COVID-19

I have decided that it would be smart to keep a COVID-19 diary, which I have not been doing, because then I could track the dates of the BYU numbers better.

Kind of important since we had our first BYU COVID-19 death on Friday. (Well, I at least do not know of any others.)

On July 6, we all got an email from the LAO that said a member of the cataloguing department had been tested as COVID-19 positive, that all the people in close contact had been notified. This read in part:

"I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! An employee on level 6 has tested positive for COVID-19. The employee was in the building last Tuesday-Thursday, but was wearing a mask. If you were in close contact with the individual, you will be contacted directly. If you are concerned about potential contagion, you can self-isolate and get tested if you begin experiencing any symptoms."

At that point, I looked up BYU's numbers and the counter was at 14, so I figured that the person referred to in the email was probably person 14.

I wondered who the person in cataloguing was? I knew it wasn't Janet who had been in Idaho at her family farm for a week. July 6 was her first day back in the office. I did not think it was Janice, because she had been away camping with her family and only in the building on Thursday July 2. The building had been closed on Friday in lieu of the 4th of July.

Then, that afternoon of July 6, Janet came to see me about something, both of us wearing masks, and something arose in conversation that we thought we needed to ask Janice, whereupon Janet said that Janice was still at work (which I knew she had been because we had been having several email conversations) but leaving as soon as possible, because she had been notified that she had been exposed to COVID-19. Like, she was on the list of contacts for the person who had. Which was when I learned that the first staff person in the library to get COVID-19 was Becky.

Although the email from the LAO said that the unnamed person (who was in fact Becky) was wearing a mask, but Janice had a pretty long conversation with her on July 2, in her office, Janice was wearing a mask, but Becky was not. Now, after the fact, Janice finds that her "mind goes round and round that last conversation" she had with Becky. Which was to be really her last conversation with Becky.

Janet recalled via text today that her own last conversation with Becky, which would have been in late June before she went to Idaho, "was about wearing masks. (I was wearing a mask, but she wasn't.)" So a bit of evidence that Becky, bless her heart and soul, did not take mask-wearing quite as seriously as she possibly should have and could have.

So, on July 6, Janice went home to self-quarantine. Janice was feeling fine at home. She did have a headache, but was not sure that was a COVID-19 symptom, because STRESS. Like, worrying about exposure can give you a headache all by itself. But because Janice and her husband are pretty much the caregivers for Janice's aging parents, she determined that she needed to get tested. Others who had been in contact with Becky also were tested, (Bob for one), but as far as I know Janice is the only one (in the library) who got a positive test result.

She emailed me (and others) on Saturday July 11: "It's 3 pm on Saturday, and I just got a call that my test results were positive (I was tested July 9). So I will continue to work from home. So far my only symptom is a slight cough. I was in the office on Monday, July 6 for a few hours, but I packed up and went home as soon as I could after I read Becky's message. I have to stay in quarantine until July 19, and then I can only leave quarantine if I'm symptom-free and have been fever-free for 72 hours.

At that point, I looked up BYU's stats again, and it was 16 for summer term. So I figured Janice was person number 15 or 16. (She remembers telling her husband she was 16.) Let me note here that on July 11, the numbers for Winter semester were 21, for Spring term 15, and at July 11, THREE WEEKS into summer term, we were already at 16, more cases than the entirety of Spring term.

When I knew Janice tested positive, I had to think back about how much contact I had with Janice. She had been away from the library on a camping trip with her family, and so only July 2 was possible. I had been around Janice very briefly as we looked at and made decisions about a book. We both were wearing masks. Janice had her last conversation with Becky on that same day. So if Janice's day of exposure was July 2, she was not likely to have been at the point of ability to share the virus that same day. So I figured that I had not been exposed. I also determined to be better at wearing the mask myself. Like, I would sometimes forget to put it on when walking out to the stacks, to the water fountain or wash room. So, I knew I needed to do better.

On July 11, the library sent the message out about the second cataloguing employee testing positive, who we know was Janice: "We wanted to let you know that a second employee on level 6 has tested positive for COVID-19. The employee was last in the building briefly on Monday July 6. If you were in close contact* with the individual, you will be contacted directly. If you are concerned about potential contagion, you can self-isolate and get tested if you begin experiencing any symptoms.
*The CDC defines close contact as being “within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes” but use your best judgement."

