covid diary: day 141

The solitude might be getting to us.

Picture this. It's 2:30 in the afternoon. I'm in my office working while Thunder enthusiastically slurps himself at my feet. Suddenly, the quiet is shattered by deep ANGRY voices yelling profanities. Then a thunderous rumble in my direction, followed by the basement door being flung wide open and Henry sprinting into my office. He stands next to my desk, bent over at the waist, wheeze-laughing in a nervous reaction. "Mom, that was SO SCARY!"

Turns out that Max was laying on the basement couch with his feet on the wall, messing with the framed pictures there. He almost knocked one down once, twice, three times. And each time, Liam yelled at him to cut it out. The third time, Max leaped up and got right in Liam's face. "If you yell at me again, I'm going to punch you."

Liam: "Hahaha all right sure."
Max: "You wanna GO?"
Liam: "FINE LET'S GO."

As enthusiastically depicted by Henry, what followed was a series of roundhouse punches back and forth, with only one connecting. Max came upstairs during Henry's retelling, minimized it as a "brotherly scuffle," and claimed that he was the winner because his punch was the one that connected (with Liam's ear). Then I called Liam up to check his ear, which was purple because he was wearing his glasses, so his ear got stuck between the earpiece of the glasses and Max's fist, and Liam declared that no, HE in fact was the victor, because as soon as Max connected with that one punch (Liam: "barely!"), Liam pinned Max to the ground and held him there until Max surrendered.

For my part, I surreptitiously took a video of Henry and Max explaining the fight, then once I had listened to them all, I told Liam and Max they were a couple of dumbasses, and I went back to work.

I think I've got this mom thing down. A+ momming from me.

scenes from a re-enactment

In other news, apparently all the local superintendents had some kind of huge meeting today, where they were going to decide ... something. Nobody knows for sure. It's all very DRAMA INTRIGUE SUSPENSE. Also Liam got invited to a slumber party for his friend's birthday, and I told him he could go. It will be four boys who he's been friends with forever, and I know all their parents and feel pretty certain that they've all been careful this summer. It won't even be the equivalent risk of ONE day at school. He'll have to leave early the morning after because it will be his first tennis scrimmage in Valpo (assuming sports are still happening by then).

Update, 6:15 p.m.: Turns out Max really hurt his thumb connecting with Liam's iron ear. I think that's why you're not supposed to punch people with fists? It's all swollen and he was crying (though he didn't say anything to either of us until after Mike got home from work). I called the urgent care center, and they advised us to take him to the ER, so that's what Mike is doing now. Good times. Just how we were hoping to spend Tuesday evening!

Update, 6:22 p.m.: Texts with Mike:
M: Is it ok to say he hurt it punching his brother?
H: Yes. Always tell the truth at the ER. They will be able to tell from the type of injury how he likely got it so definitely tell the truth. But maybe add that it was the first time they've come to blows like that, and that Liam didn't punch him back.

Update, 7:39 p.m.: Max has a displaced fracture, meaning the bone pieces aren't lined up right. They're splinting it for tonight, but he will probably need a cast and they might have to insert a pin. We have to call the orthopedic practice in the morning to set up an appointment.

Update, 7:45 p.m.: I have picked Liam up from tennis and told him about Max going to the ER. Liam is mad at ME (???) because he thinks I am trying to make him feel bad and/or look bad in front of Jimmy, who rode home with us. I gave Liam two options: 1. I could get real mad at both of them (Liam and Max, that is) and yell and lecture about how stupid they were and how now Max is going to have to get a cast and maybe a pin and set off metal detectors for the rest of his life, and ground them and take away their electronics as punishment. OR 2. I can keep laughing about it because it was a mistake, and that's how you learn. Liam has wisely chosen option 2. Henry has advised me that I am "really chill yet totally have no chill." I believe what he means by this is that he is amazed that I am not angry about this whole situation (again, because it was a MISTAKE and that's how they LEARN), yet he is thoroughly intimidated by the way I also laid out the possible lifelong consequences of this mistake.

Update, 9:15: Mike and Max are home! Max has a giant splint, but managed to eat an entire 16" sub and bag of chips one-handed. He says it hurts but is tolerable. We're all exhausted.

Lessons? 1. Don't antagonize your brother into fisticuffs. 2. Don't punch your brother. 3. If you do have to punch someone, for heaven's sake, don't tuck your thumb into your fist. 4. Broken bones are scary and painful and expensive.

Nationwide cases: 4,352,304. Deaths: 149,260.

covid diary: day 140

the things you see when you're out early for the tennis run

Look what happened this weekend:

That first one is Friday, when the state set a new one-day record for new infections. Saturday and Sunday don't look much better. It's out of control here, just like it is almost everywhere else across the country.

Over the weekend, I read a very smart thread by Andy Slavitt, who was the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Obama administration. He reminds us that as a nation, we can virtually eliminate this virus anytime we want to. We can be, like other countries already are, back to normal. We can go back to seeing our families and friends, traveling, having a strong economy. Anytime we want to.

The catch is that it has to be four to six weeks of complete lockdown, during which time we establish better testing and contact tracing procedures, and after which we follow through by isolating any new cases and diligently working to stop new outbreaks.

We could do this at any time. We didn't have to wait until 147,000 people were dead. We don't have to wait for that number to rise even higher. This doesn't have to keep happening.

But we won't. Because our leaders are incompetent, and our citizenry is populated with a bunch of angry loudmouths claiming that their freedom to not wear a mask and to go wherever the hell they want is more important that lives lost and forever altered.

It's just the worst.

Anyway. Liam started official tennis conditioning this morning, so he was up and running (literally) at 7 a.m. He said it was really hard (so much running!) but he felt great afterward. He is ready for some tennising, people.

Max, in contrast, woke up at the crack of 2:30 (p.m.!!!) and came to tell me good morning. He reports that his father spent the time after I went to bed last night watching a marathon of Robot Chicken, even calling Max in to explain the finer points of the lore. I seem to recall the last thing Mike said to me before I went to bed was that he was going to call the boys up from the basement to tell them that they need to start keeping more standard hours in anticipation of school starting, but I guess that's not at all relevant here.

