covid diary: day 42

Employees of the month:
CFO (chief fetch officer) and branch manager

Late last night, the president announced via tweet that he's going to suspend all immigration during this crisis to "protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens" and fight the "Invisible Enemy." OK sure. It's definitely not just that he's a xenophobic trash heap masquerading as a real human person. It's also definitely not that he's been shamelessly exploiting American racism, classism, and xenophobia since the day he came down the gold escalator (barf) at Trump Tower to announce that he was running for president and also to say that Mexicans are rapists and criminals (and some are, he's sure, good people). And even before that, when he pulled all that racist birth certificate garbage on President Obama. OH! And it's absolutely positively definitely not a Hail Mary pass designed to recoup some of the support he's lost even among his base as he has consistently bungled every aspect of the response to this crisis.

I mean, really, it's not like one out of every six health care workers in this country is an immigrant. (Fact: 20.9 percent of nursing assistants, 18.9 percent of nurse practitioners, 15.2 percent of medical assistants, 18.9 percent of lab workers, and 15 percent of registered nurses in the U.S. are immigrants.) Or one out of every four doctors. (Fact: 28.5 percent of doctors in the U.S. are immigrants.) Or one out of every three home health aides. (Fact: 35.2 percent of home health aides in the U.S. are immigrants.) And that's just one small part of the American workforce. Immigrants are everywhere. They're the lifeblood of America. They actually do make America great.

(In case you're wondering, my source is U.S. Census data. Go explore, and see how many immigrants work in your favorite industry!)

This afternoon, the Chicago Tribune reported that Gov. Pritzker says the peak isn't expected to hit Illinois until mid-May, which is weeks later than original estimates. That's great news! It means that staying at home and maintaining good social distancing practices is working. We want a lower, flatter curve. Of course, the flip side is that more people are going to be complaining about staying at home, especially as the weather gets nicer. Too bad, people. This is no time to let up. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot also said today that she expects the stay-at-home order in Illinois to be extended until June. I'm not surprised, because it should be extended to keep people safe.

Related: I just love Lori Lightfoot memes.

Aaaaaannnnnd right on cue, Bloomberg is reporting that Attorney General Barr is considering taking legal action against governors who continue to impose stay-at-home orders. Cool cool. This is just totally normal, another boring day where the attorney general of the United States is threatening to sue governors because those governors dared to do their best to stop the spread of a pandemic. Exactly as the founders intended, I'm sure.

On the home front, no elearning today. Henry and I went into town to get school lunches for the week (they have quite a system set up, it's really very efficient and helpful), then we went to the bank drive-thru and then treated ourselves to curbside delivery at the Coffee Lodge served by our very own cousin Dylan. We haven't seen her since before this whole thing started, so we were very happy to stop by and do our part to support a local business by getting some hand-crafted frozen concoctions specially made for us, along with stroopwafels because it's highly unlikely that I'm going to go to a place with stroopwafels and not buy any. Poor Dylan and Henry also got treated to me reminiscing about the good old days when I was an exchange student at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Guess what I brought home as souvenirs. Go on, guess! Not wooden shoes. Not Delftware. Nope, I packed up like 10 packages of stroopwafels (all that would fit in my suitcase) and handed them out like gold bars to all my loved ones! And let me tell you, they were delighted.

Anyway. Once we got back home, we woke Max up (it was 2 p.m.!) and did our final batch of cursive for the lowercase letters (s, f, r). And then the boys completed their cursive challenge from Aunt Rita, so we'll put that in the mail for her. I must report, however, that two of my three children completely failed to answer question 5 on their own: "You are my great-great nephew. Who is your other great-great aunt?" (The answer is Aunt Marlene, Gram's sister, who lives in New York.) So we may need to embark on a genealogy unit once we learn the capital letters in cursive. Also, don't think I didn't notice, Aunt Rita, the tricksy wording in question 9: "Pluto and Thunder are great dogs! What will you name a third dog when you get one?" CLEVER!

Nationwide cases: 826,643. Deaths: 45,413.