kasson, study author and researcher at Sweden’s Uppsala University
Since we missed the opportunity not to shoot ourself in the foot; we may as well just give up, and shoot ourselves in the other…..
Kind of off-topic, but wasn’t this sort of “hey, since you effed up and sinned so badly, you’re obviously not fit for church anyway, so you may as well just give up and join me instead” “reasoning” one of Luther’s (or someone like him’s) prime examples of Satanical “logic” aimed at encouraging people to fall/fail?
It sounds like you feel Sweden has f up? I guess time will tell, but it sure doesn’t look like it.
To be sure what we’re doing here in the US is not working.
So far, Sweden has effed up to the rate of 5000 to 500, or 10 to 1 for short, vs it’s most directly comparable neighbors…..
Of course, we can always speculate that One Day, Elon Musk really will save us all and give us a battery powered, self driving SpaceX rocket ride to Mars in our virus killing Tesla rover; but based on current observation as opposed to conjecture, those are the numbers.
The fact that Sweden maximized it’s deaths at about 600 deaths/million tells us nothing about what would happen in the US. We already know that New York and New Jersey hit 1700/deaths per million, and they still have some restrictions. Thus, we know that if we went ahead and maximized deaths in the US, we would hit over that. Suppose that we adopt the Swedish model, it would be reasonable to expect a minimum of 6-700,000 total deaths, perhaps more. Now, you think we’ll get there eventually anyway, and maybe we will, but it’s an awfully gruesome goal. I certainly hope that we can do a lot better than that.
As for why the Swedish didn’t die at the same pace as in other parts of the world, theories I have seen are more Vitamin D supplementation, less obesity, diet includes more fish, more fit, younger, less diabetes, and less consumption of high fructose corn syrup. Which ones are the real reason(s) I can’t say, but their experience is vastly different than New York or New Jersey.
“The skyrocketing infection rates of the past few weeks make it clear the pandemic is not under control,”
It never was under control, just people were, as governments forced what they artificially deemed non essential businesses, were shut down and those people told to stay home.
Zero Hedge: “Asian, European Countries Roll Back Economic Reopenings As COVID-19 Makes Global Comeback”
Anyone with common sense could have seen that one coming. A partial lockdown was never going to irradicate the virus and the economy and people cannot be partially locked down indefinitely.
The world economy is trashed, while preventing the attainment of herd immunity, the one guaranteed way to diminish the threat of the virus. How has trashing the economy been good for anyone’s health? People can’t pay their rent or their mortgage. They worry about whether they have a job to go back to. It is psychologically and economically damaging to far more people than the number at actual risk of dying from Covid.
The great irony is that the group that should have been most protected, the elderly in care facilities, were despite being locked down, due to their already frail condition, were the group placed most at risk of dying. Lockdown was a huge failure, as some 42% of the deaths occurred where the people should have been the safest.
“while preventing the attainment of herd immunity, the one guaranteed way to diminish the threat of the virus.”
…
I’ve read story after story that antibodies are low / fleeting in those exposed to covid, opening the way for reinfection. Can you provide evidence, otherwise?
5 or 6 more repetitions ought to make herd immunity true. Maybe 10 or 11. Can’t wait.
You want to know why lock-down of those in congregate care doesn’t work?
Because the people who work caring for them are out and about in the world getting exposed to the illness.
And there are not enough tests and, besides pre-symptomatic people can spread the disease.
+1
“Protecting the most susceptible”, while letting the rest be exposed, is a nice sounding punchline for those gullible enough to not think any further. But that’s also all it is.
“Because the people who work caring for them are out and about in the world getting exposed to the illness.”
Just like kids who would be out and about when they go back to school bringing exposure back into their homes.
And for those who argue that younger populations, i.e. the kids’ parents, have lower death rates, I would remind them that we have no reliable information on the lasting effects of exposure in survivors.
Anecdotal evidence suggests it could be significant. Long term effects have been seen in many body systems – heart and cardiovascular systems, brain and neurological, kidney, lungs, digestive system, and micro blood clots throughout the body. Much more data collection is needed.
The School Board for my district had a meeting last night … discussing options (kinda late in the day …).
One plan had kids in two groups. “A” kids go to school Mon / Tues. “B” kids go Thurs / Fri. Wednesday is cleaning day. On days not in school kids do on line.