We mostly spent the weekend relaxing, by which I mean I only worked a few hours (I didn't even turn on my computer Saturday, which is a rare and positive development) and spent a lot of time reading for fun and napping instead. I also gave all three boys haircuts, which I don't think turned out half bad. I'd like to say I'm recharged and ready to face the workweek, but no. It's 5:37 p.m. as I write this. I just finished working for the day (so that's 10.5 hours, if my maths are correct), and I'm ready to fall down. But instead I will go scrub some bird feeders, because these birds don't care if I'm tired. Besides, I heard a rumor that it's chicken fajita night, and that's definitely worth staying up for.

Nationwide cases: 4,275,346. Deaths: 147,285.

covid diary: day 134

scenes from the pasture trails

Today, an email from school finally answered the last lingering question:

In response to a recent policy change from the Indiana High School Athletic Association, PCSC will permit students who are registered for our full time virtual option to also be eligible to participate in extra-curricular activities, as long as those activities are still operating.  

That last clause feels like a shoe about to drop, doesn't it? 

My sister Bethany told me today that sports are shut down entirely at their school until at least the start of August because they've had more positive cases. She says she won't be surprised if sports are shut down all over ... and if schools are too.

At any rate, we have filled out the registration forms (a whole day before the deadline!) and our kids are signed up to do virtual school for at least the first nine weeks. That takes us through fall break, and would have them going back to in-person school at the end of October, if things are better by then. And if they're not, we'll keep them home another nine weeks, through winter break, and see if they can go back in January. And we'll go from there. This hasn't been an easy decision, and it's going to be even harder in practice, considering that I'm the one home with them all day and trying to get my work done while they do their schoolwork. We may have to get creative around here, but one way or another, we'll work it out.

I haven't written too much about the national situation because it's completely overwhelming. Today we hit 4 million official cases of COVID-19. States are in real trouble, and instead of making a national plan, the president is using dubious authority to send unmarked federal troops into American cities to assault and kidnap peaceful protesters. I don't know about you, but I've already seen the first episode of The Handmaid's Tale, and I have no interest in living through that ... not to mention that I would be the world's shittiest Martha and would probably get demoted to Unwoman pretty fast. If I managed to stay off the wall at all.

How many days until Election Day again? ... checks notes ... 103. Hell, that's like seven decades in Trump times. We'll be on day 237 of this covid diary series by then. Mike will be a year older than me again. An old man at 46 while I remain a youthful if silver-haired 45. It feels like a lifetime away, and we need it now. Better yet, let's just fast-forward to January 20, 2021. 

Nationwide cases: 4,038,864. Deaths: 144,305.

covid diary: day 133

all fall down

Sometimes, a person just needs a day off.

Mike fell asleep on the couch last night and woke up tired and out of sorts, so I convinced him to take the day off. It's advice I could use myself, although the nature of my job is different, meaning that if I don't work, I don't get paid. I'm glad at least one of us gets paid time off. So today, I'm taking the day off vicariously through him, even though I'm at my desk juggling projects and fighting exhaustion as usual.

This afternoon, the governor had a press conference to announce a statewide mask order effective July 27. Why wait five more days, Governor? Why not just order people to mask up TODAY? Better late than never, I guess.

More high school sportsball teams have been having kids and coaches test positive. With every new story I hear, I think, Is this it? Is this the one that makes the schools finally reconsider this disastrous plan of reopening? But no. At least not yet.

But it does feel like we're moving closer and closer to a tipping point. Our county is still in the red zone, with a rate of new infections of 28.7 per 100,000 (seven-day average). We're second in the state now, with Dubois County in southern Indiana in first at 38.8. And I might be reading between the lines here (I am definitely reading between the lines here), but I get the impression that at least one coach/teacher in town has tested positive, because even after a quarantine period, people are complaining about that person being allowed around kids again. Which of course is ridiculous. If someone has COVID-19 and recovers and is no longer contagious, there's no reason they can't be around other people or resume their job duties.

The point is, I guess, that all this pressure on superintendents and school boards and teachers feels to me like it's building toward something. And if I had to make a prediction (I stink at predictions), I would say what we're building toward is this: remote learning for everyone, but with athletes still allowed to do sportsballs. That sort of sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it? But I think that's what will happen. Half of the complaints I've heard since March are about how unfair it is that the kids are losing out on so many treasured activities, so keeping sportsballs addresses that issue while still minimizing the number of kids exposed to each other. The other half of the complaints are either for or against school opening in person, and I would say that generally speaking, the parents who are for school opening in person are also vehemently against making those kids wear masks, so for them that will be a deal-breaker. Going virtual solves most of those problems too. There will definitely still be issues, of course (food insecurity, lack of socialization, all of it), but I really don't see how they do this any other way.

Nationwide cases: 3,940,592. Deaths: 142,677.

covid diary: day 132

July sky

Today, a baking failure for Henry: he tried to make brownies using chocolate chips (because he said the first batch he made was too bitter), only he forgot to melt the chocolate before mixing it in, so he ended up with ... almost like chocolate chip cookie bars. They tasted fine, but Max professed to be too scared to try them, so he missed out. Sucker. As for Henry, I explained that failures really are learning experiences, especially in baking, and that sometimes you end up making delicious discoveries that way. I'm not sure he bought it, even though it's true.

In other news, I heard from the athletic director at school that they're currently reevaluating whether to let kids do sports if they choose the virtual option for school. We should know in the next day or two, and then we'll be able to make our final decision for the first nine weeks. And listen, I know how much stress I am under as a parent with this. I cannot imagine how much stress this all must be for the school administrators and teachers, and yet everyone I've talked to has been friendly and considerate. To be fair, I think those are baked-in traits for Mr. D (the AD). He has always been very friendly and helpful every time I've interacted with him, and I remember way back to Liam's first summer of tennis when he was 8, and Mr. D made a point even then of remembering Liam's name and greeting him every time we ran into him.

We have three days left to decide about school.

Mo Willems might be the finest living children's
book writer, and he seems like a fine human being
too. P.S. Knuffle Bunny makes me cry every time.

I know in the grand scheme of unidentified federal agents pulling people off the streets of Portland and shoving them into unmarked vehicles (coming to you soon, Chicago!), this isn't a big deal. But to me, it's a lot.

Nationwide cases: 3,858,686. Deaths: 141,426.

covid diary: day 131

that sky. that guy.

We spent the weekend as we've spent the past few weeks: worrying about school opening. Yes, we have plenty of other things to do and worry about, but it's hard to concentrate when you're trying to decide whether to send your children into the lion's den, so to speak.

