There you go! My oldest is doing a much more practical math major; I figure we have four kids, so we can afford one starving artist type 😉

Thanks!

There's nothing special about the ones he has now....i.e. I can order the same ones again; I just want to get good ones--whatever that means...

DH is a high school teacher teaching in person classes and has been double masking with a surgical mask plus a Happy Mask, which seems to be working well for him. He's almost out of surgical masks, and I need to order more, but I'm totally confused by all my Amazon options. Apparently I want ASTM certified masks, but half the ones listed as that on Amazon have a bunch of reviews saying they're not REALLY ASTM certified....and, anyway--can anyone just give me a link to whatever a good mask is that actual medical people who know what they're doing wear?

Being his mother, I of course am nervous about the music major thing (and at the moment we don't have any stand alone conservatories on his list, which I'm not sad about; options are good!)...but I will say that deciding that that's what he wants to do has made him much more motivated and focused than he ever was before--not just with the music itself but with academic stuff that will help him get into a good school/get more aid. So I figure developing those skills is going to help him out no matter what he ends up doing. At the moment he shows no signs of changing his mind (he's open to either a performance or education major--my husband's a high school teacher, though, and this year has been bad enough for teachers that I'm not sure I'm any more likely to encourage a kid to pursue that than music right now!)

aww--that is bittersweet!

yes, there's that, too. Mild pneumonia explains the symptoms but doesn't rule out covid. I wouldn't be doing anything differently if I knew it was covid (if, on the other hand, I'd known it was walking pneumonia at the time, I'd have gotten antibiotics and maybe been able to knock it out earlier--but I wasn't about to go to the doctor unless it was an emergency; eventually I did a tele-visit and got a script--but by then it was just about over and I didn't ever fill it).

I thought I had the college admission thing somewhat figured out after doing it with my oldest, but then my second (he's a junior right now) decided to major in clarinet performance to ensure that we'll be starting from scratch again. This was supposed to be our year for college visits and sample lessons, but of course that plan got complicated; he's doing lots of virtual tours and info sessions and has started doing sample lessons via zoom, though, while I fret over helping him put together a list of schools and trying to figure out the financial aid landscape for music school. He's still doing private lessons with his local teacher online, but his youth wind symphony did start back up in person (outside), so he actually got to do a concert last weekend for the first time since March. Anyone else with a kid headed to music school? How's it going?

I'm skeptical by nature so I have always tended to assume it was likely something else. I mean, EVERYONE seems to have had some mystery illness that was "probably" covid in the spring, right? But, on the other hand, we know now that way more people DID have covid than we thought at the time, at least in a lot of the country. And the positivity rate was super high in many places--which is of course partly because tests were so hard to come by--but it also means that a big percentage of people who suspected they had it actually did. So who knows? When someone said walking pneumonia and I read up on it that it definitely fit, so I still figure that's the most likely explanation, but it would be nice to know for sure--just to satisfy my curiosity.

DS is flying home the day before Thanksgiving and staying until late January. He'll get tested on the Monday before he leaves, so he should have the results before he leaves if all goes well. I think we'll have to call that good enough for precautions--we do have a travel trailer in the driveway, so it would be fairly easy to set him up out there for two weeks, but given that he gets home the day before Thanksgiving, I'd feel too guilty sticking him in the trailer on actual Thanksgiving. When I mentioned something about him quarantining, he pointed out that my husband goes to work in a high school every day and we let HIM in the house. He has a point. Anyway, his school has been doing a ton of testing and has had a handful of cases in staff and students who live off campus, but none at all in on-campus students yet. Knock wood.

I had it twice (once I went to get it; the next time my NP offered it to me when they were doing a blood draw for something else). I was sick with a mild-pneumonia like dry cough for 6 weeks in March/April....everyone in the house had it with assorted symptoms and duration (dry cough for everyone; some headaches, some sore throats, some low grade fevers). First test at the tail end of symptoms; second a couple of months later: both negative, and my husband had a negative test, too. Word is T-cell testing is coming sooner or later, and I'll get one of those if I can, too. It was a very weird illness like nothing we've ever had before...but walking pneumonia would also explain it (if with strange timing).

I'm in Georgia. My husband just got tested last week. He was able to make a next day appointment for a free drive-though PCR test through our county (their computers were down, so he ended up having to wait there for an hour, but I gather that's unusual). Results took 3 days to come back. He also took a rapid test at an urgent care place, that should be covered by insurance. For that he was able to get a next day appointment for a virtual visit and then they gave him an in-person visit the day after that. My oldest is in college in Minnesota. He's been tested a bunch on campus, but Minnesota has free testing places set up all over, and they're also offering free mail in saliva tests for everyone. He just ordered one of those to take before coming home next week....they mail it to you, then you mail it back in a pre-paid envelope overnight mail, and you're supposed to get the results 24-48 hours after it gets back to them. I was going to stay that's one red and one blue state example, but I guess Georgia's not really a red state at the moment--the governor is, though, which I would guess is the most important factor when it comes to covid testing/response. Anyway, pretty easy and fast in both states; edge to Minnesota for speed and convenience.

My husband's high school is is closed down for three days for the second time since going back full time last month. Teachers still have to go in, even though it's supposedly closed for deep cleaning and contract tracing, both of which seem like reasons that NO ONE should be in the buildings. He was out sick for a couple of days last week (mild covid-ish symptoms, but he's better now and tested negative), and there were no subs for him. He taught online from home (while using up his sick days) while teachers from other departments took turns babysitting his students. Meanwhile all the kids in my neighborhood are running around in a pack constantly, their parents are posting pictures of them at indoor restaurants and birthday parties, and then putting them on the bus again every day to go to school. I have outrage fatigue. I started to get into it on the school district's facebook page the other day, then stopped because it's too exhausting and useless. They'll close schools again when they can't staff them anymore (which probably isn't far off) and not before. They don't care how many people get sick.

