My friend is second in command to the director of nursing at her hospital, and just a few days ago she was saying they were hoping to be able to resume elective surgery on May first. To have Cuomo begin to repeal that in many counties has given me tremendous hope. Maybe we will not be locked down until May 15 in other areas either.
1 Like
Here also, but not in a good way. DH (not DH yet then) was insistent that it was the right thing to keep her alive as she had been. I was horrified and would never want to āliveā that way. Shame on me, but Iāve still never done anything in writing about this.
1 Like
I am very thankful that my parents felt so strongly about estate planning that they paid for myself and my brothers (and our families) to all have our documents done.
2 Likes
I think the point is that conversation and paperwork needs to happen.
ETA because like you point out even people who know you well may not have the same thoughts on this kind of thing.
2 Likes
Our governor (Inslee - Washington) has talked about this. As a matter of policy, they passed a law here in Washington that workers 65 and above have the right to not work if they feel unsafe without their jobs being at risk. They have to be allowed to work at home (if possible), use accrued leave or go on furlough but have their medical benefits paid by the employer. This yet another burden on employers, but how many people over 65 are actually in the work force. We have approx. 10 out of 330 benefited employees, so 3%. (I know because Iām in HR and have the amazing job of deciphering all of these new laws that affect employment on both federal and state levels.) I donāt know of any of our employees taking advantage of this at this point. That could change as things open up and we are no longer mostly working from home.
Edited to add: Iām not sure how long the employee can be in this status. I think there is a time limit.
2 Likes
Wait, what? Itās supposed to apply where I live. All the grocery stores have signs up saying stay 6 ft apart and there are taped things on the floor to try to separate people. A lot of stores are also limiting the # of people in the store, which means queues outside standing 6 ft apart. However, in practice, Iāve had a lot of people get really close to me (especially in line) b/c they just donāt get itāor, decided to ignore it.
2 Likes
I canāt find the answer to this anywhere: if you donate $ to a business that isnāt a nonprofit, as part of coronavirus relief, is it tax deductible for you? Iāve donated to nonprofits like museums before but never just to a for profit business so I have no idea.
From everything Iāve read, Sweden isnāt really doing this particularly well. Their hospitals havenāt been overwhelmed, but it still has gotten into a bunch of nursing homes and killed the elderly, just like the rest of the world.
Honestly, Iām not sure how you cocoon. With all the asymptomatics around, multigenerational family homes, etc. Plus itās not just the elderly at risk, but also the immuno-compromised, which may be younger. Iām sure there are strategies you can take (no overlap in care workers between hospitals/care facilities, allowing old/immuno-compromised to work from home, etc). But even in total lockdown right now, itās still getting into nursing homes. If we open back up, even a little, itās only going to get worse.
Not advocating either way, just the reality. And why so many leaders are talking about test/track/isolate. Especially if you can get regular tests for people who are high-risk and/or work with high-risk people, hopefully we can contain outbreaks and keep infection rates lower for higher risk groups. But from what I understand, testing isnāt there in a lot of places yet. Definitely isnāt in my state, though they are working on it of course.
6 Likes
A donation to a business is not tax deductible as a charitable donation under current tax law as I understand it (unless Congress passed or will pass something to change this specific to coronavirus - but I wouldnāt think they will).
1 Like
A vaccine isnāt the only way forward. The equivalent of a Tamiflu or antibiotic for Covid would also be great. There are plenty of diseases out there that we live with, but we are able to manage and minimize the bodily effects. With better understanding of what this virus does to the body, symptom management and minimization will make it less deadly, as well.
6 Likes
This is so sad. Hugs.
1 Like
Agreed on that. But, I suppose the point is without knowing for sure such a treatment and/or vaccine is even possible, we canāt make our public policy decisions going forward based on the assumption we can. Because if we canāt, it was all for naught.
I do think it might be possible to do something even with an āineffectiveā vaccine (that isā¦one that works for a short period of time) if we can get enough produced so that we can mass inoculate the population all within the time period that it is working. Then, by the time the effectiveness wears off, the virus has died off. That seems like a very very very unlikely scenario, though, even in the best of circumstances.
2 Likes
Iām sorry. Itās what Iām expecting here too, although they havenāt called it yet. And yes, 2 months of it sounds awful here too. I know what you mean about the math! It isnāt the same math that we were taught b/c of the common core tendency to have the kids explain all sorts of things. Just do the best you can. If you donāt finish it all itās fine. Really. I think all of us with kids will have to start taking a harder look at what weāre being told to do and figure out what actually works for our families. Iām not going to abandon it altogether by any means, but at this point weāre not doing any of the optional stuff. If they officially go to pass / fail I may give the kids some leeway on the required stuff too, depending on whatās going on with them. My 7th grader was way overloaded at first and my 2nd grader, working with me, has had a lot of learning curve. The only one whoās sailing through is the 5th grader, so far, but his workload is maybe half of the other two. I want everyone to have a balanced day and not get too stressed out by school when weāre already in this stressful situation.