Around the country, things are getting worse and worse. I've seen horrifying stories out of Florida, and especially out of McAllen, Texas, where there are field hospitals that are poorly staffed and with no PPE for nurses and very limited oxygen for patients who need it ... and worse. I even saw accounts today (with pictures) of patients crawling with ants in those field hospitals. Nurses have been leaving because they're so traumatized that they just can't report to work anymore, and it's hard to blame them. And a side note: officials in McAllen, Texas, need to get it together — this is also the place where migrant children have been separated from their parents and detained in absolutely inhumane conditions.

In Indiana, the curve is also going up and up and up. Yesterday, we had 916 new cases reported. Only one day has been higher: April 26, at the height of the initial surge, we had 946 new cases. And you can see that April 26 was an outlier; the days around it are all much lower in case numbers. That's not what's happening now. Every day, we're getting really high numbers. And it's only going to get worse once school opens.

In short, we're screwed. Friday afternoon, our school released a plan for reopening. As expected, it basically pledges to deal with positive cases on a case-by-case basis. It says that kid who do the virtual option aren't allowed to participate in extracurriculars. It says that kids need to have a mask on their person, and to wear them during passing periods, but it's up to the teachers whether they wear masks during each class. It says we have until Friday, July 24, to decide if we are going to enroll in the virtual option or send our kids in person.

Well. That lasted all of two hours before two important developments happened. First, the Marshall County Health Department issued a county-wide mask order, meaning everyone who is in public spaces needs to wear a mask at all times. Second, the IHSAA (the state sports authority) issued guidance to all athletic directors saying that student athletes who do virtual learning SHOULD be able to still participate in sports.

This afternoon, in an email, the superintendent announced that in light of the county mask order, kids will have to wear masks the entire time they're at school or on the bus. That's more than seven hours a day! It hasn't gotten much attention yet on social media that I've seen, but I expect parents to be shouting in outrage about this. The athletic department hasn't issued any revisions to sports participation yet, though. I sent an email to the athletic director making the case for why Liam should be able to play tennis. I guess we'll have to wait and see about that one.

In local news, Henry broadened his culinary skills by making homemade chocolate pudding, which the boys enjoyed after dinner. It could have used a little more whisking of the cornstarch, but it really was delicious. And the pasture is alive with wildflowers -- both the ones Mike planted and the ones that grow there naturally. It's really gorgeous, and it's too bad I was in a crabby mood when we were out there. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Nationwide cases: 3,831,405. Deaths: 140,909.

covid diary: day 127

Look who came to visit

I spent an hour on the phone yesterday talking to my aunt Laura, who is the history department chair at our high school. We talked about the precautions the school is taking for the upcoming school year (separating lunch into smaller, more spread-out groups, putting more distance between desks, having clubs meet online only, using water fountains only to fill water bottles but not to drink out of, etc.) and the way the school plans to handle outbreaks. That second one is a little more amorphous because the plan is to handle every situation individually, because each one has so many variables. If a student or teacher gets infected, they have to do contact tracing within the school, but beyond that they're deciding on a case-by-case basis whether anyone needs to quarantine and for how long. I asked if there's a threshold of community spread beyond which schools would have to close, and the answer is that no, there's no specific number because they're also considering other factors like the death rate and hospital capacity.

To make a long story short, I ended the conversation more confused than ever. Laura is a very smart person, and she's involved in all the planning and discussions, and she's comfortable sending her kids to school. I spent the whole night asking myself what I was missing, what if I'm wrong to be this cautious, what if I'm making Liam hate me for robbing him of his junior year for an unwarranted amount of caution? What if, what if, what if? Mike still seemed very sure and confident in our decision to keep them home, at least for the first quarter (Laura did tell me we can re-evaluate each quarter, which is good information to have), but I spent the whole night wavering and doubting my own reasoning.

no explanation needed
credit: Rob Sheridan

This morning, I was telling my friend Kelly about it, and she brought up something she had just read about: People who are healthy have a much different conception of the medical system in general and the risks of coronavirus infection specifically than do people with any kind of chronic condition. People who have always been healthy tend to think that they will always stay healthy, and that even if they get sick, our medical system is so advanced that it will be able to fix them — and more importantly, they take for granted that doctors will be invested in finding a treatment and successful in that effort.

People who have had chronic conditions, in contrast, often run up against barriers to treatment that include but are no way limited to physician indifference, fat or disability or inherent racial bias, disbelief of their level of pain, and plain old inability to adequately treat their conditions. They know that the medical system is incredibly flawed, and they've learned never to take for granted that they will be believed, let alone treated effectively and respectfully. I've written about my own problems getting compassionate and effective care as a fat person before, and this really resonated with me as a differentiating factor between, say, me and Laura.

Where does that leave us? Well, I guess we're sticking with elearning, at least for the first nine weeks of school. We can reassess then and see if opening schools caused major outbreaks and give the schools a chance to refine their processes. Of course, the first nine weeks encompasses the entire tennis season, which really stinks, because the school's position is that if you're not comfortable enough with in-person school, you're also not comfortable enough to send your kids to extracurricular activities. I understand that reasoning generally, but in the case of tennis specifically it doesn't hold up because the risk of playing an individual outdoor sport for two hours a day is considerably lower than the risk of sitting in a series of indoor classrooms with 25-30 students in each for seven hours a day.

This whole thing blows. Honestly. It guts me that I have to make this choice. It makes me want to weep (not just want to, but actually do, in low moments) that I have spent their whole lives showing my children the lengths that I will go to, the work that I will put in, to make sure they have every opportunity in life, only to deny them this opportunity and have them believe that I am being selfish and not operating in their best interests.

But, Mike says when I tell him yet again that maybe we are the ones with the flawed reasoning, look at Israel. 

Not Israel, but this is the international section,
I guess, so as good a place as any to see what
Canada thinks of us.
credit: Patrick Corrigan, Toronto Star

By the middle of April, Israel was in great shape and ready to declare victory over COVID-19. But guess what happened? That's right, the country reopened too soon, and cases are soaring again, well over the peak that Israel experienced before mid-April. What's causing that? Well, there are the usual suspects: bars, clubs, gyms, restaurants. BUT ALSO, it turns out that in June, almost half (47 percent) of new cases came from schools. Listen, on May 17, when schools reopened, there were 10 (not a typo) cases for the whole country. 10. Health officials advised against reopening schools, but the government did it anyway, and by June 3, there were 244 positive cases among students and school staff. As of mid-July, 2,026 students, teachers, and staff had contracted COVID-19, and 28,147 were in quarantine due to possible contagion. Also by mid-July, 393 schools have had to close back down.

