Life by the Numbers
You couldn’t have set up the punchline any better. Our parish priest announced that the bishop was lifting the dispensation on attending mass virtually. So, no more live streaming of mass. No more simulcasts over the radio. Of course, that came with the usual caveats about health and what not. The punchline? Half of the choir was out with COVID and the high school confirmation night had been cancelled due to COVID. I guess irony isn’t lost on the church.
It was that moment that hit me like a ton of bricks. All of us desperately want to be back to normal. No one likes quarantine. No one likes masks. No one likes getting two rounds of shots and then a third. No one likes rapid tests or blood tests or antibody tests or any other kind of test. Some don’t like it and so they don’t do it. So, he we are.
A friend posted on Facebook about the unemployment rate and it created quite the stir. Unemployment rates are based on the number of people actively seeking employment. If I stop looking for whatever reason then I no longer count. That is a stark contrast with counting the number of people actually working. In 2019, 157.54 million people were working. In 2021, that number dropped to 152.72 million. If you click on the link you’ll notice that 2020 was even lower.
When you have competing numbers it becomes important to talk about context. Clearly, there is a gap between the number of people seeking jobs (which is historically low) and the number of people actually working. Understanding the gap is the key to understanding everything. I really can only speak intelligently about my industry. There is a huge teacher shortage throughout the state of Texas and nationwide. COVID plays a role in that, but it isn’t necessarily the only thing.
It would be more accurate to say there are a variety of factors that have come together to create this situation. COVID simply was a catalyst in bringing these factors all together. Suddenly, hundreds if not thousands of teachers realized they were being asked to do the impossible. Student to teacher ratios were increasing, more pressure was coming from on high about test scores, and support from the central office and from the average home was dwindling. Add that to a pandemic and the need to somehow socially distance 30 children while teaching an interactive lesson without people interacting and it was enough for thousands to throw in the towel.
This is just education. Those in other industries could tell their own tales. Working for a living involves trade offs. We all work for an income and that income allows us to afford certain things. Yet, we exchange some risk in return. That risk takes the form of stress, aggravation, and certainly our time. When those costs become too high then workers will decline the paycheck and live with the consequences of that decision.
Meanwhile, many on the employer side are waiting with bated breath like the bishop. They are waiting for that special day when everything will go back to the way it had always been. Like the bishop, they fail to see the irony of that belief system. We can certainly choose to believe what we want to believe about whether this change is a good or bad thing. If we want, we can call workers lazy and ungrateful for the opportunities they have. We can call employers greedy and unwilling to change with the changing times. Maybe it took COVID to create this new reality, but it doesn’t change what is. Somehow we will have to manage.
This speaks to the low unemployment numbers: https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/longevity/588738-huge-huge-numbers-death-rates-up-40-percent-over-pre
1As of Friday, 1,132 students were absent from my local Texas school district with positive COVID cases. I myself had an awful case, which is why I haven’t posted here in a while. I’m just barely getting my butt out of bed and over to my office down the hall.
Yes, we want to get back to normal. The fact is, we can’t always get what we want. There are consequences to our actions – which everyone except Republicans seem to understand. If we go back to normal, more people will get sick. If more people get sick, more people die.
The bet each of us makes is that it won’t be someone we care about that dies. In that case, let’s get going to Cancun for spring break! Woo Hoo!!
2and the high school confirmation night had been cancelled due to COVID.
Doesn’t the school take attendance to confirm students belong there?
3A more extreme case happened after the Black Death in Europe. There was such a labor shortage that wages which hadn’t changed in generations began to rise, and serfs walked away from the land they were supposedly bound to. Nobility and other elites were incensed and mortified that the masses were disrupting the natural order of society.
4As the overall population of the country ages, fewer people want to risk their remaining years going into environments where protections against COVID are marginal (e.g., Texas). If the state really wanted more workers, it would drop limiting what protections employers can mandate and let companies roll with whatever their insurance policies and staffing needs allow.
5Over 65,000 students and teachers in the L.A. School District have tested positive for covid. Obviously vaccine mandates are needed as well as more thorough contact tracing. For example had every teacher student, and their parent been required to show proof of vaccination that would not account for their encounters at work with the unvaccinated. Small business with as few as 3 employees to upwards of 300 or any number also must participate, if we are to “re-open” as a society. Especially those businesses that require contact with the general public.
SCROTUS is about to rule on vaccine mandates. ***If only*** they would rule as on the side of the level of protections they now enjoy be extended everyone. Not holding my breath as conservatives are renown hypocrites. Riiiiiiight John?
6Sorry E Platypus, I should have been more clear. Confirmation is one of the sacraments where a teenager becomes a full member of the church. So, the classes are for sacramental preparation. Luckily, the youth minister is young and tech savvy. She created a Google form they could do instead.
7How can a religious education be anything other than schizophrenia inducing? It begins with two diametrically opposed books, the OT and NT, shoved together into one tome. Then to add to the confusion there are the many versions and translations. That is one Tome of Babble.
As one who survived all the way through to Bar Mitzvah without becoming a psycho serial killer, I consider myself to be very lucky. My luck? Mostly my parents did not buy the myth that I was an adult at 13 and continued to provide guidance, nurturing and all the things good parents do. But you can rest assured as Jane and I explore the options between continued home schooling, public school and other alternatives, neither parochial school nor Hebrew school are among those considerations.
