How are parents supposed to work and earn money to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table? [If young children are not in school]
I’m glad I don’t have to wear a mask for 8 hours. If I did, I would choose a mask that went around the back of the head, rather than going around the ears. Even at the beginning of the pandemic I was hearing that health care workers didn’t like around-the-ear masks for long use.
Governors are going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Also if schools aren’t in session, there is not an insignificant proportion of students who have no internet access who can’t engage even if they wanted to. Edweek did a study that showed 40% of schools offered only perfunctory remote learning options this past spring, while only 20% had ‘rigorous’ offerings (the other 40% had something in between).
Result is that many K-12 kids will lose more than a year’s worth of school (counting this past spring, assuming all, or much, of next year remote).
Roycroftmom,
I certainly don’t want to be snarky and am sincerely interested what your position is at this point in time.
It seems like you believe K-12 need to open? And that mask wearing in those circumstances is perhaps too difficult to expect?
Could you please explain what seems to you the best course of action here?
Thanks in advance.
The Federal govt will have to keep the UE program already in place and likely more direct aid - like the $2400/$1200 again. Plus, businesses will again retreat to WFH, and those that can’t will need more federal money, because, even if they stay open they won’t have any customers to speak of. People are going to stop going out again in droves, even if things stay open, because it will be so bad.
I certainly hope schools districts don’t stick their heads in the sand and get caught unprepared a second time. They need to be working on getting kids who need it a computer and internet capability. They also need to have a working systems district wide to conduct online classes, not the haphazard ones they were forced into implementing on short notice because they had no time to prepare and test properly in March.
My personal experience has only been wearing a mask for about an hour tops while grocery shopping.
I have mostly avoided mask use at work by not working within 6 feet of others. Otherwise at our shop/office area no one is wearing a mask for extended periods.
My S20 just started a job at Dollar General where he has to wear a mask for 4-6 hour shifts, with a break in the middle. Just the other day they added a glove requirement which is bothering him more while having to deal with money. I don’t see how him wearing gloves constantly protects anyone.
Is this still the thread where we post our local observations? If so, things are…better…at the Jersey Shore in that we are slowly reopening and our important numbers continue to mostly decline.
Personally, we remain more cautious (won’t be eating out or running to a salon for a while longer to see if the numbers really continue to hold steady or decline) than many of our friends and acquaintances for a few reasons. In no particular order: I don’t completely trust the downward trend we are on can hold as people start to resume normal life, my husband is about to start chemo again, and my husband tends toward anxiety and germaphobia under the best of circumstances.
I am really trying to balance a set of competing interests (kids wanting to be social v. Keeping husband’s anxiety level manageable). Every day feels like a new visit to the negotiating table. I am exhausted, tbh.
Well, @Alh, I swear I have no financial interest in those “hats with shields” companies, but if I were a school system, I would be seriously looking at them and their efficacy. Next I would look at European schools that reopened since apparently they didnt all require masks- the Toronto hospital report indicated that was a factor in its Provincial recommendation, too. Maybe those were outdoors, who knows? I think my point is to find solutions which are likely to have a high compliance rate rather than just assume masks will solve everything. They might, but only if used the entire school day.
Our province’s school boards arranged to provide devices and internet to students without. That unfortunately doesn’t address the issue of spotty service in rural areas but this might
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/spacex-high-speed-internet-1.5618918
The government hasn’t made a definitive announcement about K-12 for the fall but the most likely scenario is some form of hybrid offering where kids are in school part-time and online part-time. It is being left to each individual school board to make plans that work for them. If they do choose a hybrid model there is going to need to be someway of addressing additional child care needs for kids in K-5/6.
It would certainly help millions of people if UI on steroids were to be extended.
I don’t have a crystal ball, but I don’t think there is the political will to extend benefits because it “discourages work”.
People with tight budgets and little savings are going to be in big trouble.
And then there are all the undocumented workers who are heads of households, not eligible for UI, many who already were working multiple jobs. Their children!
Every single day, for the last four months, I’ve wondered why there isn’t a huge push to produce comfortable, stylish, super protective pandemic wear.
Just read an interesting analysis regarding the different approaches to Covid mitigation taken globally and the impact it’s had on the course of the spread in different countries world wide.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic-countries-response-1.5617898
Then millions upon millions more will fall into poverty.
That won’t help anyone - especially small business owners.
The top 10 percent have already stopped spending and they are a huge percentage of all spending - even though a tiny proportion of the population.