And Israel was in good shape to start. We're so not anywhere near good shape. Even here, in a relatively decent state, we're back up to 700+ new cases a day. I'm so worried for this whole country right now.

Nationwide cases: 3,559,899. Deaths: 138,185.

covid diary: day 126

It's Jeffirs beach vacation time, and I'm not there.
Photo by Matt, stolen from his IG without remorse.

Dire warnings from Italy this week. You'll remember that Italy was one of the first countries hit very hard by COVID-19, and now that case rates have gone down there (another reason to be jealous of Italy!), they're starting to really look at the long-term effects of COVID.

Even in people who have recovered, they're seeing lingering issues like insomnia, kidney disease, spinal infections, strokes, chronic tiredness and mobility issues. Concentration and physical stamina are affected long after the virus runs its course, and could be permanent. The Italian doctors (and a similar study conducted at University College London) are warning that even if you don't show symptoms with the initial infection, you could face long-term disabilities later on. And yes, this includes children. They're saying that this could change people's lives forever, and that the full extent of the damage might not be known for years.

And within the United States, dire warnings from four former directors of the CDC, writing together in the Washington Post that this administration's politicization of the CDC and deliberate denial of science are going to have grave consequences for the nation. On schools specifically, they write:

Sadly, we are not even close to having the virus under control. Quite the opposite, in fact.

That’s what makes it hard to plan for schools. Any parent with a young child knows that classrooms, cafeterias and school buses are petri dishes for the common cold and the flu, even in normal times. And although children are at lower risk for serious illness and death from COVID-19, the same is not true for the adults who work in schools, nor for the families children and school staffers go home to each evening. We must pay careful attention to safer school policies, including those the CDC released, to do everything we can to reopen our schools — and our economy — as safely as possible. This cannot happen equitably without additional federal and state resources to ensure that every school district — no matter the ZIP code — can take the necessary measures to protect children, teachers and staffers. Black, Latino and Native American communities have suffered disproportionately during the first six months of the pandemic. We cannot let this same tragedy unfold this fall in our schools. The CDC’s guidance is a call for all of our nation to work together so as many schools as possible can reopen as safely as possible. This will mean wearing masks correctly, increasing distance — including by closing bars and restaurants in many places — and tracking and stopping the spread of the virus by supporting patients and protecting contacts.

Trying to fight this pandemic while subverting scientific expertise is like fighting blindfolded. How well and how quickly we adhere to the advice of public health experts at the CDC will determine whether, how soon and how safely our schools can reopen.

It is not too late to give the CDC its proper role in guiding this response. But the clock is ticking.

Yes, CDC directors, you're absolutely right! Good job! Too bad the very day you published this piece, the administration made the absolutely disastrous and 100 percent nefarious decision to bypass the CDC completely, forcing states to submit their reporting on coronavirus to the administration-controlled HHS instead. (FYI: Hiding information like this is very, very, very bad. Without transparency, there's no way to know what's happening or how we can protect our families, our communities, our nation. And that, apparently, is the entire point.) Also too bad that Mike Pence actually said, with a straight face, "To be very clear, we don't want CDC guidance to be a reason why people don't reopen their schools."

Memo to Mike Pence: CDC guidance SHOULD be a reason why we don't open our schools. Because we don't want our students and teachers and school staff to die.

And in case you were wondering, here's where we're at in the world of mainstream conservative talk radio. Let me quote directly from longtime asshole and recent Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Rush Limbaugh:

[The 1918 flu pandemic] was just the next in a long line of things that happened to people that they dealt with, like the Donner party. You’ve heard of the Donner party. Maybe some of you haven’t.

The Donner party, the Donner family and a bunch of travelers trying to get to California over the Sierra Nevada mountain range. They made the mistake of trying to make the trip in the middle of winter. We’re talking the Lake Tahoe region. They get to the peak. It was so bad that they had to turn to cannibalism to survive. That’s what’s noteworthy about the Donner party.

If you read the diaries written by the leaders of the Donner party, the only reference to how cold it was was one sentence: “It was a particularly tough winter.” It’s just what was. They didn’t complain about it because there was nothing they could do. They had to adapt. This is what’s missing. There seems to be no concept of adaptation. There seems to be no understanding in the Millennial generation that we can adapt to this and that we’re gonna have to. Because there’s nothing stopping it right now.

Yes that asshole just said we need to be more like the DONNER PARTY. But as historian Heather Cox Richardson (one of my favorite people because she does a daily series called "Letters from an American" chronicling these trying times) points out:

Interestingly, Limbaugh left out half the story of what happened to the Donner Party. After it was rescued and news of what had happened to the members of the group raced back east, Americans were horrified. Determined to guarantee that no other travelers would ever have to endure such a fate, Congress backed government policies to place army guides on the route to California and Oregon. The government did its best to make sure that those crossing the dangerous mountains would arrive safely at their destination.

I'm sure that omission was deliberate. No way does Limbaugh or any member of this administration want to acknowledge the simple truth that problems like these need to be handled at the national level. Then they would also have to admit that they've utterly failed.

In Florida, there are reports that almost one-third of children tested are testing positive for coronavirus. Alina Alonso, the health department director of Palm Beach County, told reporters, “They are seeing there is damage to the lungs in these asymptomatic children. ... We don’t know how that is going to manifest a year from now or two years from now. Is that child going to have chronic pulmonary problems or not?”

It's all terrifying.

To end on a happier note, today Henry discovered that you could make brownies without using a mix that you buy at the store, so he put himself to work. He thought the results were a little bit bitter (we didn't have any unsweetened chocolate, so we subbed a mix of cocoa powder and oil), but I thought they were great. All the brownie goodness, but not overwhelmingly sweet.

