03-19-2020, 07:05 PM
Boomer in the greater Boston area.
The CDC and the state health people were doing their thing, tracking down the infected, isolating and quarantining, until last Wednesday.
On Wednesday, we got an email from the school system that three people in Somerville a city of about 100,000, were infected, two with kids in the public schools, including one school one of our kids goes to. That school and the other school were going to be closed for a day to be cleaned. That seemed pretty reasonable.
Within hours, they announced that the entire school system would be shut down, for two weeks. Then the state got into the act, banning large gatherings, then medium sized gatherings, then school for three weeks. Not to be outdone, the Mayor closed all eat in restaurants. Then the state did. Now, nearby towns are closing down construction sites - because everyone knows that the cramped, enclosed, outdoors environment of a building under construction is perfect for infections.
I took my daughter to a favorite restaurant, just hours before the restaurant shutdown. Dances and other small events are shutting down. There's no longer any rush hour; I was already working remotely, but now everyone is.
It's ridiculous. We went from no precautions, to reasonable precautions, to gross overkill, over a weekend. And none of this will permit enough cases to build herd immunity. People are laboring under the misconception that it's only for a week or two, when it's not likely to change until an effective vaccine is produced and released, which is likely to be a year or more. Everyone is giving up a year of their lives to avoid a small chance of a disease which for most of them won't be more than a bad cold.
The CDC and the state health people were doing their thing, tracking down the infected, isolating and quarantining, until last Wednesday.
On Wednesday, we got an email from the school system that three people in Somerville a city of about 100,000, were infected, two with kids in the public schools, including one school one of our kids goes to. That school and the other school were going to be closed for a day to be cleaned. That seemed pretty reasonable.
Within hours, they announced that the entire school system would be shut down, for two weeks. Then the state got into the act, banning large gatherings, then medium sized gatherings, then school for three weeks. Not to be outdone, the Mayor closed all eat in restaurants. Then the state did. Now, nearby towns are closing down construction sites - because everyone knows that the cramped, enclosed, outdoors environment of a building under construction is perfect for infections.
I took my daughter to a favorite restaurant, just hours before the restaurant shutdown. Dances and other small events are shutting down. There's no longer any rush hour; I was already working remotely, but now everyone is.
It's ridiculous. We went from no precautions, to reasonable precautions, to gross overkill, over a weekend. And none of this will permit enough cases to build herd immunity. People are laboring under the misconception that it's only for a week or two, when it's not likely to change until an effective vaccine is produced and released, which is likely to be a year or more. Everyone is giving up a year of their lives to avoid a small chance of a disease which for most of them won't be more than a bad cold.