On July 15, I had a conversation with Bob Maxwell, both wearing masks and trying to stay six feet apart, in which he told me that because Becky lives with and cares for her elderly mother, she had to move out of home and into a hotel in order to protect her mother. Thom Edlund, bless his heart, was going to Becky's hotel and making sure she had what she needed. But, Bob continued, "she isn't in the hotel now, she is in the hospital." So Becky's illness had worsened since July 6, when the library was notified about it, so that she landed in the hospital.

After my conversation with Bob, I looked at the stats again, and Summer stats were at 19. So 19 on July 15.

On Thursday, July 23, Janet (wearing a mask, as was I) told me that Becky was doing better, and had been released from the hospital. 

So when I got the following email from the library on Saturday, July 25, I was shocked. It said, "We are deeply saddened to announce that Becky Mckown (Cataloging & Metadata) passed away yesterday. Her family found her unconscious in her home and took her to the hospital where she later passed. We will send out additional information regarding a memorial service when we receive it.

Becky was a wonderful colleague and valuable contributor to the library and will be deeply missed. Please keep her family in your prayers at this time."

Okay, honestly, I was shocked but not shocked. Because, you know me and my premonitions of bad things. (I don't seem to get premonitions of good things. Kind of annoying!! I can't predict good things with any accuracy, but if it is "you are not going to actually marry this girl" or "you will not get this job" or "you are going to die" I can be spot on.) So, my premonition from the get-go had been that Becky would die. Like, that sounds terrible to say. So when Janet had told me on July 23 that Becky was home from the hospital and doing better, I was pleasantly surprised and relieved that my premonition was wrong. I wish it truly had been.

So, checking the count at the time of Becky's passing, Summer term is sitting at 40 cases. That is doubled since July 15. We still have three weeks left in Summer term. I wonder if the cases will double again by then. I wonder if the powers that be will announce that we had our first death.

I feel very sad about Becky. I did not know her super well, but have had several pleasant conversations with her over the years. She was a cheerful person, fun to talk to, fun to be around. Patrick knew her well and liked her. They had worked on bone boxes together; she was cataloguing bones, and needed Patrick to figure out boxes for them. Becky had gone to a family reunion in California, and came back with COVID-19. 

Janet relates this via text today: "She went home from the hospital on Thursday and was feeling better (someone had talked to Millie [the department assistant]) but her family found her unconscious yesterday [Friday July 24] and rushed her back [to the hospital] but it was too late."

I am honestly a bit happy for Becky that she didn't die in the hospital the first time. At that point, she had been in self-isolation in the hotel room and then admitted to the hospital and had not seen her family since probably July 6. So July 6-23. At least she got to see her mother and whoever else might have been there to help with her mother before she lost consciousness and died. I am sure that there was some measure of comfort that at least she had not died only surrounded by hospital staff covered in PPE, without that too-brief respite at home.

Walker Family Papers

Yesterday, I spent an hour going through the first two of three boxes of the John H. Walker Family Papers (MSS 1099) in L. Tom Perry Special Collections. I took pictures of a few items to put them on Family Search and made notes of things to go back to. The last box, the one I still need to open, is the one with the photos. I am looking forward to that!

I typed up a poem that I think Aunt Eva herself wrote. Her mother was very much a poet--I think writing poetry was a common hobby back in the day. This poem was one of the items in the folder about Uncle John's funeral.

I’m thankful for so many things

In this old world of ours:

For butterflies, and birds and trees,

For rainbows and for flowers.

I’m grateful, too, for loyal friends

And happy hours we’ve known,

For memories that still remain

After the hours have flown.

I’m humbly thankful for the tasks

That I may do each day

To make this house of mine

A home in every way.

I’m thankful for so many things,

But let me whisper here,

I’m thankful first of all for John

Who grew dearer year by year.

There was a baby announcement for the birth of Aunt Allie's grandson, my second cousin Kim. Since I have email contact with them, I sent pictures of it to them, in case they have not seen it.

