62 thoughts on “November 9, 2020: Fun While It Lasted”

  1. I'm confused by our district, we got an email last Monday saying there is no change but a shift is possible and at that time the published data was *just* below the thresholds for secondary schools to go full distance.

    Last Thursday's data Thursday passed that mark and it looks like we'll blow right past the level for everyone to go distance, but we didn't hear anything the rest of the week. It's an inevitable, but difficult change for everyone so let's try to get in front of planning for it, right?

    1. Our district's wavier to allow elementary kids to return to in-person was approved about a week and a half ago. No word yet on when they plan to actually come back, or what it will look like when they do. I expect we will choose to stick with distance learning instead of risk returning. I also expect that, once they come back, it will only last a few weeks and need to be shut back down again.

  2. The jalapeno has 2 mornings of in-person school for the first time in a month this week. Meanwhile, the nanny for our 2nd grade pod found out yesterday his roommate tested positive for COVID-19, so the peperoncino is doing school from home until further notice. Crossing fingers that the nanny tests negative; he was camping over the weekend and is now staying out of the apartment to avoid any chance of additional exposure. Oy.

  3. From the time I met my wife until we started having kids, we would sneak away a couple Sundays a month (after church) and just drive out of town with no set plans. We would usually just tour the country side and find a place to hike, sight see, and search for cool little local restaurants. Fast forward to empty nesting. The past 3 months we have done the same thing and it is getting to be a day I really look forward to. Yesterday we got on the road and ended up at Outstate Brewing in Fergus Falls. We sampled a few beers and for the hour we were there it was just us and the owners watching the Vikes. We then headed over to Battle Lake and had a late lunch at The Boathouse, which is owned by a chef who worked for me at Doolittles 15 years ago.

    The nice thing about these trips right now is that most places in our corner of the state are pretty quiet on Sundays. So the risk of Covid is pretty slim. We were the only customers in both joints yesterday. The down side is occasionally we hit a joint in the middle of nowhere in which we get "the look" because we are wearing masks. We don't stop at places that have a ton of cars, because I can only assume they are packed in pretty tight.

    1. zooom, I just want to recognize what sounds like an awesome ritual. If my nest is ever empty, I hope we can manage to do things like this. (I note this in juxtaposition to our current pandemic-induced near-total dysfunction in all aspects of life at this point in time.)

        1. No, but we’ve been having discussions with the oldest that if he can’t learn to do (or sometimes TURN IN!!1!1!1!!) his frigging homework, that he can look forward to living in our basement on a restricted phone and WiFi network FOREVER.
          But he’s not the only one really struggling with homework motivation issues here these days.

    1. Hopefully it is the first of at least a few similar announcements, would be great to have multiple vendors ramping up supply chains like never before.

      I'd like to think light at the end of the tunnel will make it easier for people to follow health guidelines but fear it might do the opposite.

      1. From what I've read, many of the other trials are also targeting the vaccine in a similar way so they are optimistic that there will be multiple options.

    2. Will try not to get into the forbidden zone on the vaccine, but unfortunately in my neck of the woods, it will be a faint light at the end of the tunnel. There is an incredibly high number of people who have stated over and over that there is no way in hell they will take the vaccine. I .... just... don't.... argh!!

      1. I am going to guess that zero percent of these people suffered from or saw a loved one suffer from measles or mumps or polio, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean, people with chicken pox have sent their kids to chicken pox parties to intentionally infect their kids, so I guess nothing surprises me.

        1. We catered at a "Wellness" seminar a while back at a different venue than the joint. It basically ended up being an "anti-vaxx" rally. I did not work it, but my wife did. She is a Physical Therapist in a nursing home for her day job. She was appalled by the content of the seminar, by the tone of the seminar, and by the handful of people who taunted our staff for being "sheep" (wearing a mask).

          1. I am a proud sheep that wears a mask, wore condoms before I was married, and I even wash my hands when I poop on them.

      2. Living in a similar area, I have a two-part optimistic notion: first, that I hope this is a vocal minority not a majority, and, second, that as more and more people get the vaccine (and don't exhibit signs of being controlled by Bill Gates, or whatever), many of these folks will drop their defiance.

        1. That assumes that those folks are willing and able to look at evidence and change their views based on it. Count me as less than optimistic on that point.