Nationwide cases: 3,491,936. Deaths: 137,277.

covid diary: day 125

best boy

Today, a sampling of local responses to a Facebook post advertising free drive-through testing for COVID-19 in Plymouth starting tomorrow. In no particular order:

• "Who's to say they ain't giving [the virus] to us on the swabs?"
• "I'm sorry but when you test more people ... Numbers rise ... Duh ... So it will keep rising if they keep having more testing sites."
• "This helps them TRACE YOU, I would NEVER consent to this crap!"
• "Got a blood draw today, nurse flat told me this will end after the election."
• "They're using this as an excuse to move to a cashless society. You won't even be able to pay the babysitter without the government tracing it."
• And my favorite: "We are all just ants on the ant farm [lining up for our tests]."

These people are going to get us all killed.

Liam had tennis tonight, and when I picked him up afterward, he reported that one of the volleyball players has tested positive for COVID-19, so now the whole volleyball team is in quarantine for one week (why only one? I have no idea) and the infected girl for longer than that.

Seriously, how is this going to work with sports and school? If one kid tests positive, does every kid in all seven of their class periods need to quarantine? What about the families of those kids who were exposed; do they all need to quarantine too? Does every teacher that kid interacts with each day need to quarantine? What about those teachers' other students?

There is no way to ask one question without raising 16 others. That way lies madness.

In better news, Mike fixed the washer! The part he ordered came today, and he installed it, and it works, huzzah! It's been four days since we've done laundry, people. The situation was getting a little rank.

Also today, Henry accidentally left the side gate open when he went to water the garden, and then he subsequently let Pluto out the back door (having forgotten the gate was open) and ran back down to the basement to play video games. Probably 45 minutes later, I heard a soft woof in the office, and looked out my window to see ... Pluto laying on the front porch. On the plus side, Pluto is a GOOD BOY who didn't leave the yard and alerted me to his need to come back inside. On the downside, I asked Henry to get the dogs some water when Pluto came back in, which he did, and then Pluto threw up all over, and it had what I can only conclude were chunks of asphalt in it. So yeah, I also had to call the vet today and ask for the proper procedure for when your big dumb dog eats some fresh tasty asphalt from your driveway. To save you the trouble should you ever need this information, I'll fill you in: you just keep an eye on him for any further, uh, developments.

Nationwide cases: 3,428,553. Deaths: 136,430.

covid diary: day 124

It's less than a month now until schools are supposed to open, including ours, and little else has been on my mind for weeks now. It's hard to focus, hard to think about sending my children into overcrowded classrooms with ill-protected teachers and risking all their lives. How do we think this is OK? 

I started to write a longer answer, but the simple answer is: I don't. I don't think it's OK, and I'm not sending my kids to school in this situation. We have been worried about this for a while now, and Saturday night, we talked it over (again) and we finally decided that unless something drastically changes, we just can't send them to in-person school. Decision made, we called them in for a family meeting and explained our reasoning to them. They were ... unhappy. To say the least.

Liam was so angry he wouldn't even talk to us, and he went upstairs and kicked the crap out of his trash can instead (me, today: You know we have a fully functional punching bag downstairs you can use to pound your anger out on. him: I know, but I can't destroy it, so that's not as satisfying). Max was upset because he doesn't learn well online and doesn't know what to do with all his extra unstructured time. Henry was the most philosophical about it; he said it sucks, but he's glad that at least now he will get to see all his grandparents during the school year. Way to bright-side things, Henry!

Two days later, and they're all pretty accepting. Liam has even *almost* decided to forgive me for ruining his "pivotal" junior year. It helped that this morning Washington Township (a school corporation just north of Indy) became the first in the state to say they won't open in person for the fall, and this afternoon, Los Angeles and San Diego (the two largest school systems in California) both announced they would be doing remote education only for the fall. I can only hope these are just the first dominoes and that one by one, schools around the country will make the same smart decision. Or not even close all the way. My friend Kelly lives in Evanston, Illinois, and their high school's plan is to split the kids up into four groups, and send each group every other Tuesday and Wednesday or every other Thursday and Friday. So each kid goes to school four days a month in person. The teachers still teach in real time; they just teach to a quarter of the students in person and three-quarters of them online. And the school buildings are marked so hallways and stairways are one way, to avoid kids crowding in the halls going every which way.

Anyway, I used up most of my writing energy today sending an email to our school superintendent, so I think I'll just let that speak for my position.

Dear Mr. Hartley, 

I appreciate that the school corporation is in a really tough spot right now, but I wanted to offer my feedback as a parent of three students (grades 11, 9, and 5) in Plymouth schools. 

Put simply, I do not see a safe path to reopening in-person schools at this time. This weekend, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos downplayed the risk to students, saying that children are not as susceptible as adults to the coronavirus and that schools must open at any cost. This position is not supported by guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics or the CDC. Our students have been the most isolated age group in the country since early March when schools first shut down, so we don't actually know what their susceptibility would be for "normal" exposure. And even with that relative isolation, children age 19 and under make up 18.6% of the cases in Marshall County, per in.gov/coronavirus. What happens to that percentage once we start asking kids to sit in classrooms with each other for seven hours a day? In no other work setting in the country are people expected to gather in such numbers indoors for such a length of time, let alone in a place like Marshall County, which currently has a high rate of new infections.  

This doesn't even take into account the higher risk and higher mortality rate posed to staff members, or the exponential community spread that likely will result from all this increased exposure. The risk of fatalities among students may be very small (though that risk is higher for staff members), but even one preventable death is too many. No one should forget that every child and employee is a person, not a number. I value the lives of our teachers and staff members and students far too much to put them at risk, not to mention that each of the students who goes to school then comes home to adults and other children who are also then exposed.  

Please consider also that even if a person has only a "mild" or "moderate" case of COVID-19, they can have lasting or even permanent disability or impairment. 

If there is a virtual option for PCSC, I will have my children do that, but I urge you to put the safety of children and staff members at the top of your list of concerns, above any funding, cost, or even quality of education issues, and keep the schools closed until this virus is under control. Yes, the kids may fall behind a little if they're doing eLearning, but they will have a much better chance of being alive to make later gains. 

I appreciate your consideration of this letter, and I trust you'll take it into account when you make your decision. Thank you for your time. 

Holli Fort

I don't necessarily expect a response, but I still thought it was important to communicate my thought process. I cannot be the only person in the school district who feels the same. I just can't.

