this is a tough one.
on the one hand:
3,500,000 dead
public school kids lost a year
borders closed
funerals and weddings postponed
near total breakdown in social discourse
small businesses dying
rents unpaid
unemployment
your tour was cancelled
insomnia

on the other:
trump lost.

i'll wait and see.

school starts on september 1. i don't know what you're dealing with, but these were the top questions at seattle's virtual town hall. note, not a single question about the mask mandate and not a single opinion against remote learning options. (maybe but they didn't get the likes.) all visitors and teachers are required to be vaccinated, unless exempted. there will be no in-person meetings like with parents.
what are your community's concerns?

46 likes
What guidance/protocol will there be for kids returning to school after traveling? ie: Christmas Holiday Break. Will unvaccinated kids need to quarantine? If yes, will there be a short term remote option, so they can keep up with classes?

48
Why are we not starting the year with a hybrid model, cohorting, and limited class sizes, since that's almost certainly where we will wind up partway through the year?

49
Can we please mandate that all students/staff be tested within three days of the start of school?

51
How can you physically distance with already over crowded classrooms?

53
Why are we not having a remote option for the beginning of the school year for under 12 years old?

53
More than 80 school districts or charter networks have closed or delayed in-person classes for at least one entire school in more than a dozen states. SPS will not be different, even with mitigations in place. Can we please offer Virtual School for all schools, similar to how school was last year. 11 and under will not be vaccinated until Jan-Feb of 2022. Our children and educators will get Covid and spread it throughout their households and communities. Please offer virtual school for all schools in the SPS system.

56
Please address the protocols and positive case thresholds for when SPS will shut down classrooms or entire schools and require quarantine of staff.

59
Given that the delta variant is significantly more infectuous than the previous dominant variant, why are there fewer safety protocols in place, with more students in school buildings, than last year?

62
We are not comfortable sending our kids to in-person until they are vaccinated. If there is no virtual school, what are our options??

62
We keep hearing that "if covid transmission gets worse" that mitigations will be added, up to and including school closures and remote learning options. How do the current covid metrics (which are the worst they have been the entire pandemic) not qualify for additional safety measures?

83
I'd like my kid to be able to attend virtual learning until he's vaccinated, do remote learning at his school until then, and then join his school after he's vaxxed. Why isn't this an option?

87
Are there any plans to do randomized testing of asymptomatic, non-exposed students or staff? I would really like to see this become practice. Los Angeles tested all students prior to return and detected 3,000+ cases.

93
Can all schools have students eat outside? It seems to vary by school...

121
Can we please get a virtual option at all schools for the beginning of school until students are vaccinated? We do not want to leave our home school (plus that option is full and was intended for a small group of kids). COVID cases are on the rise in WA state and our kids deserve to be protected until they are vaccinated.

In the rural midwest, it has sparked a considerable number of white-guy-wearing-cap-making-YouTube vid-in-drivers seat-of-pickup videos, and I hope to Crom that someday there's an embedded smartphone autodestruct algorithm that will sense when somebody is making one and just blow up in their hand.

Also, it has revealed Karens and Kyles to be the selfish, irresponsible assholes they are; most notably and recently at school board meetings. I could give two fucks about them, but I feel badly for their children, who are unwilling participants in this manufactured outrage, and are being taught horrible lessons about selfishness, responsibility, empathy and-frankly-reality.

I did drop some serious weight and set my own personal health and fitness (physical and mental) as priorities for being a better dad, husband, human, performer, worker, blah blah blah.

Still haven't figured out my DAW/interface/instrument setup.

Not at all looking forward to the prospect of Delta locking down the nursing home where my parents live. I don't know if mom would survive that.

Also not looking forward to the Vikings having a shit season with a shit quarterback who can't be bothered to vaxx. Fuck you straight to Hell, Cousins.

The fact that the Republican party still exists after the disaster they've wrought negates some of the positives.

So we're in full lockdown again thanks to Delta getting into the country. No additional deaths yet so keeping it in perspective, but it might just be the death blow to my friends' music venue. On a purely selfish level I was gearing up to do a nationwide tour with a somewhat-big band in October and now that looks like that's all gone to shit along with a bunch of other shows.

