As yinz all know this here undersigned don't track the daily stats like he used to so I may be wrong here but cases are +144% from two weeks ago, the undersigned thinks the change was in the +200's, hospitalizations are up exactly half that, 72%, I don't have reasonable faith that that is less than when I last checked; and deaths are a +7% from two weeks back. Make me a liar but I swear deaths have been up double digits recently.
The big news from Walk Back Walensky today was that when schools reopen shortly, and she added to build in an unnecessary degree of difficulty that schools should provide in-person schooling to all children, that
everyone, kids, teachers, admins, frigging janitors, visitors,
everyone should be masked when inside the school building. That's not going to happen, okay? The undersigned is here to tell ya, and W.B.W., that T'AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. Masking is not comfortable for me, I think we can generalize from me, although my son says he got used to it. Masking also distracts me, I have not heard my son or anyone else say that, but it does me. It's like when I have a hair droop down between my eyes and glasses. I pause to take off my glasses, rub the lenses with my shirt, put them back on and it's still there. I rub my face, brush my hair straight back, whatever. Those pauses are distractions and that's unmasked with a frigging HAIR. A mask is like having a beard on my face that covers my nose. My glasses get fogged, my face itches, the ear loops can feel tight, blah blah blah. When I'm concentrating on those inconveniences I can't concentrate as effectively as without a mask. Masking is distracting enough to me that when I went to court in person on Monday and thought there was a tiny chance that I might be in a jury trial I was going to tell the judge that I could not try a case before a jury wearing a goddamned mask. The only point to this personal digression is, to the extent school children have a similar feeling, do kids need any
more distractions in a classroom? I sincerely feel that learning and performance is going to suffer under Dr. Walensky's new guidance for schools. Maybe it won't but I'm telling all yinz compliance in schools T'AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. Which brings me, finally, to my last point, the Olympic diving degree of difficulty. By simultaneously recommending both in-person and schooling and full masking CDC is setting the bar unattainably high. Policy makers ought not set themselves up for failure. They have to think through what is realistic, and what they are going to recommend do if guidance is not followed. Suspend kids? Close schools? Pretend it didn't happen? Or walk back another recommendation.
