Raleigh just cancelled all major public events through Halloween:
https://indyweek.com/news/wake/raleigh-canceled-all-festivals-road-races-and-parades-throug/

7/7/2020 4:01:51 PM

ok the death spike has arrived. grim out.

7/7/2020 8:13:40 PM

Cancelled Texas State Fair today. We cracked 10000 cases in a day

7/7/2020 8:49:34 PM

^^ May be some lag from holiday weekend. Fri-Tues totals week over week isn’t a huge increase.

And given the younger mean age of the infections right now I still don’t think we’ll see anything like the May numbers.

(I’m hoping we don’t at least)

7/7/2020 8:51:32 PM

Quote :

"And the 7 day average for deaths in the US reached ANOTHER consecutive low meaning it has now been on the steady decline since April 23rd and is currently at its lowest level since March 30th. When will it go up again? 7/6/2020 10:08:35 PM"

Looks like less than 24 hours after this sophomoric post.

7/7/2020 9:18:08 PM

^5 Does that include the State Fair?

Can't see that happening, nor Football since Raleigh itself has said this.

7/7/2020 10:26:51 PM

Quote :

"Can't see that happening, nor Football"

I'm pretty pessimistic about ncsu football atm.

Can't imagine the fair happening unless numbers get really good.

7/7/2020 10:30:19 PM

I doubt very much that the state fair happens. It's such a massive crowd of people jam packed together.

7/7/2020 10:38:05 PM

Shit i don’t get how school happens. Just read they gave option for parents here to either do online or in class. I imagine online will be the overwhelming majority.

7/7/2020 11:09:39 PM

It's a lot easier to enforce social distancing/masks at schools than in a crowd of 100k people.

7/7/2020 11:33:27 PM

yeah but the state fair isn't mostly indoors and doesn't happen 180 days a year

7/7/2020 11:37:42 PM

Masks maybe but I don't think I was ever in a pre-college classroom that had space for each student to be 6 ft apart

7/7/2020 11:37:56 PM

It doesn't have to make sense or be safe. They will just claim the risk of COVID is lower than the risk of kids not being in school and go along as if COVID barely exists.

[Edited on July 7, 2020 at 11:44 PM. Reason : TIL posting data is sophomoric.]

7/7/2020 11:43:53 PM

Quote :

"yeah but the state fair isn't mostly indoors and doesn't happen 180 days a year"

Yeah it's 10 days (?) and a million people crammed nuts to butts on the midway.

7/8/2020 12:14:29 AM

Good luck instituting mask adherence reliably for 1.8 million NC k12 students

[Edited on July 8, 2020 at 12:19 AM. Reason : S]

7/8/2020 12:18:54 AM

Wow right on cue Tucker Carlson just drove home the point. I'm even convinced by the evidence he laid out that lower schools must return. High schools and colleges I'm still on the fence about since teenagers have more flexibility in terms of supervision, socializing, and learning.

The crazy thing about Tucker's show is that he took the "why don't we look at what other countries have done successfully" which i wish he would do on healthcare or economics. He even went as far as calling germany, australia and sweden "adult countries".

7/8/2020 12:36:13 AM

Quote :

"Good luck instituting mask adherence reliably for 1.8 million NC k12 students"

i'm not even advocating for schools to reopen, just simply stating that it is much easier to safely do that (which it is not at all) than have the NC State Fair.

7/8/2020 12:38:03 AM

i don't think anybody is saying the state fair will go on as originally planned, just that schools are also quite a challenge.

7/8/2020 12:38:47 AM

State Fair will be like Tulsa Trump rally anyways. 1/3 occupancy lol. Most people there will be in masks anyway.

7/8/2020 12:54:58 AM

Quote :

" https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/07/888137097/brazilian-president-jair-bolsonaro-tests-positive-for-coronavirus "

I hope it is terminal. The bastard is actively destroying the rainforest and the environment, and now, ignoring science on the pandemic, leading to tens of thousands of deaths.

There is also someone else, also acting in the same manner as the one above, who should catch it and perish, but the asshole doesn't seem to catch it somehow.

No wonder they are best buddies.

7/8/2020 1:24:55 AM

I can’t tell...do you mean Trump or Netanyahu?

7/8/2020 1:29:02 AM

Whoever your heart desires!

And there are many 'strong-man' assholes who need to perish, actually. NK, Russia, China, Syria, SA, Egypt, Israel, Iran, and you know, some others too

They should all get COVID-19 to make the world a better place.

