My parents and sister live in Canada. I and my other sister live just across the border in the United States. People in Canada are freaking out about the governments "requirement" that people subject themselves to a two week self quarantine if they travel out of the country.
Seem reasonable to you? Well, let's look at the numbers. From worst to least.
Place Cases Population Cases/100,000
Canada 566 37.6 million 15.1
USA 4226 327.2 million 11.9
BC 186 5.1 million 3.7
Whatcom Co 6 221,000 2.7
Canadians on the left of the political spectrum (relative to Canadians that is) are in hysterics because their prime minister won't close the border with the US. The numbers above suggest that the hysteria may be a bit misplaced in the wrong direction.
Canadians in BC are hysterical that people popping down to Whatcom County to get mail, groceries, and gas aren't self quarantining, with rumors flying that you can't cross the international border without being hauled inside to be grilled about your health history and to sign all sorts of paperwork. Never mind that I was standing in front of them having breezed through the border fifteen minutes earlier. The number above, again suggest that the hysteria may be misplaced.
Americans on the political left are in hysterics about Trump's response. Never mind that they accused him of being racist when he suspended travel with China and then accused him of not taking necessary and sufficient action a month or so later. Never mind that they called the virus the Wuhan or Chinese flu for a month and then accused him of being racist when he did the same. Never mind that they flat out lied about the CDC pandemic budget; lied about the White House pandemic response office being closed; lied about Dr Anthony Fauci being "muzzled".
Meanwhile here in the Washington state, the governor has shut down the economy. My father is staying in a hotel while my mother has surgery. He doesn't drive. He has a Burger King in the parking lot near the hotel and can walk over and buy Burger King. All the restaurants are closed and those doing take out mostly don't do delivery. Why? Are Americans not smart enough to only fill tables that are distanced from others? Could restaurants accept fewer customers by spreading out their clientele in order to prevent disease? I tend to think so.
Yesterday I went for a walk around town. I stopped in a business that was open. The proprietor and I stayed a respectful distance from each other. I bought a DVD set of the Die Hard movies. I paid with a card which she never touched. Later I stopped by the grocery store in the next town and, after a nice chat with the wine steward, bought four bottles of Luke wine, a family owned winery in Eastern Washington. I swung by a couple gun stores, just to check out their stock; a record store to see if they had anything on my list (they didn't this time); and filled the car with gas. At the end of each outing I washed my hands. I did my bit to minimize the spread of illness and keep the economy going. Every adult I was in contact with acted responsibly and I don't believe that any of us could have been exposed to the virus. So why are we shutting down the economy?
I am sitting at home not teaching. I actually understand the concerns about schools. There are a lot of children in close contact with each other. Children really are little germ factories. However, I have been told by several people, when the topic of teaching remotely came up, that it wouldn't be equitable for some students to have the opportunity to learn during the shutdown because others wouldn't have access to the lessons. WTW? We are going to refuse to educate a significant portion of our population because we can't educate all of them? By that logic we wouldn't educate any of our children because we can't educate those in Outer Mongolia. How about doing what we can for those for whom we can and worry about the rest later. Or perhaps we start working with those who have access, and meanwhile try to figure out how to get access to the rest?
Meanwhile, I will continue to live my live in a ruthlessly normal manner, with sensible precautions. Later today we have an online school staff meeting at which I assume they will tell us again how we can't do anything to violate the equitable education theory.
As you sit around your home, browsing the internet for lack of anything better to do, here's a little link to some apropos classic rock. Hysteria by Def Leppard. When you are done there is a link below to what I generally consider their best song, although less relevant to the current sitation.
Edit: When I look at this post in Editor, the two links below are for the Def Leppard videos Hysteria and Love Bites. When I go to my Blogger page, they are links for books that I advertised a couple posts ago. So, if you want the full experience, go to youtube and search for Def Leppard videos. Meanwhile I guess Google doesn't want you to have fun.
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