Not sure how any of this works. Is online learning separate instruction? Or just zoom of other kids instruction? This is a rural area and many kids won’t have access to decent internet … assuming kids have a place to go (if parent can’t stay home) for 3 days / week.
One big cluster****. Oh, and testing everyone not on the table.
Here’s a response from a teacher about the complex logistics of opening
You know what, this is really f’d up.
Of course conditions vary around the country. Local school boards, if they received good epidemiological advice, and followed it, would be the ones able to monitor the day-to-day progress of the local epidemic and be prepared to react swiftly. But of course not, these are the same groups that sway with every breeze of politics so you really can’t rely on them so their most likely course will be to persist full-open until the epidemic is fully embedded in the local community.
And, according to what happened in Israel, the swing from very few cases to lots of cases happened in a month. One month! Do the school boards even meet that often? One meeting a month–first meeting, OK let’s open–second meeting, looks like there are some cases—third meeting, shut it down its out of control!
I think that this sort of thing will give a boost to the ‘home school’ movement, regardless of how any one feels about it. Our granddaughters had to remain home the last quarter of last year, working with their teachers through a combination of online classes and drop-off/pick-up school work. My daughter-in-law, a very regimented person, had the girls work all morning every day and they were done by lunch with all the work. The entire process was so enjoyable, that she bought additional material online to continue through the summer. It is now part of the kids’ every day routine.
She might keep them home. She is an at-home mom, so she can. But this has been successful so far. I am not endorsing homeschooling, but I can see where some families might use this quarantine as an impetus to give it a go.
Homeschooling has the best success rate of any American education experience. I realize some self-selection is taking place as homeschoolers have parents who are heavily involved in education.
However, homeschooling is currently giving kids the best chances at career and financial success in America, much better than public education, even before COVID. Why wouldn’t we want to encourage it?
My wife and I homeschool our kids. They are average kids, but score in the 95+ percentile academically on standardized tests. That is normal and almost expected for homeschoolers.
And current successes, are mostly even without the aid of the masses of comparative data wrt whch curricula are “the best” etc., which will become available if homeschooling moves closer to the norm.
In general, modern economies are built around there often being a major distinction between who one spends time with for work, vs socially. The current mainstream school experience, mushes both of those together. Which may well have prepared people for work and life in farming towns and villages, but not necessarily so for a future of working on the Linux kernel with people in Finland and China.
Currently, in some places, home schooled kids have a harder time finding “friends”, since “all” the other kids’ lives revolve around fixed-geography school. But if more people start homeschooling, that problem will fade as well, and you’ll end up with a, today more real-life-mirroring, clearer distinction between who you work with, and who you play with.
“Think of how dumb the average person is, and realize half of them are dumber than that.”
— George Carlin
And you want dumb people doing child education? Did you ever watch the man-on-the-streets interviews with the average person who couldn’t even identify the USA on a map of countries? Seriously?
Almost no matter how dumb someone is, their children are even dumber. So you still end up with parents being in a position to teach their kids, up until the kids are a good bit older.
Besides, it’s not as if the distribution of dumb, is magically any different among teachers’ union members.
And as for those making decisions on curriculum, like it is for those making decisions about anything in progressive, financialized dystopias; they are invariable on a whole ‘nother plane of dumb altogether.
I taught public high school for many years and when home schooled did show up in my class room (usually the student wanted the experience and were tired of home schooling) they were almost always the best and the brightest kids.
Parents that choose to home school are a self-selecting group and tend to do an exceptional job. Undoubtedly, there are some failures out there, but they’re not part of my experience.
re: “Did you ever watch the man-on-the-streets interviews with the average person who couldn’t even identify the USA on a map of countries? Seriously?”
Yep, and those people were all educated in public school. Did you ever watch the National Spelling Bee? Or geography championships, whatever they are called? It’s probably a coincidence, but the winners are nearly always home schooled.
Those people who are like that are almost always from a public school.
It’s quite doubtful you’ll ever find a homeschooler who doesn’t know where all the countries of the world are. Both my 7 and 9 year olds can already identify almost all the countries of the world. It’s not that hard. Dunno what they teach in public schools, but it can’t be much.
We also homeschooled our boys. Both were National Merit Scholars. Not all parents are the “highly educated” types some think. Many homeschool parents have no qualifications, but there are work arounds. Most communities have home school associations, and you can get help for teaching subjects you aren’t qualified to teach.