And I found this card from my grandma to Aunt Eva and Uncle John. Not sure when it was written. But it pulled at my heart strings, as soon as I recognized my grandma's handwriting:

I imagine that Aunt Eva had shared "that poem" upon the death of Uncle Ken in 1952, or maybe the "same sad parting" refers to the murder of Uncle Louis/Lewis, the brother of both Art and Eva, in 1953.  (That poem being probably a different poem, not the one that she wrote on the death of her husband, which would not happen until 1957.)

Research

I have been doing a lot of research lately. I enjoy research, and since I have to write as a part of my work as a faculty member with the dictum to "publish or perish" hanging overhead, I end up doing a lot of research.  During COVID-19, that is my default activity, since much of my normal job functions are a bit less normal. So research keeps me from twiddling my thumbs.

I have a bunch of ideas for articles that have arisen from looking at nearly all the Children's Friends magazines from 1902-1949. I got interested in one composer because there was a little biographical blurb in a 1947 CF about him. I ended up looking for him on Family Search, and noticed that both of his wives (he married the first one in 1914, and then she died in 1921, a few days after the birth of a baby; then he married again in 1922) were from RAYMOND.

So I did lots of research in newspapers (how I love Peel's Prairie Provinces!) in order to place this man in Raymond from 1913-1929 before he moved on to do things in larger places where he got noticed a bit more.

At first, I thought he had just randomly gone to Alberta to visit his one aunt who lived there (who was only a year older than him. Or maybe a year younger?) but I came to realize that while his parents and their children emigrated to Utah from England (when he was 14) his widowed step-grandfather moved to Alberta with all of his children except for the mother of the man, who of course moved to Utah. So that was interesting.

I have posted SO MUCH stuff on Family Search! I hope this family appreciates it. I have not found that this family is related to us, but I am pretty much positive that my Grandpa Hancock would have delivered milk to them. (And, thanks to p.162 of "Raymond 1901-1967" I now know that my Uncle Alma played in the school orchestra under the baton of this man I have been researching. (I always wondered--how did Uncle Alma, in little old Raymond, turn out to be a violinist? There was no orchestra there in the schools when my cousins in Raymond were growing up.))

This is all a very round-about way to say that I decided to look in some Raymond History books (there are two in our library) and came across this very apropos paragraph:

"Epidemics find their way to every community. Raymond was hostess to measles, mumps, chicken pox and scarlet fever. Often schools were closed and strict quarantines were enforced. When the epidemic of influenza hit in 1918-1919 a very few homes escaped this dreadful disease. The town was under quarantine--no church services, no school, and no public gatherings of any kind were permitted. A temporary hospital was set up in the Second Ward Church. The worst cases were taken there and nurses and doctors worked night and day but the Grim Reaper took his toll. Funerals were not held but a brief grave side ceremony was given. Whenever people went out in public they were obligated to wear masks over the mouth and nose. What a great relief when this plague passed on." ---p.89 in "Raymond 1901-1967."

I am just going to leave this here...

Book Quote

I need to save a quote from a book before I return it to the library. This is from The Lines We Cross by Randa Abdel-Fattah, and it really resonated with me, since I often feel like I have one foot in each of two countries. So that part resounds with me. However, there is much more to unpack in these few paragraphs , which are from pages 360-361.
"We refugees are different from immigrants, Mina. The immigrant's heart is caught between the struggle of wanting to stay or return, return or stay. The uncertainty never stops. Every decision is shadowed by what they are missing out on back home. And when they return to their birthplace, they want to come back here.  And when they come back here, they wonder if they should have stayed. But us? We have been robbed of those choices. I cannot return to my homeland. And so I must simply stay in somebody else's homeland, as an outsider and a guest. I am the guest who brings a gift of food to their host. Except what I think more and more is that they do not eat the food, the eat us here."
I peer into his face, frowning, "What do you mean?"
"When they don't like the taste of us, when we have too much flavor and spice, and do not follow their recipe, we are like indigestion, and they want to vomit us back to where we came from."
"Even if you're right, Farshad," Mum suddenly speaks up, "Don't you dare lose hope. Don't you dare hand your power to these people...Not just because you let them win, but because despair is a luxury people like us cannot afford."

