Notes From My Dining Room Table

WASHINGTON -- In 2020, people talk about "two Americas." During the coronavirus outbreak, there is one America, a sheltered America, with people who -- like me -- can work at home. And another America, an edgier America, that stands to be devastated by coronavirus closures.

There is also a third America that can be seen in the three states hardest hit by the COVID-19 and virtually shut down. In order to keep the rest of America from turning into that third America, sheltered America argues, stringent measures must be imposed on all of America.

To which edgy America responds: If elected officials close up America for one month or two months, what will be left?

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested a lid on gatherings of 50 people for eight weeks, Cathy Merrill, owner of Washingtonian Magazine, which employs some 75 people, wrote in The Washington Post that the so-called eight-week "hiatus" could serve as a "death sentence" for her business. While she was working at home, Merrill wondered how many of those setting emergency policy have ever run a small business.

I write this from my dining room table. I showed symptoms for coronavirus and had covered an event attended by someone who later learned he was infected.

I saw a doctor. I'm in home lockdown for two weeks. I don't know if I have COVID-19 because I have not been able to take the test.

There was a lot of blame hurled unfairly at President Donald Trump for the CDC's delays in getting tests where they are needed. The tests now have hit states, and people with symptoms still are waiting.

My doctor in Virginia has had tests since Monday, but a lack of protective equipment, general confusion and state protocols prevent him from administering them.

If this fight to contain the pandemic is going to work, the test situation has to be fixed quickly. I've been scrupulous about staying at home without knowing if I have COVID-19 because I can report and write at home. But I think it's too much to expect everyone to stay home just in case they are infected -- especially asymptomatic people living paycheck to paycheck or struggling to keep small businesses afloat.

I'm not talking about college kids on spring break, but entrepreneurs, service workers and families in tight spaces.

Which brings to mind Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, who last weekend shut down the state's public schools through April 6. Why? The CDC website recommends school closures only when someone with a confirmed infection has been in a school or in districts with community transmission. Even then, the CDC recommends closures for two to five days.

If you go into the state's coronavirus webpage, there's a link to the CDC guidelines. CDC modeling projects no change in the infection curve or hospitalizations after school closures of two to four weeks. And the models predict multiple downsides -- interrupted learning, increased risk for grandparent caretakers, more social mixing outside of school. Not to mention there's no school.

But state's governors were so eager to look as if they were ahead of the curve that more than 30 of them shut down all their schools.

Sisolak could counter that there is a risk, as Heard Elementary School in North Las Vegas reported a Clark County school's first case. It's a sad milestone that would call for school closure and cleanup is already underway. But is it worth the closure of every Nevada public, private and magnet school?

On Tuesday night, Sisolak called for a 30-day closure of "nonessential businesses" -- with little explanation as to why his constituents should stop making money for a month when the president's coronavirus task force is pushing "15 Days to Slow the Spread."

Sisolak spokesman Ryan McInerney said that the chief medical officers of all of Nevada's hospitals advised in favor of a 30-day closure.

Sisolak told Nevadans: "This is affecting the lives of our citizens. People are dying. You know, every day that is delayed here, I'm losing a dozen people on the back end. They're going to die as a result of this."

The inference is that if you question the policy, you want people to die. It took guts then for Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman to appeal to the governor to shorten his 30-day shutdown because she doesn't want to see Las Vegas choke.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has issued more measured restrictions, such as a mandate that 75% of nonessential workforce work from home. Thursday morning, he tried to quell the panic when he told reporters, "Let's just take a deep breath and make sure we're all acting on facts instead of acting on fear." He added, "The facts we can handle."

My fear is that when governments impose -- not suggest -- closures too soon, and those measures don't stem the tide sufficiently, but they do manage to destroy people's livelihoods, the public will tire of closures if and when more stringent measures are needed.

A fine article, interesting, and I have no criticism for it or for the freeper poster. Thank you.

But...

It seems more and more every day EVERY such excerpt has a dandy color photo at the top — most of which are NOT particularly illustrative, or even relevant.

I believe FR was conceived as “text-mostly” service to make for speedy and efficient loading, and max info-pak into small spaces.

For my lovely and endlessly patient wife’s interest, I often print off the excerpt for her later reading. When I do, to conserve paper and ink, I copy-paste-edit the excerpt into MSWord, and cut the superfluous photo, if it doesn’t add anything useful...

These photos are so often so very irrelevant as to cause a chuckle.

Please, posters, ask your self if the gratuitous photo really adds anything useful. Please?

I live in rural N Nevada. sissylack is driving us crazy. One proclamation one day——another the next-—sometimes conflicting.

However-—re: The schools closing.

Kids are NOT staying at home. They are all over the place. The lack any kind of discipline anyway-—why would they behave NOW??? Foolish to even think they would.

The biggest part that is chapping my hide: The FULL SIZED school buses are being driven around all weekdays to DELIVER lunches to the little darlings who seem to have parents who cannot feed their spawn.

I have no kids...

I have owned 4 different houses in my lifetime. I have
owned some houses overlapping-due to an inheritance, etc.

I have paid over 85 years of property taxes-—ALL of which usually have had about 50% going to the “School District”. In recent years, school districts are feeding someone else’s kids with my property tax money & YOURS. Some get 2 meals a day. Some geet weekend & vacation meals...

All in all, they are NOT getting any kind of useful education at school-—but they are sure getting fed-—ON MY DIME!!!!!!

Enough. sissylack & all the other governors need to put a stop to this. It is beyond unfair. You have kids? FEED THEM YOURSELF. My parents did-—we had sack lunches all of our school days. Took a full loaf of Wonder Bread to make daily school lunches for the 4 of us-—PBJ was normal—for every school day.

Who is checking to see if EBT food allowances are being counted twice—as school is providing lunches? I will bet an ice cream bar that that whole system is double dipping on meals.

"I showed symptoms for coronavirus and had covered an event attended by someone who later learned he was infected.........
snip

But I think it's too much to expect everyone to stay home just in case they are infected ..."

And I think if you "showed symptoms" of flu you stay home. Period. And keep your plague ridden brats home too.

“...In recent years, school districts are feeding someone else’s kids with my property tax money & YOURS. Some get 2 meals a day. Some get weekend & vacation meals...”

Yep. If it’s any comfort, the money for the meals is coming from your federal taxes and perhaps state taxes, not your local school tax. And maybe more comforting is the fact the children’s families are also getting food stamps whose allotment doesn’t take into account the free meals the kids get from school.

You certainly aren’t expecting parents to feed their own children are you? How 20th century of you.

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