Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

lol I went into the comments on that performance artist's posts and one of my friends had already ripped her apart a month ago

My rona test came back negative 6 hours after I had the swab but I didn’t know for 6 days because I missed the text message.

Doesn’t really matter, we’re back in lockdown from tomorrow anyway.

if it's like most text messages from a hospital, it was like

31304 PATIENT, Ed TRANSACTION ID 3242DA NEGATIVE
DO YOU WANT TO SUBSCRIBE TO THIS TEXT
ANSWER NO FOR MORE OPTIONS

RESPONSE CODE 92SAPOLOGY TEXT
WAS INVENTED BY FUTURE
REPLY YES TO SUBSCRIBE
ANSWER NOW FOR NO MORE OPTIONS
ANSWER NO FOR MORE OPTIONS NOW

My wife and I got back Sunday from our weekend trip to my mother-in-law's wedding, presumably without COVID-19 in tow. After originally cancelling a week ago, we finally agreed to be there. We stayed outside for the picnic the night before, wore masks mostly, and socially distanced always, going inside to use the bathroom for two minutes one time each. Sunday we went inside the restaurant with masks for the ceremony for about twenty minutes, then stayed outside and socially distanced for another forty minutes, then got the hell out of there.

Everyone wore masks and socially distanced for the most part, but there was some sloppy mask (i.e mask on but off nose). I am glad the entire experience is over.

*sloppy mask usage*

Oh cool, my boss just says the WHO says don’t wear masks, just stand 1 meter apart.

Just got an email from my work asking me to read and accept a return-to-work document, so looks like we're good to go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU5xxh5UX4U

h cool, my boss just says the WHO says don’t wear masks, just stand 1 meter apart.

― Notes on Scampo (tokyo rosemary), Tuesday, July 7, 2020

usually good advice if Roger Daltrey is shirtless in a room

loools. did you know. there is the owl. FUCK. sometimes i am a guitar string. and it sings like the blood of a muppet. AEROSM(scene missing)ITH? are you now the cried. HARMLESS?!

lol rong thread

really want to read the right thread now

haha same, trying to imagine the thread where that clicks into sense

it’s the secret sloppy mask borad

We're wise to your #onethread schemes, Neanderthal.

first person I knew with Covid just died. My ex's mother in AZ.

:(. Sorry to hear that

Sorry, Prez.

Sorry PK

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4cx2fw646x8srdp/File%202020-07-08%207%2007%2013.jpeg?raw=1

As you can see someone trying to sell me cat food can put their name on the text, the result (in the middle) looks like some random marketing email.

Very much hoping that is also the right thread.

for venting our irrational Cat Food Fears and Experiences in 2020

Hurry!

Pretty sure Austin, TX is going to shut down businesses again some time in the next week.

I’ve been hearing oregon will shut down in restaurant dining and bars for like two weeks now, nothing

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2020/07/07/knoxville-man-pulled-box-cutter-bus-driver-after-asked-wear-mask-warrants-state/5390345002/

Mugshots are getting a little too polished if you ask me

Everybody wants to be Mugshot BAE.

I suppose it was inevitable, but even though things are seemingly on track here, my older daughter's high school will be remote learning again for 2020-2021. There are just too many students and not enough space to ... space out. (I think they did the math and it would take an hour just to take 300 temperatures each day.) I believe the plan is divide all the students into A and B groups, each "going" to their virtual classes twice a week for an entire school day, with Wednesdays off. This is all understandable but less than ideal, of course, and even though they have built in time and resources for the kids who need the most help to get that help, I wonder what longterm effect this will have on learning for everyone. I was talking to a teacher some months back about two siblings she had in class, one with special needs and the other on gifted and talented track. She was worried more about the former, but that student apparently did ok with the remote system, whereas the gifted and talented student's grades took a huge hit (maybe because she knew the work didn't count, or not the same way?). I just heard from a friend whose son had a similarly topsy-turvy experience, apparently writing and doing his best on a paper at the end of last year because he *didn't* have to deal with the distractions and tedious structure of classroom instructions. I have no idea what this means for seniors, many of whom are readying themselves for colleges that similarly may or may not happen, at least not traditionally. I can only hope that they've devised a superior solution to the ad hoc instruction they tossed together at the start of this mess, which admittedly could have been worse.

If there's any silver lining to this school stuff it's that, ironically, we may find ourselves in a situation where the kids can't go to school because the schools can't make it safe for everyone, but kid may finally be allowed to hang out with groups of friends outside of school, which could assuage some concerns about their emotional growth and health.

good news...

1) latest COVID test = negative (as I expected)
2) my mother got a massive check for like 8 weeks of back federal unemployment today and 8 of state yesterday

Look after yourself, Neanderthal
Josh - that's so tough. It's a mess.

Just sneaking in a mini rant here about how I saw my parents for the first time since Feb and I asked several times to stay distanced, outside if possible, particularly as my kid is at school and liable to spread anything/have stuff spreaded this way, and of course it was ignored with them sitting the kids on laps, reading with heads together etc.

My mum is shielding and is in the high risk category but she hasn’t seen our son for 6 months and I’m not sure anything is going to stop her hugging him. We’ll be changing all his clothes beforehand, putting a mask on and hoping.

I think a hug is probably fine...*fingers Xd* it's more the fact they just seemed to completely forget that anything was different, and I'm sure this is how they are day-to-day despite saying "Oh yes we are distancing properly unlike those other sorts we see in the town..."

