How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City?

[Grimm,NY]

Fwiw, I had covid back in April. I'm not really in the mood for a debate right now, but as someone who immediately went into strict quarantine, confirmed antibody presence and has tested negative for the virus multiple times since (including as recently as three weeks ago), I'm starting to get some serious mask fatigue.

Why? Because as someone with a little bad luck (had to get an operation recently where, let's just say I lost enough blood to make that covid quarantine seem like a vacation in Hawaii) and less than stellar choices (have had to work and take public transportation throughout the pandemic) at some point when you, even in the spirit of civic responsibility and good will can't help but notice that even being around people who are 90% compliant 90% of the time, that still leaves an exponential amount of possible exposure over 8-9 months in the dense urban area I live and work in.

I'm not questioning the utility of masks. I'm sorry to say though I'm glad to have overcome the virus and I'm not terribly concerned if I did somehow get it again. I wear the mask for others, follow mitigation efforts to a T. But my patience wears thin.

[Grimm,NY]

A few thoughts...

I'm more supportive of stricter yet shorter shutdowns. If there is a flare up of cases, It might be a more effective way to limit spread and more efficiently enact emergency support measures. Months of half measures hardly seem worth the static.

If you do get sick, I would carefully consider the need to go to hospital. If you tell them you're going blind and are paralyzed you're leaving the staff no choice but to run a battery of tests all while potentially infecting others. I get it, it hits some people harder than others. For me it felt like the Flu, where it's much worse for others. I have little empathy for covid hysteria though. Be honest with yourself. Have what you need for an emergency quarantine in place now so you don't have to run to market, pharmacy when you're coughing and sweating bullets when it's 25 degrees out.

Get a flu shot. As I'm sure people in the medical field already know and probably have already taken. (it takes about 2 weeks to develope antibodies and it's recommended before the Thanksgiving holiday here in the states - typically the first major spreader event during normal flu season - hence the flurry of shutdowns.) Aside from the obvious benefits, In my experience it was the closest thing to feeling remotely sick since having covid. (It feels like you have the flu, but you're not infectious- we can only be so lucky if there are vaccines anywhere near as useful anytime soon.) Point being, if you do get a flu shot, and a month later you think you have the flu, it might actually be covid.

Just saying.

[mhays]

At some point this is like listening to people on a jetliner question the pilot.

And why are we closing a lot of things right now? Because a lot of pilot-skeptics aren't wearing masks and social distancing.

[Acajack]

Can't say I didn't expect this...

A study of Quebec high school students has revealed that the number of students who are in danger of failing has soared. Where the figure was traditionally 5-10% at this time of year, it's now in the 25-30% range.

While the school system has adapted reasonably well since the fall return to school, the end of the previous year was a bit of mess in a lot of schools, with authorities scrambling to organize at-home learning as best they could. All of them eventually did, but a lot of class time was missed and even so kids weren't followed that closely by their teachers.

A lot of my kids' friends readily admit they didn't do dick from March to June.

Now it seems like it's catching up to a lot of them.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Can't say I didn't expect this...

A study of Quebec high school students has revealed that the number of students who are in danger of failing has soared. Where the figure was traditionally 5-10% at this time of year, it's now in the 25-30% range.

While the school system has adapted reasonably well since the fall return to school, the end of the previous year was a bit of mess in a lot of schools, with authorities scrambling to organize at-home learning as best they could. All of them eventually did, but a lot of class time was missed and even so kids weren't followed that closely by their teachers.

A lot of my kids' friends readily admit they didn't do dick from March to June.

Now it seems like it's catching up to a lot of them.

The best thing might be to write off a school year and pretend it didn't happen and start off this coming March where we left off last March.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by mhays

At some point this is like listening to people on a jetliner question the pilot.

And why are we closing a lot of things right now? Because a lot of pilot-skeptics aren't wearing masks and social distancing.

Well, but also because the risk/reward ratio of some things just doesn't justify leaving them open. I'm thinking bars, mass indoor entertainment events (from sports to opera) and similar things. These are high risk and while some may feel they are also high reward (I am a great fan of opera), I don't think it's high enough. I've signed up for streaming Met performances on demand and for a year that will do (I just hope the damage of losing almost ayear of revenue doesn't kill off these cultural resources).

[mhays]

Blame the non-compliers who've kept the infection numbers up.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

The best thing might be to write off a school year and pretend it didn't happen and start off this coming March where we left off last March.