The one warning I will give is that you must make sure that your children remain socially active. I would also, personally recommend ceasing home school before high school because there is a lot of social activity your child will miss if they aren’t around others during those years.
I work in L.A. County, and for people with kids in school it is a mess. Daycare is a huge burden right now. And just a few miles south, in Orange County, they just announced school will be starting as normal, no masks, full classrooms.
The school board does not have the authority to make that mandatory. Thankfully.
OC resident here, Lance is correct. The Board’s vote carries no weight of law.
Not advocating for experimenting on kids, nor experimenting with making kids parent-less (nor even grandparent-less), but from a “controlled” study POV, if LA truly stays closed, and Orange County fully opens, relative differences between the two outcomes would be good data wrt the usefulness of keeping schools closed.
Chances are, they’ll both muddle towards something very similar in the middle, though. Such that the only real difference, ends up being exactly which Newspeakian phrase is chosen to placate the different political prejudices of each county’s prime loudmouths.
Actually Stuki, one of the problems with a lack of global coordination is that LA County and Orange County are not isolated from each other. People live in one and commute to the other. Or let’s say LA County closes beaches and restaurants but OC keeps them open. They share a 40-mile border so you can hop right on over.
So instead of a laboratory of democracy or epidemiology, the less restrictive policy always wins.
Hmmm…if only there were somewhere where we could look for other’s experiencing in re-opening….
JERUSALEM—Israel’s unchecked resurgence of COVID-19 was propelled by the abrupt May 17 decision to reopen all schools, medical and public health officials have told The Daily Beast.
“We know Israelis have terrible discipline, but now, it’s the leadership. ”
— Galia Rahav, Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv
The assessment of Israel’s trajectory has direct bearing on the heated debate currently underway in the United States between President Donald Trump, who is demanding a nationwide reopening of schools for what appear to be largely political reasons, and health authorities who caution it could put the wider population at risk.
Importantly, on May 17 in Israel it appeared the virus not only was under control, but defeated. Israel reported only 10 new cases of COVID-19 in the entire country that day. In the U.S. the debate often is about reopening schools where the disease is not only not in decline, but surging.
On Sunday, for instance, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, “There’s nothing in the data that suggests that kids being in school is in any way dangerous.” But that is not the case in Israel, where the data from June, the last month for which there is a full set of statistics, appear all too clear.
The road from anti-coronavirus paradigm to rampant infection in this country of 9 million people followed two months of almost total lockdown. May 17 also was the day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former rival Benny Gantz swore in their “corona emergency government,” whose sole declared purpose is to fight the spread of the virus. Netanyahu’s decree that the nation’s entire school system would reopen was a political flourish to signal everything was under control.
The announcement followed a more cautious experiment of several weeks in which only children in the first, second and third grades were brought back to classrooms, and taught in small, non-intersecting groups called “capsules.”
Dr. Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist at the Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and chairman of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians, said: “There was no measurable increase in contagion” while the capsules for young children were being tried out.
The association even offered the government an investigation into school-based infections of COVID-19, but was turned down.
Then, Levine says, “contrary to our advice, the government decided to open the entire system all at once on May 17. What happened next was entirely predictable.”
On June 3, two weeks after schools opened, over 244 students and staff were found positive for COVID-19.
According to the education ministry, 2,026 students, teachers and staff have contracted COVID-19, and 28,147 are in quarantine due to possible contagion.
Just in the first two weeks of July, 393 kindergartens and schools open for summer programs have been shuttered due to cases of COVID-19.
“JERUSALEM—Israel’s unchecked resurgence of COVID-19 was propelled by the abrupt May 17 decision to reopen all schools, medical and public health officials have told The Daily Beast.”
A Nobel prize winning scientist noted that Israel left itself totally vulnerable, as their lockdown near totally suppressed herd immunity, since they had few cases, as a result. Turned out he was right. If not reopening the schools, it would have been something else that would have caused it. Cases are resurging in Europe and Asia, as well as the U.S.
There is no evidence that herd immunity exists with this virus.
Again, NO such thing as HERD immunity anywhere in the World!
If Ron repeats the same lies enough times they become true. That’s how it works.
A Utah (!) school district is providing teachers with a movable plexiglas shield to move with them (but they don’t have enough for all so lottery time!)