Planking

I have been planking every morning since January 1.  I mean, I planked before, but I was not hardcore timing myself. I was counting on my fingers, and when I felt sufficiently tired or like I could not go on, I would stop. But on January 1, I was timing myself because of a BYU Wellness challenge. The challenge ended about a week into February, but I kept on going. So here I am, still planking every day for two minutes.

And those two minutes STILL feel like an eternity! I did not think it would be like this. I expected that two minutes would start to be easy, and that six months into it, I would be (easily!) planking for three or four minutes. But I am still so done-in after two minutes!!!

I have noticed a little bit of strongness creep--I listen to scriptures while planking, and close my eyes so I am not watching the timer on its quest to get from zero to two minutes, and now when I am feeling like I need to peek, it is usually 1:10 or even, on good days 1:20. But the remaining time, while it is no longer agony, feels very long and uncomfortable.

I will keep on planking--I definitely feel the difference in a few of my muscle groups, and I know that it is worth it to build up endurance. Just the progess is sooooo slow. 

Another person's thoughts about school

From a friend of a friend of a friend. The writer, Joe, lives in Fairfax Co., VA. This preamble belongs to my friend Jeanne, who lives in Seattle.

Jeanne: It’s long, but there are many questions posed, and realities stated. Just as a thought, what would you tell your child if their teacher died? If your child’s friend lost their Dad? If your child lost their grandma? If the principal was hospitalized for four months? If they run out of substitutes? If you unknowingly sent your kid to school and they got a friend sick—and they died? How would your child feel?

The post:

From Joe Morice, daughters in 8th & 10th grade in our Centreville Pyramid:

To our fellow FCPS families, this is it gang, 5 days until the 2 days in school vs. 100% virtual decision. Let’s talk it out, in my traditional mammoth TL/DR form.

Like all of you, I’ve seen my feed become a flood of anxiety and faux expertise. You’ll get no presumption of expertise here. This is how I am looking at and considering this issue and the positions people have taken in my feed and in the hundred or so FCPS discussion groups that have popped up. The lead comments in quotes are taken directly from my feed and those boards. Sometimes I try to rationalize them. Sometimes I’m just punching back at the void.

Full disclosure, we initially chose the 2 days option and are now having serious reservations. As I consider the positions and arguments I see in my feed, these are where my mind goes. Of note, when I started working on this piece at 12:19 PM today the COVID death tally in the United States stood at 133,420.

“My kids want to go back to school.”

I challenge that position. I believe what the kids desire is more abstract. I believe what they want is a return to normalcy. They want their idea of yesterday. And yesterday isn’t on the menu.

“I want my child in school so they can socialize.”

This was the principle reason for our 2 days decision. As I think more on it though, what do we think ‘social’ will look like? There aren’t going to be any lunch table groups, any lockers, any recess games, any study halls, any sitting next to friends, any talking to people in the hallway, any dances. All of that is off the menu. So, when we say that we want the kids to benefit from the social experience, what are we deluding ourselves into thinking in-building socialization will actually look like in the Fall?

“My kid is going to be left behind.”

Left behind who? The entire country is grappling with the same issue, leaving all children in the same quagmire. Who exactly would they be behind? I believe the rhetorical answer to that is “They’ll be behind where they should be,” to which I’ll counter that “where they should be” is a fictional goal post that we as a society have taken as gospel because it maps to standardized tests which are used to grade schools and counties as they chase funding.

“Classrooms are safe.”

At the current distancing guidelines from FCPS middle and high schools would have no more than 12 people (teachers + students) in a classroom (I acknowledge this number may change as FCPS considers the Commonwealth’s 3 ft with a mask vs. 6 ft position, noting that FCPS is all mask regardless of the distance). For the purpose of this discussion we’ll say classes run 45 minutes.

I posed the following question to 40 people today, representing professional and management roles in corporations, government agencies, and military commands: “Would your company or command have a 12 person, 45 minute meeting in a conference room?”