Yeah, you obviously don’t have school age kids

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Yeah, you obviously don’t have school age kids

No, I don't. But the alternative is to try to patch all the cracks and deficiencies on an individual basis and you have to have a lot more faith in the public education system than I do to think they can do that.

In the absence of a school system reboot, parents will have to take the lead in getting their kids back online and they've proved very unreliable in doing that. The kids from one-parent families and those with all sorts of disadvantages will inevitably be left behind. If you don't want to start the last year over, you have to accept that only the "smart" self-learners will really overcome the harm.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by mhays

Blame the non-compliers who've kept the infection numbers up.

Around here we had relatively light restrictions but we were still supposed to have 6 person bubbles. Now we are not supposed to have any social interaction whatsoever outside our household, but it's recommendation with weak enforcement (police might show up if you have a big party for example).

A lot of people were not following the 6 person bubble rule before, and they were the ones who caused the cases to go up so much.

I am a bit skeptical that leaning harder and harder on those who follow the rules is a good strategy. My guess is the hammer is going to come down hard on everybody eventually, but who knows? It's also possible the cases will burn out in the higher risk pockets. Another factor is that people might just "get the hint" about the severity, adjust their actions a bit overall, and that will be enough. In this sense the public health messaging can be interpreted as vague signals designed to encourage the right behaviour rather than specific rigid rules to follow. That implies they should not shriek at 11/10 about covid all the time; eventually people tune out.

We are also seeing disparate outcomes in different areas. All of metro Vancouver is on "lockdown, please" but a lot of transmission is happening in private in specific parts of town. My impression is that cases didn't really go up significantly in my specific area, but the regulations are mostly per health authority region and these are large and have odd boundaries.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

No, I don't. But the alternative is to try to patch all the cracks and deficiencies on an individual basis and you have to have a lot more faith in the public education system than I do to think they can do that.
.

I don't think it's a question of having (blind) faith in the education system.

It's that given the current circumstances, that kind of remedy might be worse than the disease itself, and might actually kill the patient. Metaphorically speaking.

I am not sure I fully agree but there are studies that show that even the two-month summer break isn't the best for kids' learning, as a decent chunk of what they've learned in the previous year lapses when their brains are unplugged from school for those two months.

Can you imagine the impact of a full 12 months without school?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

In the absence of a school system reboot, parents will have to take the lead in getting their kids back online and they've proved very unreliable in doing that. The kids from one-parent families and those with all sorts of disadvantages will inevitably be left behind. If you don't want to start the last year over, you have to accept that only the "smart" self-learners will really overcome the harm.

Any disruptions of this nature and any band-aid solutions (which are all we can hope for right now) were always going to disproportionately affect certain kids anyway. It's a sad truth.

My teenaged kids are fairly self-motivated and my wife and I keep close tabs on their schooling. We could be bombarded back into the stone age, and they'd probably still keep learning by candlelight and be *ok*.

Another thing about a one-year shutdown is the impact on one-parent families (often working hard to make ends meet, with some difficulty) of younger kids who can't take care of themselves?

It's the worst-kept secret in town, but while the re-opening of schools was first and foremost an educational decision, it was also about giving kids a place to go during the day to take some of the burden off their parents who have to go to work.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Another thing about a one-year shutdown is the impact on one-parent families (often working hard to make ends meet, with some difficulty) of younger kids who can't take care of themselves?

School is obviously a basic essential social service. It is one of those "keeping the lights on" type aspects of developed societies, and disruption in it should be considered a big failure, like when the power goes out or a building burns down and the fire department doesn't show up. And when the firefighters show up they are assuming considerable personal risk as part of their job.

The kids themselves are at approximately zero risk due to covid. Here in BC I am pretty sure we have not yet had an under 40 fatality. This is in an area with about 5 million people over a 10 month period. The kids are more at risk of getting hit by a car.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by someone123

Around here we had relatively light restrictions but we were still supposed to have 6 person bubbles. Now we are not supposed to have any social interaction whatsoever outside our household, but it's recommendation with weak enforcement (police might show up if you have a big party for example).

A lot of people were not following the 6 person bubble rule before, and they were the ones who caused the cases to go up so much.

I am a bit skeptical that leaning harder and harder on those who follow the rules is a good strategy. My guess is the hammer is going to come down hard on everybody eventually, but who knows? It's also possible the cases will burn out in the higher risk pockets. Another factor is that people might just "get the hint" about the severity, adjust their actions a bit overall, and that will be enough. In this sense the public health messaging can be interpreted as vague signals designed to encourage the right behaviour rather than specific rigid rules to follow. That implies they should not shriek at 11/10 about covid all the time; eventually people tune out.