        2. Yes, Philo... I have similar hopes. I will say this: People are pretty aware of my stance on faithfully following the restrictions and protocols put forth by MDH. I have had very little pushback at the joint regarding masking, etc. I don't mean to paint a broad brush across the people in my area as it is a great place to live with incredibly awesome and generous people. We have experienced such a wave of support from the community, and those who I know are a bit radical in their views still respect my business and they do the right thing when they dine here. It is a pretty easy conversation to have with people when you say "I just want to keep people safe, and I could not live with myself if I failed to follow the suggested protocols and someone died". How can you argue with that?

      3. Governor of Utah, a state with sky-rocketing hospitalization rates, finally came out to announce a statewide mask mandate. I will be interested to see whether that action by a Republican in a dark red state will move the needle. Of course, he's a lame duck governor, so Profiles in Courage.

    3. I'm not qualified to express any sort of opinion on these results, but it sounds good. 45K administrations, 50-50 vaccine/placebo, 94 Covid infections from that group, 90% of them in the placebo group. My question is how they controlled for behavior in these 45K people. I suppose they can make some assumptions about how many were actually susceptible, but if they are correct that the result is 90% effectiveness, that's gonna actually create herd immunity without 5 million people dying.

      1. My understanding in all of these trials is that they depend on double-blind assignment to treatment or control to negate any impact on behavior of being included in the study.

        The goal in these trials is to have large enough groups in areas with high enough prevalence that they can see treatment effects, holding constant the AVERAGE behaviors across the two groups. If you don't know whether you are treatment or control, then (so goes the theory), your behavior should not be affected by which group you are in.

        That says that both groups' behaviors should be equally affected (on average) by being in the study. If the study group is sufficiently large and homogeneous , then the random assignment between treatment and control should protect against any biases in the original selection process (recruitment to the study). Even better, if the original recruitment group is sufficiently large and heterogeneous, then random assignment should tamp down any behavioral differences associated with observable or even unobservable characteristics.

        Of course, the recruitment protocol probably leads to some biases in who is in the study to begin with. The study group might be biased against COVID risk-taking behaviors. Suppose the protection the vaccine confers is inversely related to risk-taking. The real-world protection surely would be lower than the study-group treatment effect, because the real world would contain a larger share of risk-takers.

        1. Effective for 7 days. The results were after 7 days. We don’t know how long it will be effective. The vaccine needs to be stored at -94 degrees F. I’m reserving judgment.

  4. Notre Dame follow up. Appears the students followed their leader - remember the president of Notre Dame was infected along with Trump due to his maskless attendance at the White House gathering.

    Oh, yeah, and finals are Nov 16-20, so kids will be going home just under 2 weeks from this debacle. The school is going to try to force them to test before leaving South Bend at least. 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/11/09/notre-dame-fans-rush-field-covid/

  5. My Subaru project is on hold for a few days. I got the heads on and torqued down, but when I went to install the inner timing belt cover I noticed that the front lip where the camshaft alignment mark is supposed to be is broken off, so I don't have my reference mark for lining up the camshaft on that side. I can't find that at any of the local auto parts stores, it's basically a dealer part, so I have to order it online from a wholesaler. I can pay $10 shipping and have it in 4-5 days or pay $50 shipping and have it in 2-3 days. So 4-5 days it is. I'm not in any rush, and Younger Daughter won't need the car for awhile since she's got tonsillitis and an abscess on her throat.

  6. Now that we are in full remote learning in our district, here's my chart on Covid Cases in Dakota County. The hand-drawn arrow on the left is when school started and the one on the right is about one week after school started. Correlation is not necessarily causation, but, well...

    I'm working on this

    1. I should note that my numbers are not the same as the state's 14 day average per 10K because they assign a date to the test as occurring on the date that the test was taken, not the date that the test was reported, which causes the data to be incorrect and always subject to revision down the road. I am sticking with my approach of counting the number of tests reported on a given date because (a) that's all that I can find publicly and (b) the numbers are more stable. We are now at north of 73 cases per 10K people per 14 days. The state's recommendation was to have all remote when it got to 50. The problem is that it went from 40 to 73 in seven days. One might call it an exponential increase.