Oh well, ten more days and I can finally get my first vaccine shot (slowest vaccine rollout in the OECD). In the meantime it's back to just me and the kids confined to the house again. Week 2. So it goes. I'd rather be in lockdown than on a ventilator.

Anthony Flack wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 12:27 am So we're in full lockdown again thanks to Delta getting into the country. No additional deaths yet so keeping it in perspective, but it might just be the death blow to my friends' music venue. On a purely selfish level I was gearing up to do a nationwide tour with a somewhat-big band in October and now that looks like that's all gone to shit along with a bunch of other shows.

Oh well, ten more days and I can finally get my first vaccine shot (slowest vaccine rollout in the OECD). In the meantime it's back to just me and the kids confined to the house again. Week 2. So it goes. I'd rather be in lockdown than on a ventilator.

I'm on a message board with a bunch of Aussie surfers, they are pretty stoked if they can get away with surfing those perfect empty waves right now. Heard the fines are $300(AUS) if you get caught.

Americans on the message board are paying close attention to what's happening down there...seeing if the lockdown works. So far it has not, yes?

Nah the lockdowns are literally our only line of defence. The general populace is only now able to REGISTER for their first vaccine shot. The lockdowns are working but the people in them are tired at the back end of year two. I don’t forgive that tiredness as I’ve always found it rather selfish to feel that way about lockdowns but it is a matter of fact that people are starting to release their frustrations and generally not give a shit.

At this point I refuse to blame even the most drastic of lazy idiots who are “tired of masks and lockdowns”. If the numbers keep blowing up it’s entirely the national governments fault alongside those who refuse the vaccine when it is entirely readily available.

Lockdown is working in New Zealand I think. A little too soon to say. The international media had a lot of fun with us when we locked down the whole country after a single case was discovered but that's because they are morons and of course that has since blown up to ~300 and is expected to pass 1000 before it is contained. All traceable back to that one Delta case that got out. However the cases are now growing linearly, not exponentially. People have been largely compliant with lockdown rules. There's a mask mandate in place now too.

Level 4 lockdown means everything but essential services are closed, no contact with people outside your household, no travel outside your immediate neighbourhood and you have to stay home unless you have a good reason to go out. Seven weeks of that completely eradicated the virus last time, but that was the old strain.

Too bad certain countries never bothered trying to contain it when it first arrived, really. But when it comes to global leadership, a lot of things are too bad so sad for humanity.

Here in Texas the strategy to pretend this is no big deal is working like a charm. There are only several major school outbreaks at this point, and if you need an ICU bed, you can find one in one of the 4 border states no problem.

^^^this is sarcasm.

I drive rideshare for a living right now, (end-stage capitalism is fucking great!) and man, the number of people who look surprised when I tell them to wear a mask is well over 20%. I started charging a buck a mask b/c I got tired of having to stock up on my spares once a week.

It’s mostly the younger folks that show up thinking they can get away without one, but no one has given me shit about it. My favorite was the self professed lawyer who made a gigantic deal about Uber forcing her to take a picture of herself with a mask on thru the app to be able to get a ride. I wanted SO BADLY to tell her that it was because she’d been reported as maskless enough to trigger the confirmation picture, but you know. Brilliant lawyer, so surely she’ll figure it out without me.

“Hey Frankie, be sure to tell the Uber lords that I wore my mask the whole time! Not that I should have to…”

Yep. Let me get right on that, asshole.

I know of two friends - Chinese immigrants to the US that have left/are in the process of leaving the US for China. The pandemic make it crystal clear to them that the only thing that matters here is capital, that no one cares about dead children and how can a third of the population throw a fit over putting a piece of fabric over their face. "We thought Americans were tough individuals that never quit. You're throwing your hands up and saying its endemic and there's nothing more to do". A third friend from my first post-college job, a Polish immigrant, left this summer for his wife's native South Korea, seeing as how their son graduated from high school in the spring. They already had issues with American society and were planning to leave in the long term, but COVID accelerated that process.