7/17/20: As a retired teacher, Mr. Blogger hopes schools can open safely in a
few weeks. The children would benefit. Parents would breathe a sigh of relief.
Many could go back to work. That doesn’t mean it won’t be dangerous for older
teachers, janitors, cafeteria workers and others. You also have the grave risk
of children passing around infection and carrying it home to families and
causing collateral damage.
____________________
This
was the president trying to warp the narrative to suit his twisted intent.
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There’s
no easy answer. Yet some of the fools who work for Trump claim there is. See,
for example: comments by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Or watch the clueless
Larry Kudlow, below.
What I
don’t understand – and no rational human being should accept – was a decision by
Team Trump to block experts from the Centers for Disease Control from testifying before Congress about plans to reopen schools safely. As
always, this was the president trying to warp the narrative to suit his intent.
He wants schools open because he wants parents back to work. He wants parents
back to work because he doesn’t want to be running for reelection with an
unemployment rate in double digits. Trump wants to win in November.
He doesn’t care about kids, or school staff, or parents, or how many people die or get sick if reopening goes badly.
Trump
is always in it for himself.
More and more Americans have come to realize this. In a new poll 64% of us say we don’t believe what he says when he talks about the virus. Still, 1 in 3 do believe when he talks about scientists “rigging” numbers of deaths and hospitalizations. The president’s problem, and therefor ours, is that he can’t BS his way out of the corner he painted himself into in the early days of the COVID crisis. He can’t call for the kind of controls we need because he mocked those controls. If he changed now, his stark failure would be clear even to his followers.
That means we’re going to have to ride it out. It won’t be easy. The State of Texas has decided to continue with online school classes until November. Hard hit by a wave of infection, the state has seen 543 people die from the coronavirus in five days. Another 10,632 Texans are hospitalized with COVID-19.
As long as the virus continues to spread, the country will
continue to suffer economic dislocation. Colleges, employees of colleges, and
college towns are suffering cascading financial losses. The
University of Akron voted last week to lay off one fifth of its unionized work
force. The school reorganized 11 academic departments and merged them into
five. The University of Michigan cut 40% of the 300 lecturers who carry most of
the campus teaching load. Ohio University has had three rounds of layoffs. Experts
warn we could see a 15% drop in college enrollments in the fall. That would represent
a $23 billion loss of revenue.
Towns near national parks face similar damage. Reservations for visitors to Yosemite
have been capped. This has led to a major drop in business at nearby towns and
inside the park. Twelve thousand workers in Coconino County, home to Grand
Canyon National Park, have jobs reliant on tourist flow. The park has 3,500
employees in the summer and 2,500 year-round. Any decline in travel spells
trouble. And any visitor from a state where infections are spreading could
bring the virus inside the park, resulting in catastrophic economic loss.
*
ON A LIGHTER NOTE, Kanye West says he’s running for president. (I, for one, hope he will make Taylor Swift his running mate.)
Mr. West may be a bit of a loose musical cannon; but he’d still be a better president than the one we have.
West says, if elected, he will offer all Americans “free
weed” and if anyone has a baby, they will get $1 million.
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*
ON JULY
17, a grim record for the spread of the coronavirus is set with
74,710 new cases.