100% of them said no, they would not. These are some of their answers:

“No. Until further notice we are on Zoom.”
“(Our company) doesn’t allow us in (company space).”
“Oh hell no.”
“No absolutely not.”
“Is there a percentage lower than zero?”
“Something of that size would be virtual.”

We do not even consider putting our office employees into the same situation we are contemplating putting our children into. And let’s drive this point home: there are instances here when commanding officers will not put soldiers, ACTUAL SOLDIERS, into the kind of indoor environment we’re contemplating for our children. For me this is as close to a ‘kill shot’ argument as there is in this entire debate. How do we work from home because buildings with recycled air are not safe, because we don’t trust other people to not spread the virus, and then with the same breath send our children into buildings?

“Children only die .0016 of the time.”

First, conceding we’re an increasingly morally bankrupt society, but when did we start talking about children’s lives, or anyone’s lives, like this? This how the villain in movies talks about mortality, usually 10-15 minutes before the good guy kills him.

If you’re in this camp, and I acknowledge that many, many people are, I’m asking you to consider that number from a slightly different angle.

FCPS has 189,000 children. .0016 of that is 302. 302 dead children are the Calvary Hill you’re erecting your argument on. So, let’s agree to do this: stop presenting this as a data point. If this is your argument, I challenge you to have courage equal to your conviction. Go ahead, plant a flag on the internet and say, “Only 302 children will die.” No one will. That’s the kind action on social media that gets you fired from your job. And I trust our social media enclave isn’t so careless and irresponsible with life that it would even, for even a millisecond, enter any of your minds to make such an argument.

Considered another way: You’re presented with a bag with 189,000 $1 bills. You’re told that in the bag are 302 random bills, they look and feel just like all the others, but each one of those bills will kill you. Do you take the money out of the bag?

Same argument, applied to the 12,487 teachers in FCPS (per Wikipedia), using the ‘children’s multiplier’ of .0016 (all of us understanding the adult mortality rate is higher). That’s 20 teachers. That’s the number you’re talking about. It’s very easy to sit behind a keyboard and diminish and dismiss the risk you’re advocating other people assume. Take a breath and think about that.

If you want to advocate for 2 days a week, look, I’m looking for someone to convince me. But please, for the love of God, drop things like this from your argument. Because the people I know who’ve said things like this, I know they’re better people than this. They’re good people under incredible stress who let things slip out as their frustration boils over. So, please do the right thing and move on from this, because one potential outcome is that one day, you’re going to have to stand in front of St. Peter and answer for this, and that’s not going to be conversation you enjoy.

“Hardly any kids get COVID.”

(Deep sigh) Yes, that is statistically true as of this writing. But it is a cherry-picked argument because you’re leaving out an important piece.

One can reasonably argue that, due to the school closures in March, children have had the least EXPOSURE to COVID. In other words, closing schools was the one pandemic mitigation action we took that worked. There can be no discussion of the rate of diagnosis within children without also acknowledging they were among our fastest and most quarantined people. Put another way, you cannot cite the effect without acknowledging the cause.

“The flu kills more people every year.”

(Deep sigh). First of all, no, it doesn’t. Per the CDC, United States flu deaths average 20,000 annually. COVID, when I start writing here today, has killed 133,420 in six months.

And when you mention the flu, do you mean the disease that, if you’re suspected of having it, everyone, literally everyone in the country tells you stay the f- away from other people? You mean the one where parents are pretty sure their kids have it but send them to school anyway because they have a meeting that day, the one that every year causes massive f-ing outbreaks in schools because schools are petri dishes and it causes kids to miss weeks of school and leaves them out of sports and band for a month? That one? Because you’re right - the flu kills people every year. It does, but you’re ignoring the why. It’s because there are people who are a--holes who don’t care about infecting other people. In that regard it’s a perfect comparison to COVID.

“Almost everyone recovers.”

You’re confusing “release from the hospital” and “no longer infected” with “recovered.” I’m fortunate to only know two people who have had COVID. One my age and one my dad’s age. The one my age described it as “absolute hell” and although no longer infected cannot breathe right. The one my dad’s age was in the hospital for 13 weeks, had to have a trach ring put in because she could no longer be on a ventilator, and upon finally getting home and being faced with incalculable time in rehab told my mother, “I wish I had died.”

