[ExI] next county

Tue Aug 4 20:57:07 UTC 2020

> On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] next county

On Tue, Aug 4, 2020 at 12:53 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

>> If this was January or even February I'd have some suggestions on how schools might stay open and people not die, but this is August and in the US the virus is so out of control none of those ideas would work anymore. Most European and Asian countries can safely reopen their schools in the fall, but I'm sorry to say the US can not.

John K Clark

> What should be the cutoff between can and cannot? 

>…I'm not sure what the exact cut off number is, but whatever that point is we certainly passed it…

We?  You and I don’t live in the same state.

>… when just Florida and Texas reported 3 times more new COVID-19 cases… John K Clark

OK so Florida and Texas shouldn’t open their schools.  New York, New Jersey, schools stay closed.  Clearly some states can open their schools.  California has delegated most of the responsibility to the county level on public schools, so that one is a special case for very understandable reasons: there are some counties which are covid catastrophes and some which are nearly untouched.  I see five counties up in the north end with 752 confirmed cases (combined) with zero fatalities in any of them.

Oh wait, that report was from last week.  Most recent data from today: 752 confirmed cases (combined) with zero fatalities.  Note that the 752 patients who didn’t perish in those counties survived WITH covid, but not necessarily OF covid.

(…sensa huma, sheesh…)

I had heard of those counties for the reason that none of them shut down their businesses and the state authorities didn’t mess with them.  Eh, it is a good idea to jump at every opportunity to not mess with Modoc County.  Or Lassen, or Plumas, Sierra, Shasta, those kindsa places.  They whoop ass up that way if one fails to be respectful and carry oneself with gentlemanly manners.

Clearly the decisions on how those counties should run their business shouldn’t be made in Sacramento, where the same rules would apply in Los Angeles county with nearly 200k confirmed cases and 4700 fatalities (oh dear, close those schools, close everything forthwith down there.)

So, OK then.  California is a mixed bag.  The governor made a sensible decision: conditions in counties vary widely, so they must make the call.  Problem: the county health departments then  become power without accountability: they aren’t elected.  I don’t know if mayors have the authority to overrule county health departments in California.

Some states are in really good shape: Hawaii, Montana, Wyoming, Kentucky, West Virginia, Vermont and Alaska for instance.  Those outfits should open their schools and get on with it.  Montana, Vermont and Wyoming were already doing well academically, but my birth state of Kentucky and family seat in West Virginia can certainly use some help academically.

spike

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