8Well, I was hoping this wouldn’t devolve into another debate on religion. All told, the church has been pretty responsible as COVID has been concerned. Our parish priest has stomach cancer. Luckily it is in remission but he is taking this very seriously and that has trickled down to the congregation. The bishop is no more or less enlightened than most public entities at this point.
We could substitute any public endeavor at this point and see similar results. Houston is bringing their rodeo back for example. Wise? I don’t know. Much like the airlines and shoes and heightened security checks, the thought that it would be temporary somehow evaporated somewhere along the way. At some point we will come to the realization that either you take them in spitting and screaming to get the shot or you just cancel a lot of the stuff we used to take for granted. It’s really one or the other at this point.
9Nick, pandemic recovery does not have to be binary. The freedumb maskholes should not be dragged kicking and screaming from their homes to the nearest clinic for shots. But that would require the resolve of businesses of all sizes, government at all levels, and the rest of us to demand vaccine passports.
Open hockey and other sporting events, bars, even public schools – not K-12, but from whatever grade levels are age eligible for vaccines and above, when it can be done safely. If the maskholes can suggest how that would happen without either their cooperation or quarantine, let them speak.
“Well, I was hoping this wouldn’t devolve into another debate on religion.” Interesting choice of words. Perhaps something the framers of the Constitution anticipated with separation of church and state. Another topic for another day as to why some religious folks refuse to fully appreciate that their religious freedoms exist due to that principle.
10What we all need to realize is that we are never going back to the “before times” and we need to find our way in this new world. Freedom means you have to stop at red lights, not overdraft your bank account and wear a mask for example. As for people leaving crappy jobs – that’s on the employers; pay better, treat your employees like human beings and charge more for your product – if it’s good, people will still buy it.
11Kicking and screaming is but a euphemism. In this case the hope was that enough people would vaccinate on their own without using any coercion. As other vaccines have shown, you need to require it for it to happen on a large enough scale. You can cry freedom all you want, but this is decided law and has been for quite some time.
What I find so interesting is that the people crying the loudest about the COVID shot are the people that have been loudest about requiring other vaccines before. Traditionally, the anti-vax crowd has been on fringes of the left. Now, it is the fringest on the right that are so gung ho on the anti-vax front.
Here is that point. If you you’re kid is old enough to get the vaccine then they should get it. Period. If individuals don’t have a medical reason to bypass the vaccine then they should get the vaccine. Period. There’s no need for discussion. There’s no reason for debate. You sit down. You shut up. You get the vaccine. Period. You can cry, scream, and wail about freedom and then sit down and get the shot. Get up and scream about freedom some more. I really don’t care at this point about people’s feelings. Science doesn’t care about feelings.
12Nick, I am a simple man. Agreed there is no discussion necessary about receiving the vaccine and being a member of society. Just saying that the maskholes who refuse to do their part to be members of society are free to stay home. Definitely remain out of public spaces which includes businesses, and for certain stay away from hospitals. Refuse a free vaccine then have the chutzpah to demand medical treatment at our expense? That is where there needs to be a solid line.
13And another one bites the dust.
14https://www.thedailybeast.com/conservative-activist-kelly-canon-dies-of-covid-complications-after-attending-anti-vaccine-symposium?ref=home
My opinion is that maskholes are mainly the ones we don’t want voting.
Getting immune by having ANY form of Covid is risky.
Omicron looks to be pretty trivial for the Boosted, but dangerous for the Maskholes. Encourage them.
But jump the ICU line for the Boosted or medically exempt.
Nick: discussions don’t Devolve into religion, because they Evolve into discussions of the base attitudes that underlie our rampant irrationality, and religion is irrational.
If the catholic Church isn’t authoritarian, nothing is. Grow a pair and rationally defend it, or leave it at home.
” I really don’t care at this point about people’s feelings. Science doesn’t care about feelings.” Quote from Nick Carraway.
15The good news from U of Colorado Med school — in this wave of COVID, only about 35% of hospital patients testing positive for COVID are there because of their COVID symptoms. Others are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms and are being treated for legs they broke skiing, heart attacks from sedentary lifestyles, cancer, and other usual maladies of American life.
The bad news — in this wave of COVID, even if you have other problems bringing you to the hospital, you still create risk for other patients and staff. And that risk appears to be about 2 times the level of contagion of Delta variant. So there are more precautions taken, more masking and gowning, more social distancing, more monitoring to make certain there is no turn for the worse.
The worst news — do the math. In a general population, twice as contagious means a MUCH higher number of people who are sick and “sharing.” Geometric progressions suck. Even if not as many are going to a hospital because of COVID, 35% are. And few areas of the country had spare hospital capacity sufficient to handle a new disease filling 15%-20% of hospital capacity.
16“Our parish priest announced that the bishop was lifting the dispensation on attending mass virtually. So, no more live streaming of mass. No more simulcasts over the radio.”
It’s hard to pass the collection plate without actual butts in seats.
17Hey PKM, the maskholes can go “home” permanently, to whatever awaits them, brother to the insensible rock. This twofer would also assuage Ormond’s concern about them voting. They don’t want to participate in a civilized community or society? Splendid-shuffle ‘em RIGHT OFFf this mortal coil! I am done with these folks whose “freedom” and/or “sincerely held belief” is so much more important than anyone else’s. That includes more than a few Catholic bishops, including Raymond Burke and Tim Dolan to name two, and that’s only a start! Too bad Burke didn’t kick off when he had COVID.
You are now free to move about the cosmos. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!
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