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Antonia Malchik's avatar

We have plenty of problems right here in Montana, especially in my county (https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-10-24/whitefish-montana-coronavirus-outbreak), but one thing our governor did right (in my opinion) was to keep outside recreational opportunities open (except for National Parks, and that was because the gateway communities were becoming overwhelmed and asked to close for a bit) when some states were closing them. Granted, we have gazillions of acres of public land to spread out in, but people do tend to flock to popular trails close to home anyway, and during lockdown and the summer that was even more true. I read a piece where some trails were getting a lot of use, abuse, and disrespect (litter, etc.), but the non-profits who maintain them took it in stride, saying that it was a lot easier to clean up and repair trails than to do the same for people's mental (and physical) health. There is a lot more to learn and navigate, but it was good to know we could get out when we needed.

I appreciate the points about epistemic humility. Sometimes it almost feels like the refrain "there's too much we don't know" is used as a tool to excuse government inaction. Not everywhere, obviously, but heightening the uncertainty can serve some ends--similarly to climate change.

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Weihsueh Chiu's avatar

On schools - in our local schools, it is an open secret amongst students and teachers (maybe not administrators...) that many infected kids are not getting tested, and some are even coming to school. Second, while classrooms do not seem to be superspreading, school-related events are another matter completely. At one local school, homecoming - held outdoors - became a superspreader event (they then went virtual until after Thanksgiving). And other schools are still going forward with homecoming. So like colleges, where "off campus" events seem to be driving transmission, I think K-12 schools (especially HS) need to rethink non-classroom activities, like sports, clubs, and dances. But the call to "keep schools open" I think can be easily misconstrued to mean "business as usual" with just a bunch of hygiene "theatre" like temperature checks, wiping surfaces, and the like...

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