Here is what I find confusing about opening schools…our first imperative as a country is to get this under control. Pause and do that. Get the testing capacity, get people wearing masks, use reasonable mitigation strategies, innovate on business. Until then…don’t feed the fire.
If we are just months from ubiquitous, inexpensive testing…then delay the schools… but until we can test at a rapid cadence, get people to wear masks, and act like we are in a struggle for our future…we are primed for backsliding…and delay…and prolonging the pain.
China’s best moves were probably the ubiquitous testing, the quarantining of the infected, and the adoption of universal masking and reasonable distancing. It does not need to be shelter-in-place; we can save businesses; but we need to shorten the pandemic.
We are in a mighty struggle. It is a difficult moment…& not sufficient to say we are tired, 6 months in,of mitigation efforts. Winter is coming & unless we act together now, we will face far harder times. All magical thinking about how benign this is, has worsened our situation.
And I am back to testing…something I have said since the beginning. It is not the whole answer, but without frequent testing, even w/so-so tests, we cannot gain the upper hand. And delays in results of 5-7 renders testing worthless. Really absurd. Let’s get solutions in place.
All of these things seem so silly to have to write down…so many have said the same…and yet here we are. Continuing down a path that has failed in most of the country. So excuse my annoyingly redundant comments… but I feel the need to continue to write them.