Josh, just outta interest, what school (DM if not interested in saying ... Or not, get it). I'm only asking, as my wife is kinda stressing about Loyola's Rogers Park campus gettin the ol force open, complete with creepy 'how comfortable on 5x scale are you about teaching in person', pay cuts, etc. Ya know - the more news stories I see about the push open K-12, I'm more and more convinced it's being done as a driver to open up higher Ed & charter schools, cause that's where the moolah is at for the rich boards members/Devos types.

OPRF in the People's Republic of Oak Park. I know they sent out surveys a week or so back and got a big response, so I can only assume their plans reflect the concerns and desires of the students, teachers and parents that responded. In our case it really is quite possibly simply a matter of space and logic, since 3400 kids is a huge number, and there is simply no way to safely divide them up in person. I mean, even the public pools here have decided to stay closed for the summer, and that's something I think the village *could* manage. It's a big bummer, because a lot of people are here for the school, and pay astronomical taxes for the privilege, but if you can't go to the school ... I know it's not the school's fault, but hearing this news (which may be formalized tomorrow morning) I had more than a few friends respond with some variation of "then why are we here?"

I promise you that opening public schools isn't a driver to open higher ed and charter schools. They are much more important in their own right. According to NCES:

~ 50 million kids attend public schools (k-12)
~ 3.5 million kids attend charter schools(k-12)
~ 5 million kids attend private schools (k-12)
~ 12 million kids attend higher ed (full time)
~ 7 million kids attend higher ed (part time)

ahem NONTRADITIONAL STUDENTS

NCES didn't offer that info, but IIRC it's like 30-40% of combined undergrad numbers?

The school I work for should be announcing within the next week whether they will be in person or not, so it’s a real sort of pins and needles feeling right now. Hasn’t helped to be inundated with doom and gloom emails about how “tough financial decisions” are coming if we go online and staff/faculty surveys about how comfortable we’d be on campus knowing that pay cuts and layoffs were the trade off, blah blah blah. It’s stressful.

I have no idea what to do with my elementary school kids in Houston. We should get an announcement on the 15th, but if school does reopen physically, we have the option to keep the kids home to learn remotely. Our five year old is set to enter Kindergarten and she NEEDS socialization. She is becoming feral and our ten year old is wilting. I have so much anger in me because this dumbfuck state in this dumbfuck country couldn't get it together and do the right thing. It is fucking kids up and I don't know what I want to happen when school starts.

really feeling that post. it’s infuriating. hang in there CA.

Yeah I don’t know what I’m going to do with my 5 year old all day if kindergarten doesn’t open. I’m supposed to be working but I’ve spent the past hour listening to him devise a jail escape plan

Because I'm up early, anyway, I'm about to dial in to our elementary school district board meeting (our high school is its own separate school district) to find out where things stand for Fall 2020. Should be fun. Especially fun that such an important meeting is happening while so many parents are working. I know not everyone has the luxury of auditing in their jammies like me.

Anyway, I am not hopeful. It's kind of a fait accompli lose-lose. Stay home from school, not ideal. Go to school, also not ideal, for different reasons.

541 participants on the board meeting that just went live. That's a pretty big turnout, virtual or no.

I have to say that I really feel for all y'all with kids.

It is impossible. Like, not "difficult," or "draining," or "emotionally exhausting" - those, I think, are trivializing and patronizing. It is actively impossible, and was from the start. Kobayashi Maru-type shit, and has been from the beginning. If you're very fortunate and/or very rich, it can be manageable, barely.

But working parents of small and high-needs kids are constantly failing at one or the other. And of course let's make it as shitty as possible for mothers, because that's a longstanding tradition.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/business/covid-economy-parents-kids-career-homeschooling.html

I can't imagine people dealing with multiple kids, it's been hard enough with just one and I'm wildly proud of him, all things considered, by how he's adjusting to this. We've, pretty much by necessity, since we both work full time jobs, had to allow more iPad time than we ever would prefer, since he can Facetime a couple friends from school to play games together. We also got one of those summer bridge workbook things, which he has been incredible about doing each day without complaint. The other thing I've found really hard is having to sit in so many meetings and Zoom calls when I really just want to go do things with him to help make this more memorable!

I'm lucky for a lot of reasons, but at the least for having kids that can deal with remote learning pretty well. But then, they're a lot older; parents I know with younger kids have had a harder time.

Here, at least, daycares have opened again, to some degree, which has helped some parents I know of small kids. But yeah, it's all impossible. My sister lives in England, and she has a 2-year old boy who had just started daycare when everything shut down. She had to calculate, when things reopened a little, whether sending him back for the sake of socialization was worth the risk, and she ultimately determined yes. As his mother she could tell how much he needed that connection with kids his age.

Sounds from this meeting in progress that they are leaning toward a hybrid K-8 model that includes social distancing and other (relative) safeguards, and also takes into account some several hundred parents who indicated they would keep their kids home. There is apparently no way to safely send everyone back even if they wanted to. Spreading the kids out to new learning areas to keep them socially distanced and spread out means more teachers for those new learning areas, and they calculated that alone would cost $11 million. The hybrid model was about half that, which is still not ideal.

Of course the craziest thing about all of this is that it could all change overnight with another spike or ... who knows what is in store. Even if a vaccine is introduced there are a number of unanswered questions, not least how the virus behaves seasonally. Whether it will come back every year, back in another form, whether each year will feature a precarious few months of rising illness and death until i it's under control again ...

Intriguing idea just brought up is parents organizing little learning pods on their own. (This is something that some parents brought up, not the school). That is, very small groups of kids learning remotely together. That helps with some of the socialization concerns, at least for little kids, but there are serious equity concerns. Again, impossible situation.

I mean, that's a great idea for parents that have the capacity to host those but, as you rightly point out, that's really not an equitable solution.