Just found out that our county changed their policy last year so that homeschoolers can't take AP exams anymore. I am so, so weary from scrambling every year (for 6 years now! with no end in sight!) to find somewhere that will let us test. I'm currently composing an impassioned e-mail to the school board reps and the superintendent that talks about how they're hurting my kids for no reason and how they're also making my husband (who teaches in the county) so unhappy that maybe HE'S going to be the next math teacher who's so mad he takes a teaching job in Abu Dhabi (true story. Except there's actually no way I'd move to Abu Dhabi. Nowhere hotter than Georgia is a hard and fast rule for me). I guess I'm e-mailing the college board, too. I don't expect any of it do any good, but it's really just so ridiculous and infuriating that they haven't fixed this problem yet.

Yeah, I was pretty shocked. I should clarify that they were technically wearing masks...but they were ill fitting surgical masks that stayed under their noses all the time (i.e. it wasn't that they kept slipping down, and they'd pull them back up). I honestly can't remember now if everyone wore masks there pre-pandemic. It wasn't on my radar, even though it probably should have been.

Right?! pandemic or not, you're inches from someone's filthy open mouth all day--why would you not WANT to wear a mask?! no shield.

I'm having to look for a new dentist because two of the hygienists weren't wearing masks while working with patients on our last visit. And when I visit my grandmother's assisted living place, more of the people working there than not are either not wearing masks or wearing them incorrectly (on one visit, the woman running bingo pulled down her mask every time she called out a number). The last time I talked to my dad, he told me that the whole place was on (another) two week lockdown (residents couldn't leave their rooms) because a staff member had tested positive.

I just looked up the stats on flu deaths in the US in recent years; the highest number (by far) was in 2017-18 with 61,000. That comes out to 167 deaths a day over 365 days. Right now the 7 day average of covid deaths in the US is 704 (and climbing). The 7 day average never dipped below 175 even at its very lowest point in early summer. So if things had stayed like that long term, we could have said it was about the same as a very bad flu season (putting aside questions about whether covid has more frequent/severe long term complications than flu).

Well, I'm not really locking down, and we've never been ABLE to lock down anyway because of my husband's job...but the extent to which we're still taking as many precautions as we can is, yes, about my unvaccinated kid and also about Delta and the stuff that goes with it (overwhelmed hospitals, test shortages, etc.) I do think this goes on for years from here, and I envision the future, at least in the short term, as looking like vaccines and boosters plus masks inside during surges. And that looks fairly okay to me once my youngest is vaccinated.

They're not doing quarantines here. My husband has already gotten a close contact notification; he wasn't supposed to stay home and wasn't required to test unless he had symptoms. They keep saying that less than 1% of contacts who quarantined last year ended up testing positive, which 1. I'm skeptical of (how many parents who are already on a ten day quarantine were reporting positive tests to the school or even testing at all for mild symptoms? I imagine plenty of people assumed their sick kid had covid and didn't worry about testing since they were already required to be home anyway) and 2. I'm getting really impatient with school board types who seem totally unable to grasp the extent to which this year is not like last year. I mean, maybe in a month or two or three we'll be past this delta surge and we'll be there again, but we're not right now! Schools have been open 1-2 weeks here, and there are SO MANY MORE cases than there were last fall at this point.

I was nervous when my husband didn't have any real reaction to his first two...except that no one in our family of 6 did, and he's the only one on medication that could interfere with immunity. His blood work showed antibodies from the vaccine a few weeks after his second shot, so we're fairly confident it worked fine despite his meds. That said, I've been really frustrated with how his doctor's reacted to his questions about how his meds might affect the vaccine; basically he completely brushed him off and acted like it wasn't worth worrying about. DH stopped taking his biologic for a couple of months while he was getting vaccinated, but he decided on his own; his doctor didn't suggest it (prescribing doctor is a dermatologist, not an immunologist). I can only imagine how very frustrating this is for people at higher risk from covid (and people who don't have the option of stopping their medications for any length of time).

DH 30 hours out now from Moderna #3 and no reaction other than a sore arm overnight. Same as doses one and two.