While I’m making every effort to reach objectivity, on this particular point, you don’t know what the f- you’re talking about.

“If people get sick, they get sick.”

First, you mistyped. What you intended to say was “If OTHER people get sick, they get sick.” And shame on you.

“I’m not going to live my life in fear.”

You already live your life in fear. For your health, your family’s health, your job, your retirement, terrorists, extremists, one political party or the other being in power, the new neighbors, an unexpected home repair, the next sunrise. What you meant to say was, “I’m not prepared to add ANOTHER fear,” and I’ve got news for you: that ship has sailed. It’s too late. There are two kinds of people, and only two: those that admit they’re afraid, and those that are lying to themselves about it.

As to the fear argument, fear is the reason you wait up when your kids stay out late, it’s the reason you tell your kids not to dive in the shallow water, to look both ways before crossing the road. Fear is the respect for the wide world that we teach our children. Except in this instance, for reasons no one has been able to explain to me yet.

“FCPS leadership sucks.”

I will summarize my view of the School Board thusly: if the 12 of you aren’t getting into a room together because it represents a risk, don’t tell me it’s OK for our kids. I understand your arguments, that we need the 2 days option for parents who can’t work from home, kids who don’t have internet or computer access, kids who needs meals from the school system, kids who need extra support to learn, and most tragically for kids who are at greater risk of abuse by being home. All very serious, all very real issues, all heartbreaking. No argument.

But you must first lead by example. Because you’re failing when it comes to optics. All your meetings are online. What our children see is all of you on a Zoom telling them it’s OK for them to be exactly where you aren’t. I understand you’re not PR people, but you really should think about hiring some.

“I talked it over with my kids.”
Let’s put aside for a moment the concept of adults effectively deferring this decision to children, the same children who will continue to stuff things into a full trash can rather than change it out. Yes, those hygienic children.

Listen, my 15 year old daughter wants a sport car, which she’s not getting next year because it would be dangerous to her and to others. Those kinds of decisions are our job. We step in and decide as parents, we don’t let them expose themselves to risks because their still developing and screen addicted brains narrow their understanding of cause and effect.

We as parents and adults serve to make difficult decisions. Sometimes those are in the form of lessons, where we try to steer kids towards the right answer and are willing to let them make a mistake in the hopes of teaching better decision making the next time around. This is not one of those moments. The stakes are too high for that. This is a “the adults are talking” moment. Kids are not mature enough for this moment. That is not an attack on your child. It is a broad statement about all children. It is true of your children and it was true when we were children. We need to be doing that thinking here, and “Johnny wants to see Bobby at school” cannot be the prevailing element in the equation.

“The teachers need to do their job.”
How is it that the same society which abruptly shifted to virtual students only three months ago, and offered glowing endorsements of teachers stating, “we finally understand how difficult your job is,” has now shifted to “screw you, do your job.” There are myriad problems with that position but for the purposes of this piece let’s simply go with, “You’re not looking for a teacher, you’re looking for the babysitter you feel your property tax payment entitles you to.”

“Teachers have a greater chance to being killed by a car than they do of dying from COVID.”

(Eye roll) Per the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the U.S. see approximately 36,000 auto fatalities a year. Again, there have been 133,420 COVID deaths in the United States through 12:09 July 10, 2020. So no, they do not have a great chance of being killed in a car accident.

And, if you want to take the actual environment into consideration, the odds of a teacher being killed in a car accident in their classroom, you know, the environment we’re actually talking about, that’s right around 0%.

“If the grocery store workers can be onsite what are the teachers afraid of?”

(Deep breath) A grocery store worker, who absolutely risks exposure, has either six feet of space or a plexiglass shield between them and individual adult customers who can grasp their own mortality whose transactions can be completed in moments, in a 40,000 SF space.

A teacher is with 11 ‘customers’ who have not an inkling what mortality is, for 45 minutes, in a 675 SF space, six times a day.

Just stop.

“Teachers are choosing remote because they don’t want to work.”

(Deep breaths) Many teachers are opting to be remote. That is not a vacation. They’re requesting to do their job at a safer site. Just like many, many people who work in buildings with recycled air have done. And likely the building you’re not going into has a newer and better serviced air system than our schools.

