If I am constantly looking for bad news and stick to that frame of reference, seldom disappointed.
Always available.
It’s like a strong marriage - negativity seems abundantly available “in both good times and bad.”
If I’m looking for good news it can be found too. Generally right within my own four walls each day. Don’t really have to search for it. It’s right there for the taking. But you have to be open to seeing it.
This is a bad situation for sure.
But since our lives are so brief and certainly finite, I find comforting taking a moment to find the good in my day.
“This too shall pass” has been around a long time. And no one really seems to believe it while events unfold.
I am going to try and have My best day possible tomorrow. And I hope you all can too.
I’m in Florida and support - based on the current data - partial and gradual reopening. So far, the reopening plan appears reasonable (maybe not 100% what I’d do, but not ridiculous.)
That said, I do think there’s a chance there could be a future spike in certain areas of the state and I absolutely think there will be pockets of surges, mainly due to the number of older people we have living in retirement facilities. It’s just such a vulnerable population that no matter how much we try to protect and isolate them it’s unfortunately only a matter of time before some of these facilities have a mass infection event.
If it were earlier in the year I’d predict our workers that pick fruits and veggies (who - like in other areas - are often undocumented and often live in crowded conditions) would also be vulnerable to mass infections, similar to what’s happening in the meat packing industry. But we may be able to avoid that until late fall because so few things are picked in the heat of the summer. Heck, our tomato season is almost over already as will be most of the other crops that aren’t already past time. Next fall will see infections in the harvesting community, though.
I’m expecting Buffet to be ok, regardless of what direction the economy takes, and hope you will too.
Fwiw: I was rolling newspapers for my older brother to throw back in some of the days you’re talking about needing rose colored glasses to forget. Was a precocious reader and I had time to look at the front page while I was doing it. (Lived in a rural area, 45 mile RT route.)
I caught up early on many things: Vietnam war body counts, campus protests of the same, race relation problems, Woodstock, etc. What I don’t remember reading was anything about the Hong Kong flu nor the economic damage that curling up and waiting until there was a vaccine for it caused.
@suteiki77 I love how passionate you are about teaching and care so much for you students. I wish my son’s teachers care as much. If they did I could never tell. Online class is a total joke here.
I do the people who support fast re-opening the courtesy to believe that they know that a lot of people will die as a result of an immediate re-opening, and they are not in favor of all that death at all and do not want people to die, but they think it is nevertheless, on balance, worth the horrific cost because of the great benefit of re-opening and the terrible harms of not doing it.
I would appreciate the same courtesy from them. I’d would like the pro-openers to credit me with knowing the harms of keeping the economy closed. I’d like them to acknowledge that I know how bad it is to keep the economy closed, but nevertheless, think it’s, on balance, worth the horrible economic cost to re-open the economy slowly, carefully, and judiciously, with testing and contact tracing already in place.
@Nhatrang Thank you. I love the feeling of when a student says, “ohhhhh, now I get it.” I’m addicted to that type of thing. I like the students as people, even the ones who can be difficult. There is rarely one I don’t like and I try very hard to find things like in those students until I do like them.
As for studies, the Dutch study just got published in Nature, finally. They say they have a treatment that blocks the virus in cells. I’m very hopeful about this!
Link to earlier article about the Dutch discovery.
Here is an article talking about the results and that the study was published in Nature.
Utrecht University, Erasmus Medical Center and Harbour BioMed Researchers Report Discovery of Antibody that Blocks Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Cells
@suteiki77 they are so lucky to have you as a teacher. Especially right now. So important for them. I’d give you a high five ? but don’t want to get in trouble. Lol.
There’s a possibility that Florida is not being as thorough and as forthcoming as they could be about the situation in long term care facilities. If you don’t look for problems there, you can miss them. Other states have found bad situations at long term care faciliities, when they looked.
@privatebanker Thank you! Air five right back at you! That’s what we were using with students this past year. It became a thing. It was a joke at first when some of us were sick, but then students wanted air fives from us for some reason.
Cute story. One day one single popular 6th grader came to school wearing his hooded sweatshirt backward, with the hood in front. The next day every single 6th grader who had a hoodie wore it to school backward, nearly 100% of the 6th graders. And those who didn’t have them approached teachers like me in school, desperately asking us if we might have a hoodie they could use (alas, I don’t store them at work). I walked through a different section of the school where the 7th and 8th grade rooms were and no one was wearing a backwards hoodie. I asked the students, “where is your backwards hoodie?” and they rolled their eyes and said, “6th graders.”
But the air 5 became a thing not just with the younger students but all three grades, at least those who worked with me and my paraprofessional. I think it will be here to stay for a while.
However, if most of the wealth gains from increased productivity accrues to capital (mostly owned and inherited by the already-wealthy), that may not help most Americans (who depend on their labor) much. This has been the trend since the 1980s, but COVID-19 may accelerate the trend.
So true (and also some unlucky men had to do mandatory military service for an unpopular war)… although the 1950s and 1960s might have been seen as a golden age for the white working class in terms of economic opportunity, since they had a growing economy where the gains where shared between labor and capital, instead of being concentrated to capital. Apropos to these forums, the opportunity to go to college was being greatly expanded during that time. The white working class was also helped in buying their own homes by government housing lending programs (but these same programs redlined black people out of those opportunities and the opportunity for them and their heirs to gain wealth through real estate price gains).
From latest State of Florida Covid-19 update: “DOH strike teams have completed assessments for 3,874 long term care facilities to determine immediate unmet needs and promote appropriate infection control practices. DOH strike teams are continuing to respond to long term care facilities with COVID-19 positive patients.” also “The state will also begin mobile lab testing to long-term care facilities beginning this week. The mobile lab can test up to 3,500 individuals per week and supports rapid testing, with results available in 45 minutes.”
I’m watching the local news. (Maybe some of your local news is similar. )
The news stories on victims of the virus always focus on younger people. But the vast majority of COVID victims are the elderly. Are the elderly not photogenic? Don’t they engender enough sympathy? Or is the intention to mislead?
I guess we watch different news shows. Chris Hayes on MSNBC tries to do some memorials every week. The last one I saw was for Valentina Blackhorse, 28; Steven Chang, 75; Ken and Sammy Hooker, not sure how old they were but they’d celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary; Mary Jane York Taggart, 88; and Sonia Hernandez, not sure how old but she looked 60s or 70s.
As to recovered COVID patients testing positive down the line, it’s looking like this is just a testing issue, not that the patients are being re-infected or having a relapse:
“The way the state tracks its data on deaths has been a point of contention between the Department of Health and some of the state’s medical examiners, who under state law are tasked with determining whether a death is related to the virus.
RELATED: Florida’s count of coronavirus deaths is missing some cases
The medical examiners count every person who dies within their jurisdiction whether they live in Florida or not; whereas, the state only publishes information about the deaths of Florida residents on its public dashboard. On Tuesday, that count stood at 1,471.
The state Medical Examiners Commission keeps a master list of all coronavirus deaths. Last month, after the Times reported that their count was higher than the health department’s, state officials stopped releasing the master list.”
@maya54 I’m a structural engineer and specifically I do a lot of precast concrete detailing. It just seems strange that business is picking up during this period. Picking up a LOT. DH is also busy (we’re a mom and pop firm - we’ve worked out of our house since 1999).
I like the students as people, even the ones who can be difficult. There is rarely one I don’t like and I try very hard to find things like in those students until I do like them.