Monday blues

[supertrooper1]

It's Monday again.

[waverly]

Yes. Last week was terrible. This week is also starting out bad. I already got into lets call it a debate because a staff member is getting tested, and their manager wanted them to come into work. Doesn't everyone stay home until the results of their test? I just feel like I am living in a different reality than everyone else.

[supertrooper1]

I found out Friday that my biological maternal grandmother passed away. I was adopted at birth and only met her about 10 years ago. I hadn't seen her in several years due to family drama. So it's a very complicated set of emotions.

The weekend was ok. Beau and I went out to dinner Saturday night with his cousin and wife, who have been part of our quarantine group. Yesterday we went for a drive and ended up stopping at a beach just as the rain let up and the sun came out for an hour or so. Then our governor closed our state again for four weeks. Restaurants will close, stores go to 25% capacity and gatherings at anyone's house are restricted unless you quarantine for 14 days. My opinion is an unpopular opinion on this board I'm sure, but I think this will do more harm to mental health and the economy.

[twinmomma]

Yup.
I'm starting to anxiously spiral on in person school ending and virtual kicking back in again. We have more cases in the schools this week and a ton of kids at the high school are quarantined right now. I'm starting to feel really worried and nervous about my kids getting sick after Thanksgiving travel happens. I know our district won't shut down unless the state requires it, our superintendent is super stubborn. But I wish he'd just plan ahead like some other towns around here who are closing Thanksgiving - January. Then at least we could prepare for it and know what to expect. Flipping the switch overnight at any point is so stressful.

[AdaraMarie]

Today is my kids first day of remote schooling again. My 5th grader's microphone on her school provided computer doesn't work, so that's fun. But at least she's mostly asynchronous until after lunch.
My second grader's synchronous morning seems to be going well. Not sure yet if she has any asynchronous work or not.
I haven't gotten anything done yet except calling in to a 30 minute meeting today so that's fun, especially for billable hours.

[librarychica]

Everyone in my house is sick. Not like, feverish or seriously ill, but sore throats/congestion/mild blah. So DD2 is home from K, DD1 (who is remote anyway) is laying around and I am .... still working. At least H is also home, the least affected and taking the afternoon portion of kid-wrangling. If I can just focus for two hours and get something important done I can take a nap or at least retreat to mindless-but-necessary administrivia. .

[mellym]

We've been synchronous for two months and the SD announced last week that it will continue (with more in person live meetings) for two more months minimum. The Y program hasn't worked for our 3rd grader because they aren't enforcing school attendance or lessons so DD1 doesn't do anything while she's there. We've been getting emails from teachers asking where she is, where her assignments are, etc. We had to pull her out last week because DD3 is sick with covid symptoms and I don't think we're going to go back. We uncovered all kinds of issues now that we're home with her the past few days and understand why her teachers are concerned. I don't know how we're going to manage it all. It's been really stressful with a sick toddler home on top of everything. My brain is fried.

waverly , I can't go back to work until our child tests negative. Same is true for an employee. Negative test or 14 day quarantine, including anyone that lives in your house.

[phdmomma]

The private school that the kids are at that is running in person just announced their plans. They are in person until Thanksgiving and then remote until after the new year. Which makes a lot of sense. I am not looking forward to it, because I am super slammed at work. But I appreciate the thought that they put into it. Now I just have to figure out how to make all of it happen.

[mustardseed2007]

Nov 16, 2020 12:05:16 GMT -5 waverly said:

Yes. Last week was terrible. This week is also starting out bad. I already got into lets call it a debate because a staff member is getting tested, and their manager wanted them to come into work. Doesn't everyone stay home until the results of their test? I just feel like I am living in a different reality than everyone else.

For us it depends on why you are getting tested. If you are getting tested for possible exposure or because you are afraid you are experiencing symptoms, you are excluded. 

If you are getting tested because you are curious, going to an event that requires it, anticipating travel that requires it etc, then you are not excluded from work. And yes, that has lead to some surprising positives that I would have preferred not to be involved with. 