I guess we'll wait and see. In the meantime, I can't say that we feel good about this decision, but I can say that it's the best of the options that we have to choose from. And in case you're wondering, yes, we were clear with the boys that it's perfectly OK to be angry about this (though maybe they shouldn't take it out on unsuspecting trash bins). We understand why they're upset, and we're upset for them. We don't want them to miss a single thing in life, and it really does suck that they are missing so much now. All we can do is give them time, and hope that someday they look back and realize that we made this decision not to punish them but to keep them safe.

Nationwide cases: 3,341,838. Deaths: 135,425.

covid diary: day 121

Update: I did go to my mom's house after work to do laundry. All three boys wanted to come with, so Liam got some more driving time and we all got out of the house for a while. Jack was there when we got there, so he got time with his beloved cousins, and I got to see both of my sisters since Avalon came to pick up Jack and Bethany stopped by to give us some homemade strawberry jam. Bonus! Klaudia's home for the weekend, so she and baby Emeri stopped by with Bethany. So that's two parents, two sisters, one niece, one nephew, and one great-nephew. And two baskets of clean laundry and a container of strawberry jam. A perfect way to end the week.

This pandemic really, really, really sucks, but some days it's good to just sit and be grateful for the beautiful people I share my life with.

covid diary: day 120

"It's too hot for this crap."

The Supreme Court ruled today, in two different cases, that no president is above the law. One of the cases, Trump v. Vance, was about whether Trump has to produce financial records in a state-level prosecution looking into his hush money payments to women he had affairs with (you'll remember that this exact thing is why Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen is in prison right now). SCOTUS said, by a margin of 7-2, that the president is not above the law and deserves no special circumstances and must answer a subpoena like any other citizen, but then sent the case back down to the lower courts to give Trump the opportunity to argue against the subpoena on any grounds that a normal (non-president) citizen could argue. So it's tied up for a while, and legal experts seem to be pretty evenly split on whether documents might be produced before the election or not.

The second case, Trump v. Mazars, involved the question of whether Congress can compel the president to produce documents. Again, in a 7-2 ruling, SCOTUS said that Congress can compel such documents if they meet certain criteria laid out by the court. This one was a little more mixed in that SCOTUS rejected the standard of absolute immunity put forth by the president, but also rejected the much lower standard put forth by the House. So this is going back to the lower courts too, and will take much longer than the Vance case to be resolved (if it ever is).

So it's great that he lost (and greater that the court affirmed that no person is above the law), but also, in losing, he gets to appeal and run out the clock and keep hiding whatever it is he's so eager to protect in those documents. 

Also today, the washer broke in mid-cycle. Mike spent the whole evening trying to fix it, but the end result is that we've got a part on order (not arriving until next week) and a basket full of soaking wet, half-washed clothes. And no guarantee that the part Mike ordered will fix the problem, so it might be a while before we have clean laundry again. Or I might pretend to be in college and take my laundry back home to Mom. Anything can happen, folks. It's an unpredictable world.

Nationwide cases: 3,118,168. Deaths: 133,291.

covid diary: day 119

Sunbeams in the steamy morning pasture

Of all the things the pandemic has changed about our lives, this one hurts the most.

Early this morning, my mom and I were talking via text about school reopening. She had read a post online in which teachers were asking very reasonable questions about how it will work when they inevitably get exposed to COVID-19 on the job. They'll be required to quarantine for a couple weeks, which is leading them to ask very important questions: How do they get paid for those days off? Will they have to use their sick days? Will they be paid through workers' comp (which often requires that you exhaust your sick days first)? This would absolutely punish teachers for doing their jobs, because teachers save their sick days for things like maternity leave and retirement, and having to use any banked sick days would completely derail their plans for either. And if a teacher gets sick and has to quarantine, who will fill in? Subs are hard to find during a normal year; who the hell is going to want to sub during a pandemic? Who will think that $80 a day (if that) is worth risking their lives?

But I digress.

Anyway, I was sitting in the window seat in the bathroom, looking out over the foggy front yard, and it occurred to me: Once school starts, we won't be able to see my parents anymore. Or Mike's parents. Or anyone, really. 

I texted this awful thought to my mom, and she agreed. The level of exposure is just too high. She's already making plans to see Henry in August before school starts to celebrate his birthday, because once he's back in school, she won't be able to.

I hate this more than I can tell you. It's no secret that I believe with every fiber of my being that I've learned more from being with my grandparents than I could ever learn in school. Sitting quietly in their kitchen late at night, watching as Gramps ate a bowl of ice cream and told Gram about a long day at the store, and Gram told Gramps about her workday — that's how I learned what a true partnership is. Every time Gram told me I could be who I wanted to be, have any job I decided to pursue wholeheartedly — that's how I learned to believe in myself. Every time I asked either of them for advice, and they responded not with answers but with questions that led me to figure out the answer on my own — that's how I learned to trust my own judgment. From watching them, I learned what a healthy relationship looks like, how to care for other people without trying to control them, how to accept people as they are, how to work hard, and how to relax together.

So the idea that my kids will lose out on even a minute they could have spent learning from their grandparents just guts me. And for what? Why are we (as a nation) doing this? To prove that things are back to normal? They're not. They won't be for a very long time.

And I reject the argument we have to just learn to live with it. We don't. We don't have to accept tens of thousands of new cases every day, and hundreds or thousands of deaths every day. We don't have to accept that. We could figure out a way to have school without forcing our teachers, aides, school staff, and our KIDS to risk their lives every single day. Like, just off the top of my head, we could invest in video equipment and have the teachers go to school every day but stream the classes in real time, so kids have to follow a set schedule but they get to see their teachers give actual lessons during the appropriate class times. Yeah, I know, what about the kids who don't have internet access? Well, in our school, every kid has a device, so we could use our buses to send some kids to the reading rooms at the library. We could set aside a few rooms at the county building. We could send a few to the classroom to ensure they could be apart from each other. It would take a lot of work and a lot of imagination, but there are ways we could keep everyone safer.

But we won't, because our leaders are actively choosing to decimate the population rather than using this as an opportunity to create a better, safer society.

All across Europe, they're constructing and dedicating more bike lanes in cities. You know why? Because public transit isn't safe, and they're imagining a way to put people at less risk while also making changes that are sustainable for the planet. But heaven forfend that Americans change a single aspect of the way we've always done things. That's tyranny, or something.

