California COVID Update

In Friday, Gov Newsom ordered both public and private schools in all but rural counties to shut down school campuses this fall and offer only on line instruction. Notably, this was in a bad-news-Friday-afternoon announcement, but it also comes in the context of earlier pressure from teachers' unions:

The Los Angeles Teachers Union issued a research paper arguing schools in the district can’t reopen without certain policy provisions in place ranging from mandatory face masks to a “moratorium” on charter schools and the defunding of police.

With classes set to begin on Aug. 18, United Teachers Los Angeles, a union consisting of 35,000 members, outlined a series of demands that should be met before reopening,

Teachers' unions are typically among the largest political donors and vote blocs in any state. What this move does is place a burden on private, particularly Catholic, schools that will make them relatively less attractive in relation to public, unionized schools, since the private schools will be forced to offer the same diluted product as the public schools. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles had within the last several days carried an announcement on its web site that its schools would offer in-person instruction this fall.

Newsom's announcement has likely forestalled that. For any school to return to in-person instruction will require conformance to intricate and likely impossible sets of conditions. My wife expects lawsuits from affected parties almost immediately. Another practical effect will probably be to increase homeschooling, especially if parents are out of work or working from home in any case. Home school co-ops would be an option if parents are willing to work under the radar of regulations against gatherings.

However, the fact that Newsom announced this on a Friday suggests he expected a furor from parents who wanted schools to reopen. Another factor is that Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti, who had been quasi-telegraphing for most of this week that he was "on the verge" of ordering a renewed full stay-at-home lockdown, backed off on Friday and instead now feels a new poster will solve the problem. I kid you not.

He has made this poster free for the download so everyone can print out a copy, maybe blow it up big, maybe stick it on phone poles or put it in your front yard. I asked my wife if we could put one in our front yard, maybe mounted on a sheet of plywood. I avoided problems in the marriage by dropping the request.

Hoeever, I'm posting it here in the interests of convincing all my visitors that wearing a mask will be essential of we're going to beat this terrible pandemic.

However, Mayor Garcetti is now telegraphing that we may be closer to doing this than we thought even on Wednesday, when he was still threatening a full stay-at-home.

But he stopped short of enacting restrictions, saying he’s hopeful that Angelenos are working to contain the spread, and the effects will be seen in the coming week. He also said that while hospitalizations are at a record high, hospital stays have become shorter as doctors learn how to best treat the disease.

Hey, that's great, it looks like he's gone to an oracle or something who's told him the curve's gonna bend next week, and we don't need to do all this stuff after all! My own view is that his earlier threats caused another behind-the-scenes furor -- somehow these things don't get to the media at all -- and he had to go to Dr Ferrer, the social justice PhD health director, and tell her the stats were gonna have to improve.

I'm sure they will.

Stay tuned.