Covid Comes to Stafford County, Ks.

Sorry your friends and students are sick. Glad you are Ok.

MM

Oh wow! This is a reminder, not that we needed one, how bad it really is. I see those graphs, the states all marked in red which show cases are surging in almost the entire country. I saw a headline recently about COVID coming to small towns now.

Seven weeks in the hospital is devastating. It will take a long time for her to completely recover.

I have a friend on the other forum I post on who had COVID and didn't need the hospital. But she is still experiencing symptoms a couple months later. She isn't that old and had been running marathon distances before all this. She had a news write-up last year with her picture in the paper because she'd lost significant weight by taking up running. In other words she had been so healthy. She's just now starting to run a bit but it's hard for her.

The only silver lining to this whole tragedy is it's going to make Trump lose the election. The price is too high but we can't do anything about that.

Thanks for checking in.

Thank you for posting this, shakey - it is very sad and enraging - and enlightening, because I've seen the maps and never once thought about little townships and the effects there, even though I live in a little township myself. But we don't have Trump in charge of everything, so our story is different. I hope you and the town all come through. Do take good care of yourself.

Glad to hear from you shakysix. So sorry this is happening. It sounds incredibly stressful.

We are still doing distance ed at the college (and will be through next semester at least), as are most of the local K-12 schools. Unlike us, their teachers are not being given any long-term, semester-length commitments to online, so they have to be on continual standby in case the numbers get to where the state says they should come back to in person. It's crazy, because preparing to teach in either modality is a full time job (as well you know) and then some, but having to keep options open for being told "we'll be back in the classrooms next week!" but then being told, no they will be back on line after all is almost impossible. I suppose if they do go back to in person it will be even crazier, with returns to online looming when someone gets sick. Administrators have no idea how much work it is to prepare for an online class, nor how different it is from teaching in person.

I keep hearing "official" reports how younger aren't important vectors of the disease (the age of what constitutes a "younger" kid keeps changing too--some say the cutoff age is 7, others say it is 10, and now some are saying 12), and we are doing more harm keeping the younger kids (at least) at home, but I have been hearing so many anecdotes like yours that makes that seem like a lie, or at least an overstatement. Define "not an important vector." Is one or two teachers seriously ill, or even dead, in a given school an acceptable risk in return for the benefits of teaching in person? Lives that are just data points at the national level are still real people who lost everything and left a gaping hole behind them at the local level.

I suspect the countries that haven't seen a significant change in covid numbers when the grade schools are open are following a much more strict and centralized set of restrictions as well--smaller classes, very strict mask wearing by kids as well as teachers, rigid social distancing, outdoor classes when possible, aggressive contact tracing, well ventilated buildings. I have trouble seeing most US districts being able to do this. As always, our administrators tell us what to do and provide zero institutional support.

Meanwhile, the number of new Covid cases are higher than ever before. It's everywhere. We have a weird, mixed message system here in CA. Schools are still closed for the most part, but restaurants, even some bars, are open for indoor dining now, and people (even elderly folks) are partaking. More and more people are getting together with friends and families at parties, weddings and so on. And mask orders are spottily enforced in shops (I have never once seen a store worker or security guard stop someone who isn't covering their nose, for instance, and tell them to pull their damn mask up or leave).

I live in a city that was hit early and hard. Masks are pretty universally used around here because people SAW. They saw their friends and family and coworkers get sick and sometimes die. Watching something happen far away and seeing it on your own doorstep are always so different. I can watch news reports about the fires out west all day long, but it's not the same as staring up at orange, smoke-scented skies, wondering whether to run, and when, and whether your home will still be standing when you return. I imagine it's something like what I experience evacuating for hurricanes, but there's less warning with fires, and you can't take refuge indoors or on the roof. It's just different.

It's strange now, watching it slowly filter into such sparsely-populated areas. Part of me wants to scream at the die-hard hoaxers "See?! We tried to warn you!" But mostly I'm just sad. I wish it had been stopped before it got that far. I wish it could have remained theoretical and far away from your community. I'd rather be treated as a liar than see people suffer needlessly. Sorry for the rambling, but it's a confusing jumble of emotions to sift through.

I'm glad you're well, and I'm sorry your colleague drew the short straw. I hope she recovers fully and soon.

Be well.

This X-Mas is going to be the shittiest in recorded history.

-cb