******

Welp, I didn't have to get very far into my day before the shit hit the fan. I'm writing this at 11:27 a.m., having just read in Politico that Trump and Betsy DeVos are threatening to withhold federal school funding (which, let's be clear, is allocated by Congress, NOT by the president) for schools that don't fully physically open in the fall. DeVos: “Schools have got to open up, there has got to be concerted effort to address the needs of all kids and adults who are fear mongering and making excuses simply have got to stop doing it and turn their attention on what is right for students and for their families.”

Fear mongering? Making excuses?

Try not wanting to die, BETSY.

Honestly, there is no low to which this administration won't sink. There is no bottom. They will force schools to reopen so they can pretend everything is fine. But at what cost? At what cost?

And P.S. this is rich coming from Betsy DeVos, the absolute queen of offering parents choices to do what's right for their students and families when it comes to sending kids to charter schools and destroying public schools in the process. But when it comes to keeping students and families safe? OH NO, then we're fear mongering. She is despicable.

If there is any justice in this world, by this time next year, I hope everyone in this administration loses all their money, since that's the thing they care most about. I hope they get a taste of what it means to be poor and have all their choices taken away from them. What it means to have someone put the economy above their health. All of it. I hope they have to face all of it.

Nationwide cases: 3,035,337. Deaths: 132,042.

covid diary: day 118

Summer storm, just enough to cancel tennis for tonight.

We all know that the U.S. leads the world in cases of COVID-19, right? We're *thisclose* to having 3 million cases. But which country takes the number 2 spot? If you answered BRAZIL, give yourself a pat on the back, because unless I'm married to you or gave birth to you, I'm definitely not getting close enough to pat you on the back myself.

Ahem.

Brazil has more than 1.6 million cases of COVID-19, and more than 65,000 Brazilians have died. But high infection and death rates aren't all our two countries have in common. That's right, Brazil, like the U.S., is led by a right-wing, science-denying, let-all-the-rainforests-burn shitwheel. His name is Jair Bolsonaro, and today, after months of saying dumb things like "it's just a little flu" and "what do you expect me to do about it?" and "our lives have to go on; jobs should be maintained" ... he tested positive for COVID-19. Bolsonaro is 65 years old, so he's in a higher risk group, but he thinks he'll be just fine because he's athletic.

Oh yeah, and because he's been taking hydroxychloroquine. 

Best of luck to you, President Bolsonaro, and I sincerely hope that your experience leaves you with a giant dose of empathy and a better understanding of where your countries priorities should be. And an inclination to finally start wearing a mask regularly to model good citizenship.

Meanwhile, back on American soil, Donald Trump had a roundtable on safely reopening schools, at which he spouted this familiar talking point: “If we did half the testing we’d have far fewer cases.”

That's like saying that as long as you don't take a test, you're not pregnant, even if you miss your period and have morning sickness and suddenly can't stand the smell of anything but especially cooked lamb (gross). As long as we don't do MRIs, nobody has brain tumors, right? And broken bones? We could heckin' ELIMINATE those by just not doing x-rays!

You guys, I think I know how to CURE CANCER. My plan will totally work. All we have to do is stop doing physical exams, biopsies, mammograms, MRIs (which we already eliminated; thanks, brain tumors!), CT scans, and blood work. Presto! No more cancer.

Why do people fall for this garbage? This is a seriously stupid argument, and yet 40 percent of the country still approves of this clown.

Oh, and speaking of being at the top, turns out that thanks to our weekend surge in new cases, Marshall County is now the biggest hot spot in Indiana. Just in time for all the kids to go back to school for sports times! I'm not as nervous about tennis as I would be about other sports (thank goodness Max decided not to try out for soccer and to do track in the spring instead!), but I'm still quite nervous about what it will mean to have a bunch of kids scrimmaging, lifting weights, running together, and doing conditioning for this next month.

And five weeks from tomorrow, supposedly we go back to school. I understand all the reasons for having schools be open. I really do. And trust me, as a working parent, I know how hard it is to work while you're overseeing your kids' education. I knew even before pandemic times because I've worked from home for 13 years now, so anytime a kid is sick, or it's fall break or winter break or summer, I've been here, working and parenting at the same time. It sucks. So I feel for all the parents out there who have been thrown into this. But at the same time, I'm not convinced that the solution is to put all our kids back into giant petri dishes (and let's face it, that's what schools are) and see what sprouts.

Nationwide cases: 2,981,602. Deaths: 131,248.

covid diary: day 117

Lego tree swallow. Because Mike likes them.

After a long weekend of doing not much of anything, today was a busy day around the homestead. Almost like normal times. Mike went off to work this morning, and then Bethany came to pick Max up for a day of outside work at her house. (They are clearing their backyard in preparation for getting a pool later this month, and none of us can wait.) Then at 10:15, Laura picked up Liam because today is the first day of summer tennis. My cousin Jimmy is a freshman this year (same as Max) and plans to play on the tennis team, so the two of them will have the same schedule for a while. Liam reported that tennis was "hot but fun." He did have a talk with his coach, though, about what precautions they will be taking. I didn't even ask him to do it -- he just decided that was the right thing to do. Coach acknowledged that (as I have been worried about) the drills are the riskiest part of the early season. They're planning to play mostly doubles this year to limit how many courts they need (so people aren't playing multiple singles matches and moving around talking to people between matches). Only one kid will be allowed on a bench at each time. Everyone has to bring their own water bottles and towels and stuff. I guess some teams are having designated balls for each kid, but our team decided not to go that route ... that's a decision I agree with too, because surface transmission is a much lower risk than initially thought. 

Over the long weekend, we had an explosion of new cases of COVID-19 in our county. To put it in perspective, they measure the rate of daily infection in cases per 100,000 people on a rolling seven-day average so they get a consistent rate for every location. According to that Harvard tracker I mentioned last week, Cook County, IL (Chicago), has a rate of 7.7. DuPage County, IL (hi Barb!) has a rate of 5.6. And our county, Marshall County, IN, has a rate of 24.4. We're right on the edge of the orange/red divide, meaning we basically have uncontrolled spread. 

I wanted to know more, so I went to look at the state's dashboard, which breaks down the demographics of the cases. Here's the story for Marshall County:

Look at that: 19.2 percent of new cases are kids 19 and under. Another 18.4 percent are age 20-29. That's almost 40 percent of new cases happening in young people. Roughly as many kids 19 and under are getting infected as adults ages 50 and older. That's a 20-year span on the young side, but a 40+ span on the older side. 