[186momx]

supertrooper1, I agree with your unpopular opinion. I don't know if my small business clients will be able to come back after another shut down. They have been doing well the last couple months but Nov/Dec were always big months for them so not having them leaves a lot of questions.

OSAA said K-12 sports are exempt from the freeze on Friday who knows what they will say today or by Wednesday. I don't know what that means for DD's gymnastics since it is a club sport or what the park district is going to say. For both DD's and my sanity we need the break from each other.

DH was in a crap mood all weekend. Our friends uninvited us for Thanksgiving. I asked if they could tell DH which they did which pissed DH off even more. I really don't know how I will deal with him being home for 4 days and not being able to go or do anything.

OUr district sent out an email over the weekend. They are hoping the state freeze will lower the number enough so we can start hybrid mid December. Sorry that is cheating and using the freeze shouldn't be the way schools can go back to in person.

[waverly]

mustardseed2007, the employee was sick and had some kind of symptoms on Thursday. Took Thursday and Friday off work, and was tested on Friday and awaiting their results. The manager says that they did not see a doctor and it was only cold symptoms, so they didn't need to get tested.

She also said he was tested earlier prior to going to an event and did not quarantine then, so that follows your company's policy.

[waverly]

supertrooper1, I agree too that lockdowns hurt the economy and mental health. I would also hate to see hospitals overwhelmed though, so I don't know what the answer is to prevent that.

[supertrooper1]

Nov 16, 2020 14:28:13 GMT -5 waverly said:

supertrooper1 , I agree too that lockdowns hurt the economy and mental health. I would also hate to see hospitals overwhelmed though, so I don't know what the answer is to prevent that.

There are roughly 150,000 population in my area for the one hospital. They have set aside over 200 beds for COVID and at the most, 4 have been used at one time. I don't buy this argument since most people won't need hospitalized if they contract COVID.   

[waverly]

supertrooper1, We definitely were not overwhelmed in our area in the spring. Not sure how this spike will go. Beds are filling up here, but we aren't to a point of overwhelm at this time.

[phdmomma]

mustardseed2007 , waverly , I depends why you are tested here. For example, I am part of my work's surveillance program, so they test me twice a week now. Not because I think I have Covid, but because they want the data. So, I don't need to stay home until I get the results, because I'm not being tested for an exposure reason.

supertrooper1, We are overwhelmed here. Here the ICU's are running out of space, if they have not yet already. The state fair grounds have been turned into an emergency Covid field hospital. But they can only take the stable patients, which are being transferred from our rural hospitals after they are stabilized to free up beds. In the capital the university hospital has turned its operating rooms into 7 different Covid wings, and they are running out of space. Things are bad here. And they are likely only getting worse, as the legislature is really divided right now, and the state supreme court has overturned our previous stay at home order.

[sandandsea]

DS2 learned to ride his bike this weekend. He went from the balance bike straight to two wheels and was adorable giggling and riding it around the neighborhood. He’s 4.4 and just got tall enough to reach the ground in the 2 wheeled bike so he was thrilled.

We are driving to ILs for Thanksgiving next week and will celebrate with them. We won’t be seeing them for Christmas so it’s a good compromise. We will essentially move our distance learning and SIP to their house next week so the 6 of us can at least see each other once this year.

[waverly]

I feel like we had a good few months of being "mostly open" though where the West Coast has been almost locked down the entire time. Probably a bit regional there as well, but overall from what you all have said it's been more locked down than the Midwest was.

[xctsclrx]

Our cases are rising but our schools are doing great. We have had 3 cases in our elementary school, but they are isolated events and didn't spread more than that. Whatever we are doing seems to be working.

I think numbers are up because testing is up and lots of people are asymptomatic.

I don't think we should look at total numbers but look at our hospitals. If they are concerned then we scale back.

My county is still in a mask mandate and 50% capacity WFH if possible. Can't tell if it is making a difference

[186momx]

Just got the best news ever...DD's gym is allowed to stay open! They fall in line with the exemption for youth sports.