[Edited on July 8, 2020 at 2:22 AM. Reason : and not recover ]

7/8/2020 1:53:45 AM

I know several teachers in Wake County and from what they've said, if they try to force teachers back into the classroom, it's going to be a mess. I've spoken to at least 3 teachers who have said they'll likely quit rather than be forced back into the classroom, these are all high school teachers. They also point out several members of their staff that fall into the "at-risk" categories and they just don't see how they have enough teachers/substitutes to keep schools open.

Elementary schools make a ton of sense. You shrink classes(re-purpose gyms, libraries, etc or leverage vacant high schools), separate desks, you don't force them to wear masks, you keep the same kids together all day in the same class, you enforce spacing on the buses, you bring lunch to their room, etc. It's all fairly feasible to create little classroom bubbles.

High school on the other hand, I just can't see it working. There will 100% be kids who don't follow the rules or wear masks, and teachers already feel like discipline is an issue and they will have no way to force those kids to wear masks. In high school you don't just have the same kids in the same room all day every day. You have different education levels, classes, electives, etc. I also think people are grossly over-estimating the number of kids who will opt for online, they want to be back in school and their parents want them back in school.

Ideally, you'd open elementary schools, change middle schools a tad to make them more "bubble" friendly, and then you just make high school completely online. Just use the closed high schools for more classroom space for the elementary and middle schools, just not sure how you staff that up.

7/8/2020 9:42:17 AM

so this is awful:

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/08/houston-coronavirus-deaths-number/

Quote :

" An increase in people dying at home suggests coronavirus deaths in Houston may be higher than reported"

7/8/2020 1:15:41 PM

^^Biggest problem with that is if you have high school kids that learn better in person or are interested in classes that are only easily taught in person. For example, my oldest son is really into symphonic, jazz and marching band. He's continued to do lessons via Zoom throughout the pandemic, so he's getting practice, but only because we have been paying for it. But that is with an individual tutor working one on one for a solo piece. How the hell do you have symphonic or jazz band or especially marching band online? There is no way they can do that.

Now for regular educational classes taught from a book like History, Math, Language Arts all of those can be taught online I completely agree. My kids are going to be in 8th and 11th grade so the spring jump to online was pretty painless for them as they were already tech savvy and had their own desktop computers. But my younger son in middle school wants to take a cooking class this year. How the hell you going to do that remotely? Granted we have a nice kitchen with space and tools available so with a parent around he could do that stuff. But not all the kids have a nice kitchen or a parent that is capable around the kitchen and has the time to devote. If my wife and I are both at work he definitely cannot go into the kitchen without supervision because he may have to climb up to get ingredients or what not.

I personally don't believe they should go back fulltime. I think they should consider something like Wake County where they got a couple days a week. I feel like you can make masks mandatory and even high school students will comply if it means they get to see their friends. But make it a fucking rule that if they are asked more than say twice to put a mask on and don't then they are gone and they get to do online only. Maybe that would straighten them out. Additionally I think it depends where you are at. In the more rural areas you might have more issues with this. Here in Chapel Hill-Carrboro I think we would have a lot fewer issues around this.

[Edited on July 8, 2020 at 1:24 PM. Reason : ]

7/8/2020 1:24:36 PM

^The problem with that, is that I don't think they're going to have electives, particularly gym or band. If you're trying to limit the spread of germs, those would be 2 of the biggest culprits as they've shown that just going to a concert where someone is singing can increase the amount of spread, so having people playing instruments, barring it being drums or stringed instruments, is probably going to be frowned upon, particularly with them trying to keep class sizes down.

Good chance rooms for electives, band rooms, gyms, libraries, etc will be repurposed. I know in Wake County they were talking about dividing up the gym for classroom settings and spacing, but not sure if that's still the case with the "Plan B" they've pitched.

I think you're being extremely optimistic when it comes to masks and teenagers. I'm sure your kids are great, but some of the stories I've heard of kids cursing at teachers or causing scenes and stuff, I just don't see them respecting masks, particularly if their parents are anti-mask. I expect the parents who don't think COVID is a big deal or support masks would be the EXACT people who would send their kids to school and wouldn't care about them not wearing a mask. Are they going to have ISS? Are they going to stick all the non-masking wearing children in the same room when they're acting up? I just think Admin and the school board need to be talking to the teachers more than they are because every teacher I've spoken to, and the ones they've spoken to, are anti-opening back up and want to go fully online because they know it's going to be a mess between the admin, teachers, and students.

