Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Reading, Chatham: insects, books, crowding)

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

If it was so easy to just close schools for the year then why hasn’t it been done yet ?

August is next week

I'll say it again: because Trump has threatened to cut off federal funding to states that don't reopen schools.

Originally Posted by Bridge781

And I’m sorry but i think people have a great chance of getting sick if they have to take the train to work. Coming in close, packed contact with so many people. It’s basically why I thought offices needed to close since so many depend on the train. And like it or not most office jobs can be done at home/remote. I can see why they closed schools because of so much unknown.

At both offices and schools, we need to keep in mind that heat/AC may be the greatest danger of all. There are so many unknowns that it would be completely irresponsible to attempt reopening any time soon.

Do you really want your kids to be guinea pigs??? How about you, NewfieMama???

Originally Posted by Bridge781

If they close schools this whole next year why would it be safe for them to open in the fall of 2021? What if there still isn’t a vaccine by then ? We could push this out for years.

Nobody knows at this point. Nobody even knows what things will be like a month from now.

[yesmaybe]

I'd be fine with going back to work. Wearing a mask for 8 hours would be a pain but I could deal with it. Spaced out enough, it'd be a very low risk of catching it.

The Southeast Expressway does show a fair amount of traffic (nowhere near typical volume tho). There are people going back to work.

[id77]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

Might be a question of constitutionality about the obligation to have public schools. I mean if it was that easy to just shutdown the schools, furlough the teachers and use the money saved to hire day care workers, they would have done that by now.

This brings up an interesting topic. My first thought on this:

1. If free access to public schools is a right, and schools are not open in the fall except remotely, then a child must access school via the Internet.
2. Internet access is not a free right today.

If a child cannot attend class, and that child's family cannot afford Internet access for remote school...what happens? Is this an ACLU case waiting to happen?

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

I'd be fine with going back to work. Wearing a mask for 8 hours would be a pain but I could deal with it. Spaced out enough, it'd be a very low risk of catching it.

How about an hour per day on a totally full yellow school bus where most people on the bus are ignoring the mask mandate?

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by id77

This brings up an interesting topic. My first thought on this:

1. If free access to public schools is a right, and schools are not open in the fall except remotely, then a child must access school via the Internet.
2. Internet access is not a free right today.

If a child cannot attend class, and that child's family cannot afford Internet access for remote school...what happens? Is this an ACLU case waiting to happen?

Comcast Essentials is $9.95/month plus tax. Low income households with students qualify. No activation fee. No equipment rental/technology fee.

[id77]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Comcast Essentials is $9.95/month plus tax. Low income households with students qualify. No activation fee. No equipment rental/technology fee.

As an added bonus, it's Comcast so the video streams should only cut out and be unusable 1-2 days per week.

[porterhouse]

https://twitter.com/robbysoave/statu...517185541?s=20

"If public schools insist on not re-opening until it's 100% perfectly safe (i.e. never) because they are beholden to teachers unions, we really should just defund them and give the money back to parents so they can arrange private education, tutors, daycare, homeschool pods, etc."


Not a realistic solution, but thought provoking nonetheless. I could put the $20k+ my city spends per student to good use in educating my children.

[yesmaybe]

As of 4:15, still haven't posted today's numbers. Must be bad.

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by id77

This brings up an interesting topic. My first thought on this:

1. If free access to public schools is a right, and schools are not open in the fall except remotely, then a child must access school via the Internet.
2. Internet access is not a free right today.

If a child cannot attend class, and that child's family cannot afford Internet access for remote school...what happens? Is this an ACLU case waiting to happen?

In RI, the state provided free internet to anyone who needed it for remote school.

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

As of 4:15, still haven't posted today's numbers. Must be bad.

I bet the cluster in Chatham is going to up the counts and I won't want to know how many other similar incidents there are all around. I'd be curious to know if the average age has gone way down as I've seen many young people not wearing masks outside and not socially distancing.