Of greater interest to me is the number of teachers choosing the 100% virtual option for their children. The people who spend the most time in the buildings are the same ones electing not to send their children into those buildings. That’s something I pay attention to.

“I wasn’t prepared to be a parent 24/7” and “I just need a break.”

I truly, deeply respect that honesty. Truth be told, both arguments have crossed my mind. Pre COVID, I routinely worked from home 1 – 2 days a week. The solace was nice. When I was in the office, I had an actual office, a room with a door I could close, where I could focus. During the quarantine that hasn’t always been the case. I’ve been frustrated, I’ve been short, I’ve gone to just take a drive and get the hell away for a moment and been disgusted when one of the kids sees me and asks me to come for a ride, robbing me of those minutes of silence. You want to hear silence. I get it. I really, really do.

Here’s another version of that, admittedly extreme. What if one of our kids becomes one of the 302? What’s that silence going to sound like? What if you have one of those matted frames where you add the kid’s school picture every year? What if you don’t get to finish the pictures?

“What does your gut tell you to do?”

Shawn and I have talked ad infinitum about all of these and other points. Two days ago, at mid-discussion I said, “Stop, right now, gut answer, what is it,” and we both said, “virtual.”

A lot of the arguments I hear people making for the 2 days sound like we’re trying to talk ourselves into ignoring our instincts, they are almost exclusively, “We’re doing 2 days, but…”. There’s a fantastic book by Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear, which I’ll minimize for you thusly: your gut instinct is a hardwired part of your brain and you should listen to it. In the introduction he talks about elevators, and how, of all living things, humans are the only ones that would voluntarily get into a soundproof steel box with a potential predator just so they could skip a flight of stairs.

I keep thinking that the 2 days option is the soundproof steel box. I welcome, damn, beg, anyone to convince me otherwise.

At the time I started writing at 12:09 PM, 133,420 Americans had died from COVID. Upon completing this draft at 7:04 PM, that number rose to 133,940.

520 Americans died of COVID while I was working on this. In seven hours.

The length of a school day.

Impossible

This is a post from a doctor at Duke whose name has been redacted.

Below is a Facebook post from a doctor at Duke. She works in the Covid unit and wrote this as a way to express her feelings about schools opening, based on the experience she has had first hand with Covid, as well as the perspective of a parent with two young children. She makes several points that people often don’t mention, but none more striking to me than the point on morbidity vs mortality. Her name has been erased to protect her privacy.

Her post

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7/2: SCHOOL. There has been much discussion and debate about what school will look like next year. Today, Wake county announced that they will have kids in a rotation of 1 week in person/ 2 weeks remote. I expect Chapel hill will shortly follow suit,

Or have some similar hybrid plan. I keep getting asked this question repeatedly from friends — “well, you are a COVID Doctor. What do YOU think about sending your kids back to school”. My answer is my own, deeply personal, and not reflective of my employer. And I recognize and appreciate that many of my colleagues in the same position as me have different views. BUT. Since so many keep asking me, here is my answer, as both a parent and a frontline covid doctor. Do with it as you choose:

My family is electing to remote school next year. The reasons for this are multi-factorial:

-this disease scares the shit out of me. After 4 months caring for covid patients, we certainly know a lot more. But a lot of it isn’t reassuring. Covid is now known to cause lung, heart, kidney, brain, and clotting system complications. And that’s just what we know about the immediate effects. We have no idea — NONE — what the longer term effects might be. I am not willling to risk the health and vitality of my kids to find out what those long term side effects might be

-morbidity vs mortality. I’ve talked about this in prior posts. Yes, very few children actually die of covid. BUT many young people still get very very sick. Intubated. Put on ecmo. Pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome. Kawasaki-like illness with coronary artery aneurysms. These are serious issues with long term effects. Just because covid doesnt kill you; it doesn’t mean you will ever be quite the same either.

-the teachers and staff. My god, how can we ask this of them? After cautiously sheltering in place for months, we are now asking them to basically jump into the lions den and interact with hundreds of children with thousands of household contacts. The more exposure you have, the more risk you have. Trust me, we WILL see teachers and bus drivers and cafeteria workers and other staff — and their family members— who get sick and die.