So the virus magically sticks to the movable shield? I thought it was airborne
Far and away most of it, is supposedly carried by droplets which fairly quickly fall out of the air. Such that a shield shielding you from the initial, immediate blast of air exhaled by someone close by yelling or coughing, prevents you from being exposed to most of it.
First time I have seen someone recommend that people face away from each other when they talk! Wonder if this would work when chatting with the police?
How much more paranoia can we tolerate?
Coronavirus FAQ: How Do I Protect Myself If The Coronavirus Can Linger In The Air?
July 11, 2020
Bottom line: It’s impossible to rule out that some amount of transmission may be caused by aerosols. If you want to err on the side of caution, here’s what some infectious disease researchers say can help minimize the risks:
Face away from people when you talk: When you’re talking face to face with someone, you’re in direct line of the plumes of breath that come out of their mouths when they speak. “If there’s any scenario where I’m face to face, with someone, I move my head off-center so I’m no longer inhaling that direct plume,” says Seema Lakdawala, a flu transmission researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. One tip that helps her is to not make direct eye contact with people. It can be awkward, she acknowledges, but “it’s not just about protecting myself, but also about protecting other people,” since it’s possible to shed the virus without knowing you’re infected.
Plexiglass screens are likely easier to get used to, than facing away from those you talk to.
Some share of virus exhaled no doubt remain for a while as aerosols. But 1) it’s supposed to be a small share, and 2) the cost/benefit of shielding oneself from the much greater rest, is much higher. So the latter is worth doing, even if doing so may not protect from the aerosolized share.
“it’s supposed to be a small share”
The truth is that no one knows how important this is. Medical science is not like McDonalds. You do not get instant answers to complex questions merely by going through the drive-through.
‘I’m scared to death.’ As Manatee district finalizes reopening plans, teachers are worried https://www.bradenton.com/news/coronavirus/article244191387.html
My reply to them:
“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
“When you stare into the void, the void stares back at you.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
yayaya everyone is a virologist
Unfortunately, the truth is that we have only a rudimentary knowledge of several aspects of infection spread, including on one critical aspect of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: how THIS virus transmits
Worth reading in full:
Another INCONVINIENT truth against the narrative of saving jobs over lives!
Human lives are no more important than the life of the ant you likely stepped on today.
Oxygen masks will now be distributed by local governments and are required of everyone leaving their houses for any reason whatsoever!
Schools have developed as modern day babysitters for at work parents. So no schools, means parents can’t return to work, which might mean that they wind up getting fired or else doing what was done in the old days, putting the oldest kid, even if they were only say 11 or 12, in charge, while the single parent went to work.
Then I listened to a discussion during the day about how child abuse cases were down significantly, so the thought was that kids are still being abused in normal numbers but now there isn’t anyone to catch it, since it is normally the teacher that would do so.
And then there is the fact that many kids get a significant portion of their nutrition requirements at schools.
Yup, the politicians opened a real Pandora’s box when they chose to close the economy down for this relatively minor virus. I think that there is a good chance that many politicians up for reelection are going to be voted out and that Republican candidates, who generally are less supportive of economic disruptions will come out ahead in Nov, at least on the state and local levels.
On the flip side you have millions that are fed up with republicans over things like unemployment. 3 states, all with republican governors, just announced work search requirements during a pandemic. I don’t think republicans are coming out smelling like roses when it’s all said and done especially with everything going on and the idiot that has the pole position.
“…relatively minor virus”?
How quickly people forget NYC doctors picking who lived and who died. That scene is coming to your home town in about 2 months with the current state of affairs and attitudes.
I’m moving into week 3 of dealing with this virus. Early 40s, pretty healthy. The chest pains I have had along the way are incredibly unnerving. Calling this virus minor is moronic. Not to mention the fact that herd immunity or immunity in general to coronaviruses is likely not going to happen.
If herd immunity or immunity in general to coronaviruses is not going to happen, I guess we’ll all be teleworking/telelearning forever. Gonna be a lot of property devaluation, from local shops to high rise sky scrapers.
“I guess we’ll all be teleworking/telelearning forever. ”
Not necessarily “teleworking”, but not entirely unlikely having to get used to business and social models which reduce levels of congestion and interaction, to something closer to what human immune systems evolved to handle.
