Friday, August 07, 2020

Day 189: Treading Water

California seems to be lagging lately, so much so that Florida and Texas are creeping towards their top spot. It turns out, however, that this may be due to the backlog caused by an expired certificate that they managed to not notice for five days, and then spent a chaotic week trying to fix. The error seems to have been on the government's end, and not at Quest, the lab whose results disappeared into the ether.

Massachusetts' cases are up a third of a percentage point today. Even though this is fairly typical for our plateau, the governor is concerned and has put Phase 3B of our reopening (originally scheduled for Tuesday) on "indefinite" hold. He sounded annoyed that people have been having fun at large, private events, as well as snacking very lightly with their drinks in "restaurants". "Bars" are closed until Phase 4, which is scheduled for sometime after man goes back to the Moon.

On the sane side, he did have some salient criticism of school districts that are planning for remote learning this fall:
Baker said that when schools went remote in March, relationships among students and teachers were already established. But for schools considering starting fully remote in September, he said, “you’re talking about a bunch of kids and a bunch of teachers who won’t know each other at all.”

He noted that younger students, from kindergarten through third grade, are the least likely to be infected and perhaps stand to lose the most from remote schooling.

“Trying to teach those kids how to read remotely? That’s not how you teach kids how to read,” he said.
Real Clear Politics has a real clear article on the mythical thinking behind lockdowns. In passing it mentions the medical mystery of Germ Boat #33, the Etchizen Maru, which set sail on a fishing expedition after the crew tested negative and quarantined for 14 days, and then returned to port 35 days after that when some crew began showing symptoms, and were quarantined aboard. (This is far beyond the expected incubation period of the disease.)

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