My youngest is seven, so this has been bumming me out a bit since it's likely his last year being into Santa. The town next to ours always does a really nice Santa visit (a local photographer stages it all and takes photos and gives everyone one digital file for free) and tree lighting thing; I haven't heard what the plans are for this year, but we'll be skipping it if it even happens (although I might have a hard time turning down a masked, plexiglass Santa photo to remember this wacky year).

I vote for candy at the end of driveways every year, because that was SO EFFICIENT! We did our small neighborhood (which always does it that way; there's just a handful of kids so they all go around at the same time and everyone sits out in driveways and hands out candy) and our friend's neighborhood down the road and were done by 7 with a ridiculous amount of candy. Older kids did outdoor movie night with a couple of friends and we hung out around the fire pit with their parents until the seven year old was ready to crash. It was a surprisingly nice Halloween.

But if they were testing as much as South Korea, they might well have realized they weren't actually doing better. The fact that the US waited until it was clear spread was out of control before testing widely is my point.

And South Korea just started a whole bunch of new, targeted testing because they had a day with all of 76 new cases: https://www.startribune.com/the-latest-india-adds-61-800-new-cases-1-033-deaths/572786502/?refresh=true

South Korea had its first case the same day as the US, and 2 months later it was testing at 6x the rate of the US: https://khn.org/news/fact-check-trumps-boast-about-u-s-south-korea-coronavirus-testing-misses-the-mark/ . When you have 100 cases a day vs. 80,000, and you have rigorous contract tracing in place, you no longer need to test as much. Anyone know what South Korea's positivity rate is? You can get a good idea of whether you're doing enough testing from that.

We're in a very blue county, BUT it's the county that includes Atlanta, which has its own school district (which is still fully virtual). So the bluest part of my blue county is out of the picture for school decisions.

Yeah, spending the summer getting things under control as much as possible and coming up with solid plans for schools would have been smart. Sigh. It would make SUCH a difference if community numbers has started lower and there were a plan (and funding) in place for a lot of asymptomatic screening tests. That's what my oldest's college is doing (everyone tested before they get there, again when they arrive, and then random testing of 15% of the campus every week), and they seem to be keeping things under control. Doesn't mean I don't worry about him, but I feel a lot better about his situation than my husband's.

And that's the thing....all the estimates I've seen say 1/4 to 1/3 of teachers are high risk. And it's older teachers and/or ones with more health risks who are least able to opt out because they can't risk their retirement or their health insurance. 2 people in DH's department took long term leave this year because they felt unsafe (unpaid, presumably without benefits, but probably they at least keep their retirement accounts). They didn't hire replacements or long term subs (which I imagine would be virtually impossible this year)....they divided those teachers' students up amongst the other teachers, so now their classes are bigger than before, so even less ability to distance.

My husband's school went to 5 days a week (after starting up virtually then very briefly doing hybrid). They had 2 positive cases and more than 120 people quarantined by day 4. If nothing else, staying hybrid so you can keep everyone distanced means you can do a lot fewer quarantines when you have positive cases.

I've been following Emily Oster's school database pretty closely (or obsessively, depending on your perspective): https://statsiq.co1.qualtrics.com/public-dashboard/v0/dashboard/5f62eaee4451ae001535c839#/dashboard/5f62eaee4451ae001535c839?pageId=Page_1ac6a6bc-92b6-423e-9f7a-259a18648318. One of my observations is that the numbers are not nearly so reassuring as Oster thinks they are, particularly for teachers, and that we should look really carefully at whether schools are driving spread. It seems based on her numbers that kids in schools are NOT less likely to get covid than the general population, that high schoolers at least are somewhat more likely (how much more likely has a lot to do with how much testing is NOT being done and how many cases are not being reported to schools, I imagine; the database used to list some really scary "suspected cases" numbers, but those aren't there anymore. I have an e-mail in to them asking why), and that teachers are MUCH more likely. And none of these people exist in bubbles. It seems foolish to overlook the places where we've just started putting hundreds and thousands of people in buildings together as a reason for rapidly increasing numbers in the US. Another observation, though, and one that's a little more heartening, is that taking precautions makes a very big difference. Nearly all the schools reporting results have a mask mandate for staff and students, but those that don't have MUCH worse numbers. Only 57% report 6 foot distancing; the results for those that DO distance are substantially better for both students and teachers, but especially for teachers. And the difference is again the most stark for high schools. (one example: high schools that don't distance report an incidence rate of 63/100k per day for staff (which is pretty terrible; that's 882/100k over 14 days) but only 20/100k with distancing (still not great by any means at 280/100k over 14 days, but much closer to average US numbers and much better of course).

I had heard it before, but only the last time it was making the rounds because Trump used it.

DH's county went back to 5 days a week in person last week (even though the county numbers were rising and didn't meet the metrics for reopening they set themselves). 4 days in his school shut back down for three days for "contact tracing and deep cleaning" after 2 positives and 140 quarantines. Two teachers in his department are quarantined, but not him. He's back today after 3 days of teaching remotely. I'm in a constant state of low grade rage about how the county is handling things (i.e. lying and misrepresenting the data)