Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Saturday, February 20, 2021

Reopening Schools

 Greg Sargent lays out the problems with Republicans using schools in specific and Covid in general as an attack angle on Biden and Democrats. First, Biden is "going big" in his Covid plan and working to reopen schools. 

Second is really about the American Attention Span. When voters go to the polls in 2022, how much will they remember two things: the 1/6 insurrection and the recovery from Covid? The first is unknowable until it's knowable.

With Covid recovery, I'm actually optimistic. All along the paradox of Covid is that it is simultaneously deadly and not deadly; contagious and not-contagious. Masks and distancing are a pain (actually, as an introvert, distancing is...fine), but I don't feel especially worried about getting Covid as long as I follow got precautions. And if I DO get it, I feel reasonably confident I will live. I worry most about long haul Covid and an impact on my health which is already feeling the indignities of middle age.

As a teacher, I am hopeful that I will get my first Fauci Ouchie in the next 6 weeks, and be fully vaccinated by Memorial Day at the latest. I will still mostly follow precautions as advised, but my worry about developing heart problems or even dying will be greatly reduced. I think schools reopen in close to normal conditions in the fall. I think Covid becomes an endemic seasonal illness that is a hassle for some people with occasional dire implications for others. In other words, it becomes like the flu in reality, not just Trumpian rhetoric.

I really think the summer is going to be OK, not perfect, but OK. And Republicans attacking Democrats and Biden for their Covid response will not echo outside Fox/OAN/Newsmax.

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