Update #1 From The Pandemic's Trailing Edge
I'm in Northwest PA, a rural/small town county with a little under 50,000 people. As of a month ago, we had about 70-ish confirmed cases. Schools re-opened, almost entirely face-to-face five days a week.
Well, things have changed. Our confirmed case number has doubled in about five weeks. The norm was days with zero or one or two new cases; now we are having some days with double digits.
In two of the local four high schools, this week we learned that there were two cases in each of two high schools. In each case, one student and one adult. One school has closed for two days for a round of deep cleaning; the other has reportedly sent 40-some students and staff into quarantine.
If you're wondering why the responses are inconsistent, well, that's what you get when a pandemic hits at a time like now. There are no rules, and words don't mean anything, so local districts have to just figure it out themselves. At another local elementary school, a teacher has been sent home for fourteen days because her son was sent home from his school (a different one than the one where she teaches) with a fever. That determination was made by the school nurse.
That situation highlights another feature of the area. There are four different school districts, but CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Update #1 From The Pandemic's Trailing Edge