The upswing, week 1

[petrea_mitchell]

Well, I hope it is. At any rate, it's officially 2021 now, as the calendar I ordered online finally arrived Tuseday night.

Oregon's governor gave a State of the State address this week where she noted that it's been exactly one year since she set up a taskforce to start planning for the arrival of the new coronavirus. IIRC, by then it was being widely reported that it might be transmitted asymptomatically and the incubation period could be as long as 14 days, which meant everyone had enough information to figure out that a pandemic was inevitable.

The latest state models say to never mind about a possible surge, infections are dropping. The positive test rate is down to 4.7% (5%-plus being the benchmark for declaring rampant uncontrolled community spread). In fact, rates are dropping all across the US now, probably because of how far we are from Christmas and New Year's now.

Also in local pandemic news, Oregon has chosen to start vaccinating teachers before it finishes vaccinating the most elderly. The current scientific consensus is that in-person schooling with appropriate measures does not result in big outbreaks, but teachers' unions everywhere are freaking out at the prospect of going back without vaccinations, so I can understand how that looked like the path of least resistance to getting schools up and running again.

In my personal bubble, it is still cold and mostly damp. With the clouds, it's still dark at 7am most mornings.

Comments

[athenais]

I haven't even looked to see where we are as a state. All I am sure of is we have gone back to a fairly substantial number of hospital beds available and that is good post-surge news. I hope we can get out of Tier 4 very soon. I just may celebrate one year of pandemic life by being able to get my hair cut at last.

[darkoshi]

Here, our percent positive is still 25% and I'm not seeing any consistent drop in new cases.

But I'm feeling good that Trump is out of office.
And I was pleased to note last week that it wasn't yet completely dark at 6pm or so.

[joseph_teller]

There have been surges in some areas when students went back to school, most of the studies and statistics out there have been deliberately diluted (such as in FL) by state sources to hide such.

Vaccinating the teachers, many of whom may have risk factors (there are a lot of school systems with older population teachers who have their own health problems) is the best practice to get the schools back online. The Unions are looking at a wider range of data than the states are (there have been studies on transmission levels etc. in other countries). Many School systems are unable to use proper social distancing, improved ventilation, and even basic sanitary practices. The poorer the school system and/or the more rural the school district the more likely this is true.

[delosharriman]

At one time — by which I mean, the article I read about it was from circa 1950 — school buildings in many parts of the USA were required by statute to have what I would call aggressive fresh-air ventilation. Of course, that didn't exactly make them easy to heat in the winters!

[joseph_teller]

Yes, there was an architectural design change brought on by the Spanish Flu and which continued on until the 1960s where radiators and the like were placed directly under the windows in many public buildings and homes.

This was phased out in public building design eventually (as the brutalists etc. came into the design form). I've been in many older homes, apartments and in buildings on Harvard Campus that were designed (or in some cases redesigned) after the Spanish Flu outbreak where the old style radiators under the windows design is prevalent.