While I don’t disagree, I’m wondering how districts will pay for “getting kids who need it a computer” much less “internet capability”. The latter in particular seems out of the purview of school districts, and the former will be hard to do given the staggering cutbacks most districts are facing/expecting.
Where I live, there is school of choice, so public schools aren’t necessarily all under one district “system”.
This – the K-12 school issues – is all so disturbing. We have no safety nets in place for the tens of millions of families likely to be affected. I see a lot of ad hoc child care arrangements springing up – for those who have the money… sigh.
Finally, it’s time for those of us with prosopagnosia (a.k.a. face blindness) to shine!
Quite seriously, you’ll all adjust, at least on the visual side. Instead of facial features, pay attention to things like hair color, gait, frame and height, and so on.
New Italian research today, which if verified by other scientists over time is promising.
Much less virulent strain in patients currently. February was like a “tiger” and the current mutation they are observing is much tamer.
Patients including the elderly are getting well after a few days, including those which would have been certain fatalities in the early spring. That is according to the docs there.
From today’s NYT
‘Federal aid has averted poverty for millions in the U.S., studies say.‘
“An unprecedented expansion of federal aid has prevented the rise in poverty that experts predicted this year when the pandemic sent unemployment to the highest level since the Great Depression, two new studies suggest.
The studies carry important caveats. Many Americans have suffered hunger or other hardships amid long delays in receiving the assistance, and much of the aid is scheduled to expire next month. Millions of people have been excluded from receiving any help, especially undocumented migrants, who often have American children.”
Still, the evidence suggests that the programs Congress hastily authorized in March have done much to protect the needy, a finding likely to shape the debate over next steps at a time when 13.3 percent of Americans remain unemployed.
“Right now, the safety net is doing what it’s supposed to do for most families — helping them secure a minimally decent life,” said Zachary Parolin, a member of the Columbia University team forecasting this year’s poverty rate. “Given the magnitude of the employment loss, this is really remarkable.’’
“The Columbia group’s midrange forecast has poverty rising only slightly this year, to 12.7 percent, from 12.5 percent before the virus. Without the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act — the March law that provided one-time checks to most Americans and weekly bonuses to the unemployed — it would have reached 16.3 percent, the researchers found. That would have pushed nearly 12 million more people into poverty.”
“A separate study analyzing Census Bureau survey data found that incomes rose among needy Americans in April, despite cresting unemployment, as government payments began.”
Teachers don’t teach for 8 hours straight. The school day is usually anywhere from 6-7 hours, depending on where a person is. Teachers start earlier and stay later than students but the teaching part of the day isn’t 8 hours. Also, our state is looking at shorter days for students–moving from the usual 7 hours for students to maybe 6 or maybe school ended just before lunch, with students taking grab and go packages meals home. Most teachers will take their masks off at some point mid-day to eat. I’m contemplating doing this in my own car so I can feel safer while eating. I have worn a mask for 3 1/2 hours straight while doing hard work in my classroom involving moving things around and living things and putting things on top of my closet, taking things down. I was sweating from the work (and not because of the mask). I was OK but it was hot. If I had been doing my usual not nearly as physically active teacher work, I could have easily gone much longer. I was in an unvented N95 and it was a hot day. In the past I wore cotton masks from Japan all day during allergy season. I felt I could breath better because they had charcoal filters in them and I have allergic asthma. Their filtering the air helped calm my asthma and helped me breath better. Just yesterday DH was cleaning downstairs and started sneezing and having trouble breathing from dust. He put on a surgical mask (or surgical type mask - not sure if it is a ‘real’ one) and could instantly breath better. And he is someone who generally doesn’t like masks and feels they restrict his breathing. So, masks are not always something that makes breathing more difficult.
I was talking with some neighbors last week (standing about 20 feet away or more) and it was very hot out and I was standing the whole time. I did feel happy to take the mask off after the talk, so I understand that masks can impact breathing, too.
I have no idea how your school districts are divided socioeconomically but presumably not all students would be required to be provided with devices. Our school board distributed the ones they already had in it’s various schools and the province paid for internet for those students without.
People in other countries wear masks routinely and students the world over have been wearing them. People can do it. I’m sure if other countries do it, we can as well. Our school is very motivated and mask compliance isn’t a worry I have. I’m sure it will vary from school to school and state to state but in our state, overall compliance and support for masks is very high and strong.