7/8/2020 2:25:03 PM

^My teacher contacts have been very mixed. Our only next door neighbor is a 4th grade elementary school teacher and isn't very hot on the idea of going back. At the same time she has a kindergartener and 3rd grader so as a parent she thinks they will not get much out of remote education.

And yea for band and chorus my only good options were literally to let them practice on the football field or outside somewhere that they can space themselves widely apart. But what do you do when it rains? Have them go to the gym and spread widely apart? So many questions and no good answers, aside from developing and distributing a vaccine.

7/8/2020 3:32:08 PM

If they don't go back, what happens when the Governor starts re-purposing the salaries of teachers for other means?

Anarchy. That's what happens. Cooper has shown he isn't big on teacher pay anyways.

I don't see a way they have a regular school schedule. I believe they should push back the date a month, regroup and see what happens. Online for 6-12 may be the best option, but then you have to worry with children that don't have laptops and wifi or even them logging on. Most will have better things to do and no one to hold them accountable.

7/8/2020 3:39:17 PM

how has Cooper shown that he isn’t big on teacher pay?

7/8/2020 3:44:50 PM

Yea Cooper has been trying to give bigger raises to the teachers but is usually thwarted by the Legislature. Quite the opposite with state employees and state higher ed as he has wanted to give them a pittance or none at all in comparison. I fully support his advocating for teachers but thought it was a bit pandering and disingenuous to propose large raises for teachers while excluding their support staff (which is what he did for the last couple of budget cycles). At the end of the day the budget stalemate killed all raises for state employees and teachers so we've all been pretty equally fucked.

7/8/2020 3:51:05 PM

Most of the problems with returning are problems that already exist in normal times (class size, funding, staffing, discipline, etc) and need to be addressed anyway. I don't think those should be barriers to going back but the amount of community spread should. No large gatherings should take place until we're at a point where we can test, trace and isolate every case. There needs to be a threshold of consistent testing with a downward trend before schools go back.

This means there needs to be an effective shutdown before we can even get to that point. The first round of shutdowns were bogus because there were too many people going house to house and out shopping in "essential" businesses.

I know people who made schedules to go to 7 grocery stores to get all the specific items they wanted and because there wasn't anything else to do. That was a failure.

o and ground the planes.

7/8/2020 3:59:18 PM

If they shut down the airlines again I can guarantee that only one or two domestics survive without another MASSIVE bailout by the Fed.

I am not flying anytime soon, but pointing out that ship has almost certainly sailed.

7/8/2020 5:30:05 PM

If Miami, Dallas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles are all hot spots, and full planes are departing from those cities everyday, then its only a matter of time before new outbreaks are seeded in places that fully reopen.

7/8/2020 6:25:39 PM

Quote :

"If they don't go back, what happens when the Governor starts re-purposing the salaries of teachers for other means?"

This just happened in the Spring, all of the teachers switch to teaching online and earn their salaries the same way. They had to hold "online office hours" and they were pushing for them to actually have daily structure just like they were in school, at least for the high school classes. That meant if you had 1st period from 8-9 then the teacher had to be available to lecture or field questions from any students from that class during that time period.

I know the Spring online education went pretty poorly, but a large part of that was because the teachers weren't prepared, had to scramble, and had little to no guidance(or often mixed guidance messages). If they would just commit to online teaching and give the teachers a couple of months to prepare their lesson plans, get familiar with the tech, and really come up with a good plan of action, I think it could work really well. To the point I could see more and more people wanting online education after kids start returning to full classes in 2021.

7/8/2020 7:13:58 PM

I'm teaching an online class for summer school now and it is 1000000000x easier than what we had to deal with in the Spring. I know college is a totally different, so my heart goes out to all the k-12 teachers who have to work so much harder for even less money. It's lose-lose no matter what you do.

Anyway, I was able to completely redesign the course since I've had since late May to do so, but another thing that makes it so much easier is that students pretty much know what they've signed up for and what they're getting into. I prerecord most lectures and homework instructions now and host Q/A "class sessions" and hold extended office hours, whereas before I'd have have to host a 2-3 classes per day (some of them 3 hours long) and deal with all the BS that comes with ZOOM, on top of office hours, emails, grading, etc.

Is it perfect? Fuck no. But let's be real: most college students don't really give a shit about trying to learn at their normal capacity because they've got so little control over their lives. I don't blame them one bit, either.

7/8/2020 10:01:29 PM

Quote :

"how has Cooper shown that he isn’t big on teacher pay? "

He used the budget as an excuse to not pay teachers. He vetoed teacher pay raises as well as support staff under the guise that "it wasn't enough".
https://www.fox46.com/news/teachers-protest-decision-not-to-increase-their-pay/

As for online teaching...you didn't address how every single student in the state will have access to a computer and wifi and be held accountable to show up "online".