-I want to continue having my parents involved in my kids life. If we strictly isolate, I feel safe doing so. But If the kids go back to school and interact with dozens of kids from dozens of homes, the risk to my parents increases exponentially.

-I do strongly believe that since we CAN keep our kids home without significant detrimental effects, we SHOULD. There are so, so many people in our community whose lives and careers and finances will be devastated by having to do remote learning. We will not be. We can do so for a year without undue harm to my kids or our careers or our finances. I choose to keep my kids home so that families who absolutely cannot do so have just a little bit more safety at school.

I acknowledge that we are EXTREMELY privileged for me to only work part-time clinically and am able to do my non-clinical work remotely and help home school. And my parents live here and are willing and fully engaged to help us home school during the weeks I absolutely have to be in the hospital.

This seems like a goddamn nightmare for any family with a single parent, two working parents who cannot work from home, families with out extended family support, and families with ESL, kids with IEPs, exceptional children, etc etc.

I have zero answers as to how to make it better. Zero. I don’t want kids falling behind disproportionally because their parents cannot afford to home school or hire tutors. I also don’t want to see kids sick from covid and dead teachers.

Any plan than is less than 100% not in-person seems doomed to only worsen and exacerbate the achievement gap between the haves/have nots.

But — Any plan that involves more in person time also puts kids and teachers more at risk. And these teachers quite frankly do not get paid enough to risk their and their families lives.

I have no answer. It is impossible.

June 2020 Books

Well, another painfully long and yet short month is in the bag. And I read 8 books. Most were fiction, and two were nonfiction. And I am not typing this on the blog, because blogger has lost my trust.

1. June first, I finished my second Delia Ephron book, Frannie in Pieces. This book is neither a sequel nor a forerunner to The girl with the mermaid hair that I read last month, but the same characters appear. This one technically happens before the other, so I should have read them the other way around, but it was fine as it was. After her father’s sudden and untimely death, Frannie finds a puzzle (handmade, of wood, by her father) and as she learns about the puzzle, she learns about her parents (who were divorced, but once young and in love) and herself.

2. Fantastic fugitives: criminals, cutthroats and rebels who changed history by Brianna DuMont was my first nonfiction of the month. I think I read it because of George Floyd, and people’s cries of “he is not a hero; he’s a criminal!” Well, you do not have to be perfect to change the world for the better, and that is the rallying cry of this book.

3. Monsoon Summer by Mitali Perkins. Jasmine is in a mixed-race family, and she takes after her Caucasian father. She doesn’t really want to spend the summer in India, but her mother is determined. Jasmine learns a lot about herself, and about things that really matter. Like people over things.

4. The midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harmon was a delightful book. I mean, it was a hard book, full of birth and death and racism and kindness and generosity and evil and hope and forgiveness. All of the things that make up this messy thing called life, in a well-told story.

5. Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging by Louise Rennison was quite a disappointment to me. Do you have any idea how many “must read” lists for teen books this book is on? A lot. And it was kind of cute, and kind of funny, but that is about all. Read it or don’t—it matters about the same amount either way.

6. All Fall Down: An Embassy Row Novel by Ally Carter. Very suspenseful, compellingly written book. I liked it enough to finish it pretty quickly. What is it like to grow up in an embassy, with your friends coming from all the other embassies. You are friends, yes, but choices matter if you are from Israel, or Russia, or the US—and each embassy is a piece of its own country.

7. Wicked Lewiston: A sinful century by Steven D. Branting. I read this because my second cousin once removed, TConrad, said that the story of Uncle Louis Conrad’s murder was in this book. And it is. But the whole book was an interesting look at a whole lot of murders and other shenanigans that the citizens of this Idaho community have gotten up to.

8. See How They Run: An Embassy Row Novel by Ally Carter. I had to read the second book, which was also very compelling. It ends with a helicopter emergency get away from the rooftop of the American embassy so that nobody had to show a passport. But I don’t know where they are going or how they are going to fix the mess that has been made. I don’t have book three, but clearly, I will need to get it soon!