As of today, all nine of our ICUs at Central Peninsula Hospital are full. Eight of them are from COVID patients. Several of Anchorage's hospitals are also at ICU capacity. Never before have the hospitals been under this level of strain. [Drive safely, people.] Meanwhile, the vaccination rate for our borough is only at 46%.
I was missing a third of my students in three of my six classes today. Some of them will miss the next week of school. Anticipating that circumstance, I have been placing everything for my courses on our district learning management system, Canvas. Still, we have students who will go to homes with poor or no Internet.
This was preventable, and we still have the chance to curb this. While I pray that things will not get worse, I am not optimistic for our community. Our population is avoiding an FDA approved vaccine, but some of those same people are turning to medicines (such as Ivermectin) that the FDA has specifically spoken out against for use as a COVID treatment. Extremists have been standing at one of our main traffic lights with sign protesting the vaccine and mask-wearing.
Sadly, only direct experience has changed the minds of a couple of people I know from the area. It took hospitalization for them to recognize that COVID is NOT just another type of flu. Now they are continuing to suffer from the long-term effects that this disease can bring.
For my part, I've kept such observations to myself while in my classroom--the situation is too politically charged. Instead, I continue to wear my mask and do not let my students deviate from the seating chart for more than one short discussion period [My seating chart does have students in groups of four facing each other, but it keeps them otherwise more spread apart than other arrangements I have tried]. When asked why, I tell them this part of the truth: I want them in school, and I want to be able to stay in school to teach them. These precautions on my part will hopefully reduce the chances of them (or me) being sent home as a close contact.
However, those precautions might just help keep them from getting or spreading the disease as well. They might keep open an ICU bed when it is needed. They might make it so that this is not their last year with one of their loved ones.
I was missing a third of my students in three of my six classes today. Some of them will miss the next week of school. Anticipating that circumstance, I have been placing everything for my courses on our district learning management system, Canvas. Still, we have students who will go to homes with poor or no Internet.
This was preventable, and we still have the chance to curb this. While I pray that things will not get worse, I am not optimistic for our community. Our population is avoiding an FDA approved vaccine, but some of those same people are turning to medicines (such as Ivermectin) that the FDA has specifically spoken out against for use as a COVID treatment. Extremists have been standing at one of our main traffic lights with sign protesting the vaccine and mask-wearing.
Sadly, only direct experience has changed the minds of a couple of people I know from the area. It took hospitalization for them to recognize that COVID is NOT just another type of flu. Now they are continuing to suffer from the long-term effects that this disease can bring.
For my part, I've kept such observations to myself while in my classroom--the situation is too politically charged. Instead, I continue to wear my mask and do not let my students deviate from the seating chart for more than one short discussion period [My seating chart does have students in groups of four facing each other, but it keeps them otherwise more spread apart than other arrangements I have tried]. When asked why, I tell them this part of the truth: I want them in school, and I want to be able to stay in school to teach them. These precautions on my part will hopefully reduce the chances of them (or me) being sent home as a close contact.
However, those precautions might just help keep them from getting or spreading the disease as well. They might keep open an ICU bed when it is needed. They might make it so that this is not their last year with one of their loved ones.
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