He reports 100% attendance in first period. Hey, maybe everyone already had omicron over the break and this will go better than expected! fingers crossed!

DH has his first day back in person after a week of virtual after break. I texted him, "I hope everyone enjoys all the normal today!" People in places where schools were closed last year are seeing the same stuff we saw last year here where they were open: you can't just wish away the pandemic. If community spread is out of control, schools will be affected no matter how much you pretend everything's fine. Last year my husband's school was open most all year with a virtual option, but during surges it was often just a couple of kids in his room watching him teach on a computer. Anyway, we'll see how it goes, I guess. Georgia just declared that asymptomatic positive teachers can just go right on teaching and that schools don't have to contact trace anymore...i.e. you might well be sending your kid to school with a teacher who has covid and the school never has to tell you. Also our school district just reported the biggest number of cases ever last week when no one was even in school yet. But at least they reinstated the mask mandate...until January 21. So probably everything will be great.

He just found out he's first chair bass clarinet in all-state band! He's having a very good news day! His clarinet teacher texted "and on a plastic Yamaha!" I'm not sure who all these people are buying $10,000 wooden bass clarinets for high school kids, but apparently it's pretty much expected if you want them to make all-state. (his used plastic Yamaha was expensive enough!)

LOL! My oldest did the same thing--he had an actual ranking system that deducted points for glitter. (and yet he's a math major, not design)

DS just heard that he passed the prescreen at Blair/Vanderbilt! He's just waiting on Bard now, but I think he'll feel good overall about prescreens no matter what since he'll be at least 2 for 3, and he was on the fence about applying to Bard anyway. They canceled in person auditions, of course, so I need to go cancel more travel reservations 😞 Recorded audition + zoom interview with sight reading.

I don't know a ton about it, but my DH is on a biologic (taltz) for psoriasis, and it's been absolutely life changing for him. No side effects that he's noticed; I've been worried with covid, but he had his antibodies tested after his first 2 shots and he had them, and then he had a booster early on because he's on an immunosuppressant (and he hasn't gotten covid, despite teaching high school in person since fall 2020). He did stop taking his taltz for a couple of months right around his covid shots as a precaution. Our insurance didn't want to pay for it at first (and it would be completely unaffordable without insurance), but the drug company gave it to him essentially for free for the first year or whatever and then the insurance approved it (I guess because he had evidence that it had worked? they didn't refuse to pay for any biologic, but they wanted him to try a cheaper one first. But taltz is specifically for psoriasis and was what his dermatologist recommended).

Kids aren't wearing masks on buses in a lot of districts near me. When the federal mandate was pointed out to them last year they just sort of shrugged and said it didn't apply to school buses. Mandates without enforcement aren't really mandates.

We might want to wait to see how mortality shakes out in Australia and New Zealand before declaring that there was no long term benefit to waiting until the population was mostly vaccinated before opening everything up. Right now the US is sitting on 2562/million deaths vs 89 in Australia, so we have a pretty substantial head start.

I think they do make an effort to give lots of performance opportunities to the musical studies majors, or that's how they make it sound at least, but, yes, the private lessons thing is why he might not apply; I think it might be too sad to be so close but not have the chance to do it.

He hasn't looked it into it, but we were assuming it's like @Eos says...just logistically I don't see how the studio profs would have time to take on any non-con students on a regular basis (if you figure a wind instrument professor probably already has 15-20 students at any given time, all of whom need private lessons).

Just got the e-mail that Oberlin auditions will be virtual. I'm not surprised, but I'm very bummed on DS's behalf.

DS put Bard back on his list pretty last minute and finished that up right before Christmas (he actually still needs to send them an academic paper to complete his application). And he's still deciding about applying to Oberlin College in addition to the conservatory, in case he doesn't get into the con and decides he'd rather do their Musical Studies BA instead of going the BM route elsewhere (he could also audition again next year for the con that way, but I don't know if many people actually make it in that way). The deadline's not until the 15th, and all he'd need to do to finish is the "Why Oberlin?" essay. I think he'd be likely to get into the college, and I think it'd be a good fit...and that it's probably a good idea to have a backup plan in case a performance major (particularly at somewhere that's not one of his top choices) sounds less appealing by May.