[Edited on July 8, 2020 at 10:04 PM. Reason : f]

7/8/2020 10:01:49 PM

I think we need to give up the charade of pretending that all American children get equal access to quality public education. It's a fucking farce. Even moreso during a pandemic.

Computers aren't that expensive anymore and 95% of people have cell phones with data plans. If you're a parent, it should be on YOU to keep your kids safe and to provide them with the basic necessities to receive a public education during a massive health crisis.

Full stop: if you aren't worried about sending your kids to school during a global pandemic, you're a shitty parent.

[Edited on July 8, 2020 at 10:08 PM. Reason : .]

7/8/2020 10:07:56 PM

lol WHAT!?

You're out of touch with the reality of poverty in this country, state and even most likely your county.

7/8/2020 10:10:16 PM

I teach at a public university and a community college. Most of my students are poor

I completely recognize the fact that not everyone has internet access and a computer, but WTF else can people do? You can buy a refurbished/used laptop for under $100 and have a cheap data plan. Is it perfect? FUCK NO!

But you're out of your mind if you think it's safe to send kids back to school in COVID hotspots like Florida.

NC isn't there yet, but give it time.

7/8/2020 10:14:26 PM

Jesus. It takes quite a walk to get me to agree with JT3

7/8/2020 10:28:53 PM

You do realize high speed internet is still not a viable thing in many rural areas, right? Like I lived for the past ten years in a place with shitty cell signal and the only available internet was like 56k dialup. Online instruction is very much a privilege and replacing in person learning with online is just going to widen the gap between the haves and have nots.

That said, I have no good solution to the pandemic problem regarding education. But saying oh computers are cheap and people have cell phones is just you talking from your completely ignorant, privileged position.

7/8/2020 10:34:07 PM

People can't even afford rent, tuition and the normal things much less a viable internet connection. Also, people without extra space don't have adequate work environments to be productive from home. Cafes are either close or have closed off their wifi. I didn't realize that until there was construction work outside my window, I had nowhere else to work to avoid that noise and basically had to cancel the zoom portion of my class. Many people go through that everyday.

With that said, college isn't the crux of the debate on schools. The debate seems to be around elementary and middle schools which I think should absolutely go back unless we decide we're going to actually lockdown and stop the spread of the virus.

Quote :

"Full stop: if you aren't worried about sending your kids to school during a global pandemic, you're a shitty parent."

You can't say this unless we get adequate UBI so people don't have to work. For many parents the choice is be a shitty parent or don't go to work and don't put food on the table.

[Edited on July 8, 2020 at 10:44 PM. Reason : college students are already responsible for knowing how to learn indpendently]

7/8/2020 10:43:45 PM

The solution is so simple, but it will never happen because . . . freedom, I guess?

There's still a month before schools go back. Lock it down and actually stick to the lockdown. Virus transmission drops to a point where rigid testing, quarantine, and contact tracing should be able to reasonably contain things. That's what smaller island nations (and also authoritarian states, I guess) have already done. I know I'm not telling anyone here anything new, but it's still frustrating. We're apparently intent on dragging out the damage for two years or so, where if effectively managed, it would have been essentially over in about two months time.

It's comically depressing to watch the botched response and attempts to reopen for what one has to assume are political purposes while the virus is continually running rampant. It's freaking dumb. Any political persuasion should be able to agree.

7/8/2020 11:19:01 PM

the way its being done the grocers, costco, walmart, cvs, walgreens never had to take any hit. They have tremendous influence on the way the lockdowns were put in place. Once people saw the lockdown was a sham from the start, they were immediately defiant.

This can't be done without trust for the government and there can't be trust when the government is working for corporations.

7/8/2020 11:27:13 PM

Yes, that's partly why I said it would never happen. I mean, the fact that it will never happen is as obvious as the solution itself.

7/8/2020 11:30:36 PM

I'm still skeptical about the US' ability to contact trace effectively. I mean, snitches get stitches and whatnot.

7/9/2020 12:08:56 AM

Hadn't considered that angle.0

7/9/2020 12:13:03 AM

^^US would do super well in contact tracing if they trampled on rights etc

[Edited on July 9, 2020 at 12:26 AM. Reason : S]

7/9/2020 12:23:49 AM

set

7/9/2020 12:43:50 AM

em up

7/9/2020 12:44:15 AM