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SGT English/Language Arts Teacher
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Our governor said the same thing. Let me paraphrase: "Everyone said we would be like New York. Well it's been 8 weeks and it hasn't happened." That was May 20. Now we have surpassed New York in total cases, and we haven't plateaued. He opened up early - bars, beaches, amusement parks. We had our highest death counts yesterday. He issued a mandate to open schools for in class learning. There was the common belief that the virus didn't affect children as it did adults. Well 24% of our cases, 100,000 children, have contracted the disease. That is with schools closed. As you know, schools are notorious for spreading colds and the flu. I have colleagues that remain sick from October to May. Many teachers, as well as some students, are high risk with ailments such as asthma, diabetes, and heart conditions. California, Texas, and Florida are not showing any signs of slowing down. We may have a hurricane this coming week, and if so, many on the coast will seek refuge in shelters, perhaps in close proximity. And we still have people refusing to wear masks - just like Louie Gohmert - because there is a mask conspiracy.

I don't buy the dismissal of a pandemic. My friend Tom Early MSG Tom Earley can attest to the conditions here in Florida.
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Maj John Bell
Maj John Bell
4 y
I don't dismiss the pandemic. I do dismiss the effectiveness of current strategies at ALL levels of government.

What state are you from?

I'll be happy to research myself, once I know of what state you speak. Among those 100,000 pediatric cases:
_What is the fatality rate? the hospitalization rate? the rate requiring outpatient treatment?
_Is your state's fatality and hospitalization rate primarily in the same demographic (60 year of age+, and/or underlying respiratory or cardiac chronic health problems?
_Does your state have a cohesive multi-disciplinary strategy that protects high risk populations and allows the low risk populations the ability to carry on relative normalcy?
_Has your state made the mistake of requiring elder care facilities to accept patients with known or suspected COVID infection? Or other initiatives that actually increase the exposure of high risk patients.
_What is the mean or median age of the entire population in your state?
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SGT English/Language Arts Teacher
SGT (Join to see)
4 y
Maj John Bell - Florida, sir. We had 27,000 new cases yesterday. When I mention children I meant those under the age of 18. Being a teacher, I always use that term. We had a nursing home nearby with 22 deaths and I believe over 50 patients and staff infected. Luckily, we have avoided deaths largely because of good policy in Miami. The Republican mayor shut down the beaches almost immediately. He was one of the first highly known politicians to get the disease himself.

I myself am high risk. Ordering me back to the classroom could prove fatal. I am considering applying for the Americans with Disabilities Act because my breathing could be affected by wearing a mask all day.
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Maj John Bell
Maj John Bell
4 y
SGT (Join to see) - Your response kind of begs the questions I am asking. I live in Michigan. I live in a county with a small population densit. We still only have 34 confirmed cases, Zero deaths, and 1 hospitalization. Everyone of those cases reported travel to a larger metropolitan area within 2 weeks of symptoms appearing, or they share the same residence as someone who traveled to a larger metropolitan area within 2 weeks of experiencing symptoms.

We do have a significant number of elder care facilities in the county. So many that it really pushes up the county's median age. The median age for the the US is 38.3 years, Michigan 39.4 years, and Antrim County 50.4 years. All the way back in February, under advice from the County Emergency medical Authority the following steps were taken:
_Most of Residential Elder Care (REC) facilities went into lockdown. No new residents were admitted to those facilities without a 14 day off-site quarantine. Upon being accepted, new residents went into an additional 14 day quarantine on-site. There was no crossover of staff from the quarantine side to the, "clean" side. Any resident who left the residence for any reason had to go through the quarantine cycle before being re-admitted to the REC.
_Family members who wished to visit REC residents did so during a scheduled appointment, via closed windows fitted with intercoms. The visitor side was sanitized between each visit.
_The REC staffs were required to go through a simple screening and decontamination upon arriving at work, prior to entering the clean side.
_All deliveries of non-perishable goods were sanitized prior to entering the clean side.
There has not been a single case of COVID in any of our residential eldercare facilities.

In March, our schools went to "split shift." One half of the children started school at 0700 and ended at 1130 the second half attended school from 1230 to 1700. This continued until the governor ordered schools closed. Teachers were preparing to teach outdoors, weather permitting, as soon as the weather warmed up. But we didn't get there before the governor shut the school's down.

Mask discipline in this county is really poor. I wear one for two reasons.
1) It is within the Governor's authority to order us to do so. If it is a legal, ethical, moral order given within the scope of authority, I follow it. Doesn't mean I like it or agree with it. But following orders has never required liking it or agreeing with it.
2) If it makes somebody else comfortable that I wear the mask, I'm all for putting people at ease when it isn't a significant inconvenience. Doesn't mean that I'm convince that wearing a mask that are not design for the intended purpose, or made to some technical standard are an effective counter measure

None of this was done because the government ORDERED it. Government is not the solution. Not because it can't be, but because politician's inevitably choose appearance over substance.
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Lt Col Charlie Brown
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In the ongoing debate over whether shutdowns have been useful, a comparison of Minnesota and Wisconsin is a valuable data point. These two adjoining states are of comparable population, demographics, history and geography. A Wisconsinite is basically a Minnesotan without the smugness.

The idiot in charge in Minnesota did the same thing that the idiots in NY did. They sent COVID patients into long term care facilities and infected the most vulnerable. That's the reason for the high death rates
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SGT English/Language Arts Teacher
SGT (Join to see)
4 y
I believe that was an inadvertent mistake because there were hospitals that were over capacity and little was known about the spread of the virus. There was also a loss of and shortages of PPE. We had a nursing home nearby my home here in Daytona Beach that had fifty cases of patients and staff with 22 deaths. I hesitate to blame deaths on anyone. My wife who is a nurse told me that the shortages of masks were to be blamed because when working with infected patients, nurses are expected to dispose of every mask and change gloves before entering another patient's area. With shortages of masks that was not possible. Lt Col Charlie Brown
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CW5 Jack Cardwell
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Great post !
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