She was supposed to have a big televised b-day thing (which I imagine was already endangered by Omicron), and I was really excited about it. My almost 9 year old has the same birthday. I'm so bummed she didn't get to celebrate her 100th.

Macalester hasn't announced any changes other than boosters required by Feb 1, but they're still a few weeks away from starting back up, so I think they're waiting a bit to see how things progress. My kid is supposed to be in Budapest this semester, leaving January 14, so we'll see what happens with that. His friend who was supposed to leave tomorrow for a different study abroad program just tested positive 😞 These poor kids.

Interesting update on my BIL: symptoms started dec 26, tested negative that day then positive the next. Had a few days of sore throat and a cough, but my SIL reports that now he's just coughing very occasionally and is more tired than usual. The interesting part is that none of the rest of his family of 4 or his parents that he was visiting ever had any symptoms (well, yet. knock wood). Only he and his high risk father tested, since they had trouble finding enough tests. I've seen everything from "asymptomatic cases are very rare with omicron" to estimates that 90% of cases are/will be asymptomatic (from the IHME projections), so I don't know. It just seems so unlikely that none of them caught it staying in a hotel room together that it seems like it would HAVE to be that they had asymptomatic cases (my SIL and BIL were both boosted; kids were vaxxed in spring but not boosted yet). But since they didn't test, they'll likely never know.

yes, but, like I said, I bet that's incredibly rare. And even for people who don't go inside without a good mask anywhere except their own home, that would also need be true for all their household members for it to be a perfect experiment.

Well, my BIL, but he was also eating at restaurants and seeing vaccinated close friends/family. Is there anyone who not only wears good masks in public but also is NEVER inside with a mask off with anyone who doesn't? I mean, probably SOMEONE, but it would be incredibly rare.

Just seeing this--so sorry to hear about the accident--glad the surgery went well and hoping for continued improvement for both of them!

My son has had three dorm rooms now, all carpeted. I don't think it would be weird at all to call and ask...I wouldn't just eliminate anywhere with carpet, though, without asking if they can make accommodations for kids with allergies. Even somewhere with mostly carpeted rooms they may have some somewhere that aren't and can prioritize giving them to kids who need them for health reasons. I have a friend whose daughter has severe allergies and who goes to a school a lot of older dorm buildings that have had mold issues. They guaranteed that she would be in their brand new dorm so she wouldn't have any issues.

congrats! Knox was on my oldest's son's list, and we visited--it's a neat place!

My BIL (vaccinated...I'm not positive about boosted, but I would guess so) tested positive today after waking up with a "cold" and testing negative yesterday. He and his family flew across the country last week and hit a number of indoor restaurants and small gatherings of friends/family (including with us) since then. Still just regular cold symptoms, my SIL reports, and no one else has symptoms yet (I don't know who all has been tested so far, with tests being so hard to come by). We last saw them on the 22nd and last saw them inside on the 21st, so it's fairly likely we're in the clear, but I worry especially about his parents (in their 80s) who they were visiting for xmas.

DS finally submitted his two other prescreens yesterday. Now we wait. Vanderbilt and Bard (which he had taken off his list because they require a dual degree, but he ended up adding it back in). He should hear back from both by mid January. And we also wait to hear if he'll actually get to audition in person anywhere. Sigh. Oberlin sent out an e-mail saying they HOPE they'll still be doing in person auditions, and they'll make a decision after January 4.

I've taken the liberty of photographing this page from my Valuetale book about Louis Pasteur (the Value of Believing in Yourself) because it offers this helpful illustration about how vaccines work:

Really? I remember a lot of comparisons to the Spanish Flu when this started. I don't think anyone has ever objected to making comparisons about how the flu mutates vs. covid or how the vaccines might/do work. People objected to the seriousness of covid being dismissively compared to a common flu year. Given that in a bad year the flu might cause 50,000 deaths in the US vs. 400,000 or so for covid, I think those objections were very much warranted.

My middle two still share a room much of the time at 18 and 16; now that my oldest is at college the 18 year old sleeps in there when he's away, which has been less than it would have been because of covid. They're very close and have never complained about it.