Both COVIDians and #TeamReality quoted in this piece (because it's about how everyone is frustrated but not about the same thing), but this spoke to me so much that I want to quote it. As a blue state mom, I really feel this: 1/14
Ryan, an elementary-school teacher in Boston, reached out to vent his frustration and despair:
"At this moment, about a third of my students and a third of our total staff are in quarantine. None of them, to my knowledge, are actually physically ill. 2/14
"At this moment, about a third of my students and a third of our total staff are in quarantine. None of them, to my knowledge, are actually physically ill. 2/14
The amount of legitimate illness I have seen wouldn’t even warrant a “boy, nasty cold going around, huh?” comment at the water cooler in our pre-COVID era. Yes, there are some coughs. 3/14
Yes, there are some sniffles. But there have always been and always will be coughs and sniffles in a room full of 25 seven-year-olds.And the disruptions caused by avoiding this radar-blip of illness have been more disruptive than anything I have ever experienced in my career.4/14
I sent home three perfectly healthy children who tested positive. They will miss a week and a half of school, sitting at home on the couch in near-perfect health. 5/14
The likelihood that they develop serious illness is as close to zero as likelihoods get in this life. It all seems like such a pointless waste of time, resources, stigma, and emotional energy. 6/14
Our Sisyphean efforts at control aren’t even in the service of avoiding anything worth avoiding. 7/14
At this point, it seems that we are just valiantly fighting COVID as a matter of pure inertia, like WWII soldiers on deserted islands, unaware that the threat has passed and the war is over. 8/14
The level of precaution and concern is so far out of alignment with the current level of physical risk that I fear we are going to be stuck in this prison of irrational pandemic fear forever. 9/14
I honestly can’t see a moment when a critical majority of people relax enough to say “yes, I feel okay. I don’t think I need to let COVID-avoidance measures dominate every facet of my life. I don’t think I need to police everyone else’s behavior. I think I am safe enough.” 10/14
Everybody is infected, but nobody is sick; everyone is terrified, but nothing is terrible. The whole thing feels like a cruel farce, but ruthlessly stripped of comedy. /11
The emotions that increasingly dominate my life inside and outside of school are hopelessness and despair. Hopeless that the risk tolerances of the people who dominate our local politics will ever seem reasonable to me, 12/14
hopeless that the teacher’s union of whom I am a due-paying member will ever stop fighting for ever-more impossible levels of “safety.” Despair that normal life might never return. Despair that I might have to wear this goddamn fucking mask forever. 13/14
@threadreaderapp unroll
Despair that my daughter has spent most of her life locked in COVIDlife. Despair that COVIDlife might be the only life there is anymore. 14/14
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