0803blog

Hold Your Horses

The problem with Donald (Lost popular vote) Trump is that he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

Likewise he epitomizes the cliche, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

And for yet another apropos cliche, Donald (I alone can can fix it) Trump has “put all his (our) eggs in one basket.”

And lastly, Donald (Maybe we’ll postpone the election) Trump is like the losing gambler that he is, hoping for that big winner in a virus vaccine and having no back up plan if Lady Luck doesn’t come his (our) way.

Or how about a baseball analogy. If your starting pitcher just gave up seven straight home runs, it might be time to yank him and try someone different on the mound. Think Donald (Can’t hit the side of a barn) Trump.

Which brings me to COVID 19. We are the worst of all democratic countries around the world in terms of controlling the spread of the virus. That would be mostly because Donald (Can’t walk and chew gum) Trump couldn’t focus on dual or more tracks, which would be funding for a vaccine while at the same time incessantly hammering away to the American public on tried and true precautions like wearing facial masks, keeping social distances, staying away from large (Tulsa rally) openings, frequent hand washing and any other tact that is common knowledge to the average 9 year-old, today.

Then there is the Donald (Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me) Trump. He may not even know the difference between truth and lies but he has used up any smidgen of credibility as he has told so many lies that only another liar or a fool or a Trumper would believe him if a vaccine comes out before the election and Trump claims that it is the magic bullet that he had always predicted and that there will be no bad side effects, like death.

Donald (Put all his (our) eggs in one basket) Trump and Donald (Maybe we’ll postpone the election) Trump are very similar. He is banking everything on a vaccine and if that doesn’t pan out, there is no backup plan. It’s kind of like his so-called business empire, which was built on feet of clay, sleight of hand, hype, bankruptcies and unsuccessful ventures, which of course Donald (Very stable genius) Trump claims is fake news and that he has always had the Midas touch.

Getting back to COVID 19, as each day passes with each new study, it would seem bordering on criminally irresponsible to open schools next month. The original re-opening strategy was based on studies that seemed to show that children did not spread the virus. But that seems not to be the case now and the only sane direction is the conservative approach, continue on distance learning for now until science is more definitive.

Parents seem to be pretty much 50–50 on reopening schools. That is a lot of parents who don’t or won’t send their children to school because they don’t believe the schools will be able to keep kids apart, make them wear masks or wash their dirty little hands a lot. When I was a kid, if someone told me to do all that, I would have totally agreed until I met with my friends and we told the school to shove their new rules.

Teachers are totally freaked out, with very good reason, that one child will come down with COVID 19 and then infect the teacher and the rest of the pod of students. Or what about that one kid who is asymptomatic and was down the shore when a friend was among the 900 attending a party, leaving many to come down with the virus. It is just too risky, unless you are Donald (Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me) Trump.

Other employees, including bus drivers and maintenance workers, also have grave concerns about their safety if the schools are re-opened.

There are concerns about buildings without adequate ventilation systems and classrooms with windows that are sealed shut and can’t be opened to promote air flow. Some buildings have narrow hallways, making social distancing during class changes impossible, unless the kids find a way to float in the air.

There are worries over plans to disinfect between classes, leaving students to mingle and wait in halls for class to resume, a perfect recipe for viral spread.

And will students and teachers wear masks in schools that are not air-conditioned? Unlikely because a mask can make the air even more stifling and unbearable.

The poor school superintendents are faced with an impossible decision: Open schools and risk a spread of the virus or keep them closed and answer to all those parents who believe distance learning is a farce and that if they keep wearing blinders that somehow, things will somehow be OK.