Monday, September 14th, 2020
Just another day in the life in the age of COVID-19. A normal day of work, swimming and house projects.
On house projects: the mason came today and has begun paving my random lawn patch. The guy arrived at 7:30 and measured up the patch, found there was not enough stone. He dug up the lawn, left, for several hours, came back and put down all of four stones before calling it quits for the day. I now have a half dug up lawn and a ton of stones lying around my garden. I do hope it will be done tomorrow.
Given the lawn has been dug up, I need to figure out what to do with the gaps between the stones. Maybe put pebbles? Though once done, I think it will be very nice. The first event utilizing my new space will be on Saturday, when the Aikidoka are coming for a South African dinner. I am very excited about this event, yet nervous. I have no idea how the pickled fish, the funeral rice and the Pojkiekos will turn out as it has been ages since I made either.
Other than that, today was a perfectly normal day in the age of Corona. Homebased work, a swim, a chat with a potential date, a date I feel good about for a change. Let’s see where it goes.
Today the world reports 29.1 million infected, while the US tally is at 6.74 million. Colleges are proving to be infection hotspots and many which did reopen had to either switch to full remote learning or quarantined students and teachers. Then there are some who seem to have managed to reopen without becoming hotspots.
The pandemic causes parents to rethink sending their children to school. There is an increasing shift towards home schooling and there are concerns that these parents may not come back into the school system. I am less sure about that as in addition to academics there is the social aspect of school. It seems cruel to me to isolate children (or adults for that matter) from their peers. As adults we have more control, and I do not think it is helpful to isolate our kids. There is also a lot of learning in social interactions.
On remote learning, seems like West Virginia does not have sufficient internet coverage for students to join school online. And this in the supposedly most developed country in the world.
China feels confident enough in its pandemic management to limit vaccination to front line workers. This includes the military.
Meanwhile Pfizer’s CEO goes public claiming they would know if their vaccine would work by the end of October. Given that they have barely started phase 3 trials this claim seems outrageous if not a statement of political support.
Scientists are up in arms at the statement wanting to see the scientific results. And as he USA is approaching a 200k death toll, the chief Covidiot in Chief is not only violating state rules, but also ignoring science. Holding an indoor rally with well over the 50 people allowed to gather in Nevada. But then we all know that laws and regulations do not apply to him.
At the same time the RNC is blaming Joe Biden for his poor pandemic response. This of course is simply hilarious if not outrageous given that Joe Biden is a regular civilian like you and me. He does not get security briefings and so on. What exactly was he (or any one us) supposed to do to manage the pandemic? Twitter is of course having a field day with this one, suggesting the only chance the RNC sees for winning the election is making their supporters believe Joe Biden has been president the past four years and Trump alone can fix the current mess.
They must really Believe people to be incredibly stupid.