4 Likes
Iāve been trying to find a really great meme I saw that I wanted to share with yāall but canāt locate it again, so Iāll paraphrase what it said.
Dear Parents,
We know distance learning is hard. Itās hard for the students, itās hard for you, itās hard for us. Do what makes sense for your family. If your kid is behind in the fall academically, thatās ok. Weāll fix it. Thatās our job. What we canāt fix is the emotional damage this situation can do. So please, focus on your childās emotional well being. Bond as a family. Try to help them process whatās happening. Thatās what we really need you to do.
Signed,
Every Teacher Everywhere
7 Likes
You should look into Smart Music! Both my kids used it in 4th grade for beginner band but once they moved into 5th that teacher didnāt use it. Now that we are doing online instruction their band teacher started Smart Music and itās free right now. My kids are in 5th & 7th grade.
Maybe you can even suggest it to the band director or buy the subscription yourself. It was worth the money, check it out!
3 Likes
I finally finished watching yesterdayās WH briefing and here are my key takeaways plus points relevant to Disney/Florida/California.
They feel there is enough testing available for all states to move to Phase 1 of re-opening if they meet the other criteria. Yesterdayās call with the governors focused on helping each state be aware of the testing capacities in that state. This would include testing anyone with symptoms, contact tracing, and surveillance testing in vulnerable populations.
Army Corps of Engineers is still building out requested hospital surge capacity. Sounds like this was both for areas that havenāt peaked yet and concerns from some areas about a second wave after re-opening.
There was a question about liability of companies if they re-open and employees get infected. They are working on removing that potential liability. [Iām thinking that would also be relevant to the discussion on another thread about Disneyās potential liability if they re-open and guests get infected.]
Dr Birx is comfortable with the re-opening of the Jacksonville beaches since most covid cases are in southern Florida. [My concern is still that people from southern Florida are going to day trip up and bring the virus with them. Not just the beaches, but gas stations, etc. Perhaps they will limit beach access to locals, but thatās not allowed under state law here in Texas.]
Dr Birx was also specifically asked about the LA County/USC study. From the questioner: āIt suggests that you have a lot more people out there who would be spreading the virus, but it also suggests that the case fatality rate is more in line with the 2017-2018 flu than what weāve seen in some other areas of the world. But Iām wondering if youāve seen that and what your thoughts were.ā
She did not respond specifically to those 2 points, but her response included the quote belowā¦note per USC the test has a 90 to 95% accuracy rateā¦and Iām really not following what sheās saying (if someone who does could explain it to me like Iām a 6 year old!)ā¦but I gather sheās not confident in their resultsā¦
āWhat we donāt want to do ā and Iām just going to do another 30 seconds on testing. These tests are not 100 percent sensitive or specific. And Iām going to go over this over and over again. So if you have 1 percent of your population infected, and you have a test thatās only 99 percent specific, that means that when you find a positive, 50 percent of the time it will be a real positive and 50 percent of the time it wonāt be.
And thatās why weāre really asking people to start testing in among the first responders and the healthcare workers that have had the greatest exposure, because thatās where the test will be most reliable. And then, when we have the luxury, we can go out to broader and broader communities. But this has been the fundamental question to begin with and has been persistent.ā
http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/phcommon/public/media/mediapubhpdetail.cfm?prid=2328
5 Likes
The series is called Summer Bridge Activities. There are different books for different grades. For example, my second grader will be doing grade 2-3. It links the two grades together, so there is some new information introducing some of the beginning 3rd grade info. We have used the books the last couple of summers.
1 Like
If the tests arenāt reliable, then how are they going to work in the states for mitigation and contact tracing?
1 Like
Thanks for this summary. Really interesting point about the testing capacity. Governors and local public health departments are still talking about lack of testing, so where is the disconnect here? I just heard an account in my state that tests are still limited because they canāt get the supplies (swabs, chemical reagants, etc) to actually run the tests, even though they have the staff/machines in place. So maybe thatās the issue? Iām really getting sick of the mixed messages of the federal government vs state.
1 Like
I hadnāt really thought about the positive predictive values/negative predictive values of these tests before nowā¦interesting.