Wasting everyone’s time
Trump is tired of all this pampering of children, he wants them to go back to school now.
President Donald Trump on Monday urged the nation’s governors to “seriously consider” reopening schools as part of his push to restart the economy, though many states have already recommended against resuming the school year.
“Some of you might start thinking about school openings, because a lot of people are wanting to have school openings. It’s not a big subject, young children have done very well in this disaster that we’ve all gone through,” Trump told the governors on a teleconference call, according to audio of the call obtained by CNN.
Huh? It’s not a big subject? It is if any of them are your kids, I bet.
He continued, “So a lot of people are thinking about the school openings. And I think it’s something, Mike (Pence), they can seriously consider and maybe get going on it.”
…
Trump, Pence and other task force officials on Monday’s call outlined the administration’s testing blueprint and then spent much of the hour-long call fielding praise and thanks, reopening plan updates, and a few questions from the governors. Trump repeatedly urged them to get in the queue to ask questions by dialing “hashtag two.”
In other words it was largely a waste of time.
The President, who owns a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, asked Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, whether he had made a decision on opening his state “and the Strip, etc., etc., with all your hotels.”
Or rather…all Trump’s hotel.
A Las Vegas re-opening, Trump said, “will be a big thing.”
Yeah? I would say it will be about the smallest thing imaginable. Who cares? It’s not about food or housing or health or safety or education or anything else that matters – it’s just about gambling and “shows.”
Trump lamented media coverage at multiple times during the call, saying his efforts “probably will never be recognized, but maybe it will, you never know.”
If it does it will be a “big thing.”
The Finnish health agency just announced in a press conference today that based on observations on spread among school children, their contacts and families, children don’t seem to contact or spread the virus much. I think there are similar observations from elsewhere in Europe also, Denmark to name one place. And the disease is usually much milder if they get it (and are not high risk because of underlying conditions). School openings might be just fine. At the moment it seems like a good first place to start opening up again (not hair dressers, gyms and casinos).
OlliP, as I believe I have remarked here before, school openings are not just about children. They are about faculty. Administrative assistants. Custodians. All the people that make school happen. And while the children may not get it badly or spread it that much, THERE ARE A LOT OF NON-CHILDREN ON EVERY SCHOOL PROPERTY. Many of them in high risk groups.
@OlliP
Yeah, so healthy children may not be in big danger.
“Unhealthy” children (belonging to risk groups by having asthma, having just survived cancer, being disabled in some way etc.) will then of course have even more difficulties because they (or their parents) will have to decide whether they should fall back in school or put themselves in danger.
And childrens disease might be milder if they get it, but if they get it, they spread it, don’t they?
Corona is the perfect example for “death by a thousand cuts” – you can argue why each single relaxation of the measures is not that bad, but if you relax too many, that’s it.
@iknklast You are absolutely right. The faculty is important too. The observations suggest that the children don’t place the faculty in much risk, but the faculty should probably still be distancing from other faculty members. And risk group members might need different arrangements.
The issue of schools returning is a genuinely tough one. Children are suffering psychologically from lack of routine and being separated from friends. For some children, home is not a safe place, and school may be the only reprieve they have from abuse. Parents need to stay home, which can lead to shortages in essential roles.
OTOH, while children are at low risk from covid-19, they are not at zero risk, and they may spread the disease to adults. School closures have been among the first measures taken in most countries hit by the virus.
Several solutions are being tried out around the world. Splitting classes in two and having students attend only half the week, to allow for distancing. Keeping most students out of class but making exceptions for children of essential workers or those in most need — or alternatively, bringing most students back except for those in health risk groups or with high-risk people in their household.
I’m not sure an ideal solution exists. If it does, we will only know by hindsight. Keeping hairdressers and tattoo parlors closed seems like a no-brainer, but schools are a tougher one.
OlliP, that may be what studies show, but I find it hard to swallow, because schools are one of the places where diseases, including (especially) colds (coronaviruses) tend to spread rapidly. I think at this point, erring on the side of caution is important.
YoSaffBridge, that is difficult to solve. I was one of those who did not have a safe home environment, and my mother was far too lazy to have home schooled me during the downtime. My father was mostly absent. My mother would have turned it over to my older brother and/or sister, who were both even more dangerous than she was, and neither of whom was at the level of their younger sister from fairly early in life, mostly because they believed they already knew more than teachers (and everyone else) and chose to blow off any efforts to persuade them they needed to learn new things, while I ate up whatever knowledge my teachers cared to impart.
It is a lousy situation. It is a difficult situation. It may turn out to be an impossible situation. At best, we can say it is exposing deep crevasses in our system; at worst, it could end up killing so many people that our system becomes overloaded in a different way. Opening schools is probably (almost certainly) not the answer, but keeping them closed is problematic. We need to be innovative and creative, but we are dealing with leadership who can be neither. All they can do is continue to look at things in the same way they have always looked at them, and reject any solution that doesn’t fit that view.
We need someone who will turn things upside down and sideways, consider every angle, perhaps even construct a decision grid to figure out the best and worst case scenarios. Unfortunately, that takes time, which we don’t have, and talent, which is sadly lacking in our leadership.
Related comment. One of our local papers just did a poll of their readers (I know, not a scientific poll, but interesting). In this deep red, extremely conservative state where the polls almost always come out with the most conservative of the bullshit offered, 80+% did not want the schools reopened. So at least the newspaper readers are taking it seriously, which sort of surprises me, since the newspapers have been very muted in their discussions of COVID-19.