In high density industrial farming, they have been banging up against limits to how densely they can pack animals before the microbes take over, for a long time now. With the only solutions, so far, being either occasional mass cullings, or enforced administration of drugs in quantities no human (nor anyone else with a life expectancy longer than time-until-scheduled-slaughter) would put up with. Neither of which translate any better to NYC or Singapore, than it did to the piled-high nightly gangbangs in The Castro which seem to have potentiated the previous edition of The Great Global Viral Scare.
Ultimately, I suspect those pesky Afghans will be proven right on this one as well….. They do have an annoying, at least for budding totalitarians and their pliantly bent over armies of uncritical sycophants, habit of ending up on the right side of history, over the long term.
And long-term, we are going to be left with these ugly, tall half to all empty office buildings marring the local skylines.
It’s minor in that closing down the economy was the wrong approach. There are less than 150k deemed dead from CV19. The vast majority of people recover w/o ongoing problems. Taken together, that makes it “relatively minor”.
It is without question the worst pandemic of the last hundred years, and that isn’t even factoring in the health care costs, the suffering from those with long term versions of it, nor the potential of many people having permanent disability from it. Any of those alone would make it a major virus. Taken together, you just look ludicrous.
Nah. You’re delusional. None of the available figures to-date come anywhere near supporting the “worst pandemic of the last 100 years”.
The award this does qualify for is most panicked population for no good reason.
My kids’ high school is considering in-person 2 days per week, 3 online. Unless the experts (who? I don’t know, who’s in charge anymore?!) say not to, then fully online. Since parts of Cali are going fully remote, I assume Oregon will end up doing same because our governor’s form of leadership is to do whatever Cali did a few weeks ago. In which case it will be tempting to just take online community college classes, because I expect online high school to be a complete waste of time.
What does the 2/3 format achieve? Are kids LESS likely to transmit or pick-up the virus on those 2 in-school days???
When kids go 2 days out of 5 you’re reducing density by 60%. Going less frequently is the only way to space desks six feet and still have room for all the people in the school buildings.
Oh, so kids would attend physical classes 2 days a week and do online classes the other 3 days. That would seem to significantly increase the number of teachers required. Where are they going to come from?
No more teachers, definitely no budget for that! I think the online days would be largely on-your-own days — maybe a quick check-in each morning.
Yes, the idea is to stagger when kids come in, in order to lower population density at any given time, with 6 feet of distancing.
They also want to halve the number of classes taken by each student at a time, so that there is far less transition … e.g., kids would be working on the same things on their days off as on their days in classroom.
It’s some good thinking. I just think it will be even less productive than normal, and our experience is that the normal gov school experience is impressively unproductive. High school is already demoralizing, imagine how much worse it will be in this strained environment.
The LA teachers union will do what they believe is best for their membership. Students are incidental .
Everyone does. At least everyone in any coveted position of authority. Heck, they don’t even do what’s best for their membership in general. But rather more narrowly, what’s best for those at the top of the unions. Labor organizations exist for the benefit of labor organizers after all. Not laborers.
Long term, though: Speeding up the decoupling of kids’ education, from what is by now largely outdated geographical boundaries, is no boon to rent seekers. Of neither the teachers’ unions, nor the housing rackets, kind.
So are corporations run by plutocracy!
Congress controls the education funds, not tRump. Or this country has changed into a kingdom?
Other countries opened schools without major infections because they had virus under control, while the U.S. is in an inferno now.
Looking more closely at the numbers, massive under-testing in the first wave made cases seem better than now and deaths seem worse. The numbers look more reasonable if you multiply the first wave deaths by 10 to have a better understanding of how many people were actually infected.
Now most countries are on top of testing so cases and deaths more accurately align.
So no, the US is not an inferno now. However thanks to cavalry attitudes, and cheery pick of inconclusive initial data, the inferno is coming.
“Other countries opened schools without major infections because they had virus under control, while the U.S. is in an inferno now.”
Zero Hedge: “Asian, European Countries Roll Back Economic Reopenings As COVID-19 Makes Global Comeback”
The virus was never under control. It was always that attainment of herd immunity would bring it under control. Herd immunity was suppressed by the lockdowns, leaving populations vulnerable, when economies reopened.
RonJ
There has NEVER been HERD immunity ANYWHERE in the world let alone here! At most it may be for few months!
Another MYTH is perpetuated, EVERYDAY!
All the most recent data says there is not such thing as herd immunity as immunity doesn’t last longer than a few months post infection.