DH got his third shot today; he went to CVS since they're the ones who fill his prescription, in case there was any question about eligbility. But he had to say he was eligible when he made the appointment, and they didn't ask anything else about it. All three have been Moderna--he had pretty much no reaction other than a sore arm for 1 and 2; we'll see tomorrow about this one (so far just a sore arm again).

And, yeah, kids seem to get how to wear a mask correctly better than the average grown-up, based on my observations 😂

But the studies I've seen DO show lower numbers in schools with mask mandates, despite the difficulties with enforcement/compliance. I've also watched numbers carefully in counties near me with and without mask mandates, and the difference is stark. I'm interested/terrified to see if it holds up this year with Delta, but last year everywhere I could find evidence, mask mandates made a HUGE difference--bigger than I expected at the beginning of the year.

see my edit: I misread the part I quoted at first.

From the Danish study--what does this mean? CIs...confidence intervals? So that sounds like they're saying masks for the wearer might, in fact, be moderately effective even when few other people are wearing masks? ETA--I missed that the second number says increase. that makes more sense...but still, the conclusion seems to be that they didn't really learn anything about whether masks reduce infection for the wearer. Maybe or maybe not?

Scanning through those studies, it seems like all or the vast majority of the real world studies are also looking at how much a cloth or surgical mask protects the wearer; not looking at universal masking or at how masking protects other people. I think most people agree that, with lower quality masks, everyone needs to be wearing them for them to be effective, and they do less to protect the wearer than other people. (That's certainly why my husband wears a mask with a good filter at school).

yeah, it specifically studied settings where mask use was not common, so it really says nothing about universal masking. If anything, it's a blow to the argument I hear people against school mask mandates use: YOUR kid can wear a mask if they want to!

Here's another one that shows a higher rate in schools without mask mandates: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7012e2.htm (caveat with both this and the other one I posted that showed the same thing; the numbers are self reported and only a small percentage of schools chose to report data. I would guess that means that mask requirements make a much bigger difference even than the significant difference these studies show...because I would think that if you choose NOT to take preventative measures like mask mandates, and your numbers are terrible, you're probably not going to want to shout it from the rooftops. But, at any rate, significantly higher incidence rates in both studies in schools without mask mandates).

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e1.htm

yeah, that's what I was looking at. He takes Taltz, which is definitely an immunosuppressant biologic, so I guess he's good. We'll try to find somewhere this weekend.

Did you have to show any kind of evidence that you were eligible? I've been reading over the wording, and it sounds like anyone on an immunosuppressant is eligible? My husband takes a biologic for psoriasis, so we're thinking he should maybe go ahead and get a booster. He did get his antibodies tested post second shot and had them, but that was several months ago and he's teaching high school. I kind of want him to get all the immunity he can get.

Anti-maskers stood outside the school board meeting in my county last night (after the space filled and they wouldn't let more people in) banging on the windows and chanting over the people who were trying to speak inside. The county next door with no mask mandate just reported 551 cases the second week of school, up from 185 the week before, mostly in elementary schools (one elementary school reported 46 cases after already sending the whole 5th grade home earlier in the week to go virtual). so, yeah--good times.

The R value with Delta is much higher than with previous strains, so what worked last year is unlikely to work this year (particularly if what worked last year was doing nothing). Where someone infected with the original strain infected 3 people on average, Delta infects 7. But we'll see, I guess.

He's already 9 days from exposure (and vaccinated and no symptoms), so I think he's good in this case at least.

DH got a high risk contact call today; another teacher in his department tested positive. Being a high risk contact this year means....nothing, apparently. He's not required to test or stay home unless he has symptoms, but he went out and took a home test anyway (negative). He managed to go all last year with no close contacts, but that was because they were doing meetings online and there was a virtual option so the classrooms weren't as full. This guy hasn't been at school all week (so we were fairly sure DH was in the clear at this point), but the whole math department had an in person meeting during planning last week.

My problem is that people are dying needlessly. No--thank god they are asking for ventilators--and thank god it's NOT up to Desantis to make the request. But I think it's clear that the "routine request" is because they're facing a crisis with the number of cases and hospitalizations. It's not "routine" for states without Florida's staggeringly high numbers to request hundreds of ventilators.