        1. I stand by my assertion that the decision to open schools, while I understand and sympathize with the motivations to open them, was a disaster. No good options, etc. But, we had basically six months before schools opened to formulate a plan to control the virus in general, but that would have taken coordinated effort between state, local, and federal governments, and that was just not gonna happen. I also acknowledge that things are going bad in a lot of places outside of the US.

          1. My frustration with this is further reinforced by my observance of people all around me. I was in a meeting several weeks ago and a woman in a video conference was sitting in a conference room with her co-workers. She was talking about her daughter's wedding in Bismarck two days earlier, which was not at all curtailed by the fact that Bismarck was the hottest spot in the country for Covid. She talked about dancing all night. OMG, I thought, how can you be so careless. Her entire family came down with COVID. She's better now, but she missed 10 days of work.

            Our neighbors hold get togethers and go in and out of each other's houses. This is crazy. My sister wasn't going to celebrate Halloween, but her neighbor called and said, can we come over? We want you to see our baby. So they came over to my sister's house and she (foolishly) let them. A few days later, they called back and said, we are COVID+. My sister is now in quarantine. Ugh.

    2. We're at full in-person for K-4 here. The superintendent addressed the rise and said they don't have evidence of transmission from the schools so will continue with in-person for only K-4. We also don't have the same neighbors as Minnesota so that does help.

      1. I think there is a lot of merit to in-person pre-K and K-3 or K-4, based on what I have read of the epidemiology, although there may be some heightened risk to staff and teachers. But the older kids remain harder to justify at this point. Junior highs and high schools are super-spreader environments waiting to strike.

    3. Our school is in a modified hybrid mode, and I have to say that if every other establishment were operating the way schools are, I think things would be better off. Anyone in the building has to complete a health check before school starts each morning, everyone is separated into pods, everyone is wearing masks, positive cases have to be reported, and the entire pod is informed by both phone and email if someone in the pod tests positive and must then quarantine for 14 days from exposure. There have been positive cases at the school, but it doesn't seem that the virus is spreading within the school community.

      That said, I wonder if having schools even partially open contributes to a sense of normalcy that makes people bolder about doing other things.

      1. So much this. We had 1 positive in our school. It did not spread to anyone. The kids are good about following the preventative measures.

      2. I wonder if having schools even partially open contributes to a sense of normalcy that makes people bolder about doing other things

        This was my question the other day. Perhaps not applicable across different states with different policy postures and social attitudes from the start, but for MN, I think it's highly likely that open schools was a signal and suggestion of normalcy. (Counterpoint, kids in hybrid and distance learning and all manner of things...so it's not as though we weren't very, very aware of the current state of things.)

  7. Little time to post, but the other shoe dropped at the joint. Had to close for at least the next few days... potentially a week. F'me

  8. The hellscape that was predicted in case of a Biden victory is coming to pass. We are expected to have a heavy frost tonight. My newly-planted winter garden (leaf lettuce, two kinds of chard, sugar snap peas, beet greens, rocket, mesclun) is now covered with a layer of plastic, as I was too late to get fabric garden blankets (now on Amazon order, due Nov. 12) from my locals.

  9. Edina Public Schools:

    Rising numbers of COVID cases have caused a surge in staff and student absences since last week, especially at Edina High School. Stress on school operations have become unsustainable, and our ability to maintain mitigation protocols is being
    compromised.

    As a result, the District makes the following announcements:
    Tomorrow (Tuesday, Nov. 10) will be an asynchronous learning day for all students at Edina High School.

    The Edina School Board will hold an Emergency Work Session tomorrow at 5 p.m. Pending Board discussion, EHS will implement a plan to shift to distance learning. The Board will also hear information and recommendations regarding the learning models at the middle and elementary schools. Meeting materials will be posted here by noon tomorrow. Visit the School Board Meeting webpage for a link to the live-stream.

    1. I hope their decision spurs others to action, my district isn't too far from there and we got a message from one teacher today referencing the # of students missing time. Maybe K-4 (or 5) can keep going for a while longer, but based on some really stupid/basic math and the data lag for the official numbers I'm thinking *maybe* those (in Hennepin, at least) can make it to Thanksgiving.

  10. SBG, I'm pretty sure you know this guy's dad. When he first opened Lyn65 about a mile from my parents', it was hilarious to see how often Papa Young visited a place with an exciting bartender and a chef he knew.

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