But sure, let's have school in person! It's not like these kids are coming home to families or anything.

Related to that, Harvard announced today that all classes for the entire upcoming school year will be held online. They're not giving kids a break on that $50,000 tuition though, so Harvard kids, maybe consider switching to a state school for the year and transferring some credits. Princeton is taking a different approach, allowing freshman and juniors to come back for the fall semester, sophomores and seniors for the spring semester, and the rest online. For that, they're giving a 10 percent discount on tuition. And the University of Georgia system? Welp, they're going back in person, masks optional. 

I'm sure that will work out very well.

Anyway, that was a whole flurry of college announcements this afternoon, and I suspect it's just the start of an avalanche of them. And once the colleges start going online, I'm guessing the odds will improve that K-12 schools will thing about following suit. We'll see.

Nationwide cases: 2,922,000. Deaths: 130,208.

covid diary: day 113

Today Governor Holcomb announced a new campaign, Mask Up Hoosiers. I have some thoughts, but let's let the governor use his own words to explain this first:

"This is one of the tools that we know that can limit the spread. It’s just factual. So, inconvenient or not, this can save lives. This can save our healthcare networks’ capacity to treat people who are in actually in need of that treatment. So, we are not just asking, but we are recommending, in the strongest terms possible, you think about not just your own life, but you think about those who you love. Those who you don’t want to lose.  It’s not just about me, but try to stress that it’s about someone else."

Hmm. He's recommending, in the strongest possible terms. He's not just asking. But you know what he's also not doing?

Telling.

Ordering.

Mandating.

Requiring.

This is a whole campaign, with logo (above), catchy slogan, hashtag, and an entire webpage with its own catchy phrases ("We've hunkered down. now it's time to Mask Up."), along with videos, recommended language for sharing social media posts, graphics for sharing those social media posts, a whole-ass poster that you can print out and use to write down your reason for wearing a mask, and even a cutesy little animation that you can share online if a still graphic isn't good enough.

What is this world we live in, where people can't just wear masks because it's the BEST WAY TO PREVENT TRANSMISSION OF A DEADLY VIRUS? How much money and time did the state spend developing this entire advertising campaign to convince people to save their own lives? How many focus groups do you think this went through to make sure the messaging would reach those groups of people who think wearing a mask infringes on their rights as Americans?

Good grief.

Let me be clear: Yes, I want people to wear masks. I want them to wear masks anytime they're out of their houses/yards and around other people. I think it's incredibly stupid and careless not to wear them. But this? This just illustrates for me (again) how ridiculous this country can be.

Today, we set a new record for new infections, with more than 56,000 across the country. We set a new record yesterday too, and the day before that. Medical care is getting better as doctors learn more about the best ways to treat people with COVID-19, but the fact remains that there are really only two main things we can do to stop the spread of this virus. We can stay away from other people. And we can wear our damned masks.

Why is this so hard for people to grasp?

Nationwide cases: 2,739,979. Deaths: 128,740.

covid diary: day 112

knee high x2 (at least)

After 18 full centuries compressed into only six months, we've made it to the second half of the year! There are now 125 days until Election Day, and 203 days until Inauguration Day. A veritable eternity in 2020 time, but hopefully we'll get there.

Yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is largely regarded as the nation's highest infectious disease expert, testified before the Senate on how the pandemic is going. Spoiler alert: It's not so great. Or, as Dr. Fauci put it, we're "going in the wrong direction." Yesterday, there were 44,000 new cases of COVID-19 reported. Fully 45 of the 50 states have higher rates of infection this week than they did last week. Texas, Arizona, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Alaska all had new record numbers of infection statewide yesterday.

And yet, people like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said to Dr. Fauci in yesterday's hearing, "We shouldn't presume that a group of experts somehow knows what's best for everyone." Yeah, ok, Rand Paul. Like you weren't presuming to know what's best for everyone when you showed symptoms of COVID-19, got tested, and then spent DAYS going to meetings and swimming in the Senate pool even though you knew you were waiting for test results and could potentially be infecting lots of people before you found out that you did, in fact, have COVID-19? Like that? Thank you, but I think I'll listen to Dr. Fauci instead.

So anyway, Dr. Fauci warned yesterday that unless Americans start really changing their behavior (ahem like wearing masks!) we could start seeing 100,000 new cases every day. I can't even wrap my brain around what that would look like. But those numbers made me think. We've been seeing a steep increase of rate of infection, but not a corresponding steep increase in rate of death.

Until today.

As I write this, it's 7 p.m., and more than 1,200 people have died from COVID-19 so far today. As Dr. Fauci puts it, "Deaths always lag considerably behind cases." And now there has been enough time since states started reopening for the deaths to start spiking. We're just about at 130,000 total deaths (since March!!), and I'm worried about where we're headed.

This afternoon, Mike found this map from the Harvard Global Health Institute and partners, who break down the data in counties all over the country. They track the number of cases per 100,000 people, plus the rate of increase or decrease in spread, and put it all together to offer advice for what that county should do.

The colors correspond to the level of risk in the county, as well as the recommended actions the county should be taking.

Ok, let's zoom in a little. Look at Indiana. I've helpfully added a red asterisk to Marshall County, where we live, and a white plus sign to Elkhart County, where my brother lives. As you can see, this is uh oh territory. We're in orange, accelerated spread, and J's in red, tipping point. Yikes.

In other news, this afternoon the governor held a press conference to announce that he is postponing stage 4 of the reopening (Back to Spreading the Virus Hoosiers Back on Track Indiana) from July 4 to July 17. Sports are part of stage 4, which is why Liam is supposed to start tennis next week, but for now it's unclear if that will actually happen. I was talking to Bethany today, and she said that she also has doubts about in-person school this fall, even though all the districts are emphatically saying it will happen. I guess we won't have to wait too long to find out. Gulp.

I worked a long day today, then I took a very hot bike ride followed by a very cold shower. Liam and his friend did yard work for one of the speech coaches for five hours today (the coach is retired from being our school superintendent, and he's immunocompromised and can't be out in the heat), and he came home filthy and tired and immediately retired to the basement icebox. Mike worked in a part of the factory where they can't have AC, so he's happy to be home. It's enchilada night. On we go.

Nationwide cases: 2,678,202. Deaths: 127,970.