Monday, August 31st, 2020
The first day of the last year of school today. EM’s living room is now also her classroom. With school resuming we need to settle into a new daily routine. School now starts at 9:00, which seems like a civilized time, but lunch break is at 11:15-12:30; way too early to cook and eat and not enough time to walk afterwards. Chances are our lunch will move to 15:30 and I will need to see about scheduling my daily swim before then, so we can have a quick walk after lunch, which after all is our one meal in addition to breakfast. We will probably need a week or so to adjust to our new revised schedule.
Apart from technical glitches with systems crashing as thousands of students and teachers logged onto Zoom, the first day of school seems to have gone well and was mostly uneventful. We are easing into things as this is a short week, with Friday a half day and Monday of for Labor Day. I am very tempted to go somewhere, if only there were somewhere to go! Everything is completely booked up.
The highlight of the day was a birthday party. Both parents of our social pod had their birthday today and we went over to celebrate with them and their kids. It was a lovely evening, good food, great wine, lovely company. The fact that we had reds tells me summer is coming to an end. The air has become quite fresh with temperatures coming down to the low 20ies at night. As always, I am sad to see summer go and I dread the darkness that wil arrive soon. Already the days are getting noticably shorter.
The battle with the Virus continues in the USA on very different fronts. Law suites are now abundant; with one faction filing suites to have schools reopen and others filing suites against schools reopening. This is a very American way to address the problem. I have my doubts about this both as I feel school reopening can only be done if people can be tested, traced and social distance can be maintained. The school systems are just to big to do any of this. As a result I have resigned myself to virtual schooling as the best option.
Generally, I have a hard time understanding the litigation culture in this country, I find it hard to fathom that millions of people are at risk of losing their homes and their utilities. Some 20 million people have lost their jobs because of COVID, which is terrible enough. Now they stand to be homeless or without utilities; mainly because there are no or insufficient social safety nets.
At the same time the administration is ready to declare victory over Corona by largely ignoring it. Cases are on the rise again; this times in denier States which have not yet enforced tighter rules. I suspect the Midwest will now follow the examples of Texas and Florida - steep increase in cases, closures, masks, and so on.
As reported infections surge again (6.02million in the USA and 25.3 million worldwide today) political pressure on the FDA is mounting to license any vaccine, tests or no tests. Make no mistake, I am as anxious as the next person for a vaccine, but not until it has gone through due process. And as if on cue the FDA now issues a statement they would be willing to approve a vaccine before clinical trials on humans have been completed; supposedly the decision is motivated by science and not politics. How so with incomplete research one may wonder.