Our hospitals are not overrun and the freeze is cancelling all nonessential surgeries. Actually Idaho has been wanting to transfer patients to the big teaching hospital here. Don't know if that is happening or not. Talked to my uncle in Ohio over the weekend and he was laughing about our freeze with 1000s new cases per day for the state when his county had almost 1000s cases that day. I do think the west coast has been more locked down than other states which is probably why this freeze is messing with us so much.

[mommyatty]

xctsclrx, testing isn’t up nearly as much as numbers are, so that’s not why. If it were why, our percentage of positive cases would be going down, not up.

Yes, a shutdown will hurt the economy. And no shutdown will lead to people dying because of lack of hospital personnel to help them. We are getting close to that in Dallas-Ft Worth. Up until now, our hospitals have taken cases from rural hospitals. We are going to have to stop that. Which means rural areas are on their own with poorly trained staff, dwindling PPE, and what is about to be a gigantic influx of cases.

[supertrooper1]

phdmomma, if my state was like yours, I would definitely have a different opinion.

[mommyatty]

Nov 16, 2020 16:42:55 GMT -5 supertrooper1 said:

phdmomma , if my state was like yours, I would definitely have a different opinion.

The reason your state isn’t like hers is because your state government has taken the right steps to stop it from getting there. It’s not an accident or luck. The reason El Paso now has multiple mobile morgue trucks is because my state government hasn’t taken the right steps. That’s not an accident or luck either. Elections matter.

[mustardseed2007]

mommyatty, damn right!

waverly, good lord. Yes they need to be home! They have symptoms! WTF people?? FWIW, if they are made to come into work you could call OSHA. You wouldn't get a response right away but they are investigating that kind of thing.

[waverly]

mustardseed2007, that is what I am saying. I feel like I live on a different planet. The person says oh my employee has a cold- how do you know? Could you show me your doctor degree? Have they been to the doctor and gotten a non Covid diagnosis? OK, then.

[callmekd]

Our numbers are rising and our (democratic) Gov is doing every he can to maintain the economy but also manage the hospital beds. He announced today that households shouldn’t mix for thanksgiving. This is a huge change from a week ago where he ordered no more than 10 people/3 households should gather at any time. Trying to decide what to do about my parents. Sigh.

[erbear]

This will surprise no one, but I am team shut it all down. There were more than a million cases last week. We have to get the plateau lower or it will be disastrous. Economies will come back - lives will not. Shut it all down and float some money to businesses to pay their employees. Pass tenant and rent laws. This won't be permanent but we can make this work...government needs to pony up the cash.

[phdmomma]

erbear , I think that is what has really been missing. If you want to actually shut things down, you need to make sure that businesses can survive, and the federal government would need to provide the missing funding.

[shakinros]

Nov 16, 2020 23:06:29 GMT -5 phdmomma said:

erbear , I think that is what has really been missing. If you want to actually shut things down, you need to make sure that businesses can survive, and the federal government would need to provide the missing funding.

This x1000. We need a real, honest to goodness national shutdown where the federal government pays people to stay home for like 3-4 weeks.

I get why restaurants & businesses are worried and it’s a fair and legitimate concern. But I feel like we’re at the point where the middling damage of long term partial containment measures has added up to more than we would’ve had with a short term complete shutdown. If we had done this in April, we would’ve had a whole summer of tourism and travel dollars. But we didn’t. Now we’re going to lose holiday spending and travel too. Let’s get it done and give businesses a chance to come back in the spring.

[erbear]

Seriously. It’s ridiculous. Fucking McConnell and his refusal to make this not political. You were elected to serve the American people. Do it, asshole. It honestly floors me how callous these folks are being about this.

[mellym]

I live in the same state as phdmomma. Please take it seriously and use WI as a case study of what NOT to do if you want your hospitals overwhelmed. We have no leadership here because our Governor's hands are tied and the republican state legislature is at home refusing to do anything. DH lost a coworker over the weekend to Covid. He was only 62 and was not a high risk case. I have so much rage right now.