We are also seeing disparate outcomes in different areas. All of metro Vancouver is on "lockdown, please" but a lot of transmission is happening in private in specific parts of town. My impression is that cases didn't really go up significantly in my specific area, but the regulations are mostly per health authority region and these are large and have odd boundaries.

The problem is that enforcing behavior is much harder than setting rules that the big players (employers, spectator events, etc.) will follow.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by someone123

School is obviously a basic essential social service. It is one of those "keeping the lights on" type aspects of developed societies, and disruption in it should be considered a big failure, like when the power goes out or a building burns down and the fire department doesn't show up. And when the firefighters show up they are assuming considerable personal risk as part of their job.

The kids themselves are at approximately zero risk due to covid. Here in BC I am pretty sure we have not yet had an under 40 fatality. This is in an area with about 5 million people over a 10 month period. The kids are more at risk of getting hit by a car.

Kids' safety isn't the point. It's about transmission to others. Plus teachers etc. who are at much higher risk.

This has been covered ad nauseum.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by mhays

Kids' safety isn't the point. It's about transmission to others. Plus teachers etc. who are at much higher risk.

This has been covered ad nauseum.

You make it sound like minimizing covid cases is the only goal in society and some people are just idiots for not realizing that if schools are open there are likely to be more people who get seriously ill or die from covid.

I was talking about the other side of the ledger, the need to educate children, something that was considered pretty basic before 2020 in North America. And pointing out that we are involuntarily forcing them to sacrifice their education to reduce risk for other people. I didn't say whether school closures are justified or not. I think it depends on the time and place. But they should be considered socially costly. Around here we have had schools open since September with minimal spread in them and some people screaming constantly that they must be shut down.

This is a separate issue but in a lot of places a teacher's covid risk would barely register on the workplace safety scale, particularly if you put semi-sane policies in place like filtering out the small minority of teachers who are at unusually high risk (get them to help with online learning for kids who don't attend for one reason or another, for example). In a lot of places teachers can retire with full benefits at 55 or so and they are not a particularly at-risk population.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't think it's a question of having (blind) faith in the education system.

It's that given the current circumstances, that kind of remedy might be worse than the disease itself, and might actually kill the patient. Metaphorically speaking.

I am not sure I fully agree but there are studies that show that even the two-month summer break isn't the best for kids' learning, as a decent chunk of what they've learned in the previous year lapses when their brains are unplugged from school for those two months.

Can you imagine the impact of a full 12 months without school?

I think you misunderstood me.

I am talking about the period March 2020 to March 2021. ⅔ of that is already past and whatever happened is water over the dam. Unfortunately, in too many cases nothing happened and the kids missed school during that 8 months. Certainly not a good thing but nothing to be done about it now. As for the remaining 4 months, sure--do the best we can to teach them something, remediate the worst off and so forth.

But what I am saying is that basically no matter what we do between now and March, so many kids will not have progressed since March 2020 that we might as well assume almost none have and try to pick up the educational process at that point.

I am not suggesting any additional time "without school". What I am suggesting is that not much school has really occurred for 8 months (or will occur until the kids can go back to class live) and maybe we shouldn't bother to pretend otherwise.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

I think you misunderstood me.

I am talking about the period March 2020 to March 2021. ⅔ of that is already past and whatever happened is water over the dam. Unfortunately, in too many cases nothing happened and the kids missed school during that 8 months. Certainly not a good thing but nothing to be done about it now. As for the remaining 4 months, sure--do the best we can to teach them something, remediate the worst off and so forth.

But what I am saying is that basically no matter what we do between now and March, so many kids will not have progressed since March 2020 that we might as well assume almost none have and try to pick up the educational process at that point.

I am not suggesting any additional time "without school". What I am suggesting is that not much school has really occurred for 8 months (or will occur until the kids can go back to class live) and maybe we shouldn't bother to pretend otherwise.

I'd say that at least *some* school happened for a strong majority of kids over the past 8 months, in most places in the US and Canada. (Summer holidays excepted of course.)

[mrnyc]

covid is hard on mta — chaos on the ‘ol metro lately, with an uptick in violence by the unchecked nutty homeless people shoving, but more so that than outright thieves thankfully. also suicides by train sadly, ugh:

https://nypost.com/2020/11/20/two-pe...oss-nyc-today/

[mrnyc]

and being its a friday — here is a very sad situation — a ny streetery martini these days — ugh!