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First of all I do not know anybody from the town of Oakley which is somewhere up near San Francisco. For sure I do not know anybody from that town’s school board . . . or perhaps I should say I didn’t know any of the now ex-members of that school board. Ex-members? Yes, for they all resigned after their meeting and their snide comments mainly about the parents of school children who are being forced into Zoom distance learning were accidentally on an open mike. The video feed shut off after school officials realized their profanity & insults were broadcast to the very same parents they were disparaging. A school board with what I would politely refer to as a whole lot of chutzpah.

(The entire school board at Oakley elementary has since resigned.)

Locally from towns just outside San Diego, in La Mesa-Spring Valley (LMSV), another open mike embarrassment during a Zoom school board meeting when Chardá Bell-Fontenot, the vice president of the La Mesa-Spring Valley School Board (LMSVSB) apparently said that reopening schools was akin to slavery and an exercise in white supremacy. 

As  many of you already know, I am usually suspicious of a hyphenated last name, so I personally went and listened her tirade. To me it sounded as if she said that forcing her to vote on sending kids back to school was like slavery and white supremacy. 

Whaaat! To me this is the pinnacle of chutzpah as it is those nonwhite children who are suffering the most from the stoppage of in-person learning. Keep in mind that this is the Vice President of LMSVSB. After listening twice to what Ms. Chardá Bell-Fontenot said, let’s just say that my feelings about hyphenated last names has not changed.

To be fair the LMSVSB did vote 4-1 to reopen schools . . . I wonder which member voted “no?”

(As of yet, Ms. Chardá Bell-Fontenot has not resigned.)

I bring up these two very recent open-mike episodes, because I wonder how many more school boards act and speak in a similar dastardly fashion when the mikes are not open.

On 2/25 there was a front page article in my local “newspaper” about how preventing children from attending in-person school is having dramatic deleterious effects on children. Attempted suicides, visits to emergency rooms, inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations . . . all increased and aggravated because of distance learning. Finally a group is suing Mr. Gavin Newsom, our governor, and his so-called experts (his medical underlings “that know best” in his autocratic regime.) over the school situation.

It’s about time! 

Most of the following is from Science, 2/15/21:

“In March 2020, schools around the world closed as governments tried to keep SARS-CoV-2 in check. But children in Sweden through ninth grade continued to attend class, while 10th through 12th graders shifted to remote learning.

“Whether the harms of school closures outweigh the risks of virus transmission in classrooms and hallways has been the subject of intense debate around the world. Outbreaks have demonstrated that the virus can spread via schools to the wider community at least occasionally, and some data suggest teachers have higher than average risk of infection. However, it has been difficult to separate school-based transmission from other confounding factors, especially because schools have tended to open or close in concert with other restrictions lifting or tightening.

“A study then compared infection rates of parents whose youngest child was in ninth grade with those whose youngest was in 10th grade. They also compared infection rates in teachers who continued to teach in person at lower secondary schools (grades seven to nine) with those of teachers at upper secondary schools (grades 10 to 12), who taught remotely. Finally, they compared infection rates in the spouses of teachers in the two types of schools.

“Swedish schools instituted only relatively mild precautions against infection in the spring. Health authorities encouraged pupils and teachers to wash or disinfect their hands regularly, keep their distance when possible, and stay home when ill. But neither teachers nor students wore masks, and close contacts of confirmed cases were notquarantined.”

It is of interest to me that this Science article was titled,

“Keeping schools open without masks or quarantines doubled Swedish teachers’ COVID-19 risk.” 

The first paragraph reads,

“A careful analysis of health data from Sweden suggests keeping schools open with only minimal precautions in the spring roughly doubled teachers’ risk of being diagnosed with the pandemic coronavirus. Their partners faced a 29% higher risk of becoming infected than partners of teachers who shifted to teaching online. Parents of children in school were 17% more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 than those whose children were in remote learning.”

The title and the introductory paragraph certainly imply that the risk to the teachers was prohibitive. OMG!

However, when the entire article is read, the actual numbers say something different.(N.B. going from a risk of 0.1% to 0.2% is a doubling, however both risks are exceedingly low.)

The following statistics are from this same Science article.

In grades 7-9 there were 39,000 teachers who taught in-person, and 79 (0.2%) were hospitalized with Covid, and 1 (0.0025%) died. Ergo, there does appear to be a risk to teaching in a classroom without masks, but it is extremely low.

Would the adding of masks possibly have reduced the risks to both teachers and families?  Possibly.

However, Danny Benjamin, a pediatrician at Duke University who has studied the spread of the pandemic coronavirus in North Carolina schools, said, the Swedish study shows that “even if schools do not require masking, risk to families of in-person schooling is low.”

So what can we learn from this informative article in Science? 

1. The risk to teachers and parents of in-person learning is very very small.
2. Since most readers will often only read the title and the first few lines of most things, always be skeptical until you have read the entire article.
3. Since the writer of this piece has his own personal point of view, do not risk being mislead . . . read the entire Science article for yourself.

Sometimes I wonder why we actually have a Supreme Court when they seemingly duck on important issues. They are supposed to be the brightest legal minds, but when it comes to these bright legal minds actually making a meaningful decision  . . . they duck, and the country gets nothing (a goose-egg). They’ve been ducking various abortion issues for years and now they are presented with serious issues related to the abuses of freedoms and the making-up of laws because of Covid.

Well, News Flash! . . . they just ducked again, and consequently the country got a goose-egg. This week the Court ducked on two election issues out of Pennsylvania. They seem now to have “ducking” down to a science. The vote on these Pennsylvania cases was 6-3 in favor of “ducking.” One might say, 6-3 is not close as two votes would have to be changed in order to make it 4-5. However, whereas a 5-4 majority is needed to ultimately decide a case, only four (4) votes are needed to hear a case. As pointed out in The Keneally Chronicles, this is referred to as the “Rule of Four,” meaning that only one more of the Justices needed  to agree to hear the case. Only one additional Justice needed to have the fortitude not duck these election issues. I am not surprised that Chief Justice Roberts ducked, as he seems to be losing courage year after year, but I am very surprised that Roberts’ outrage against hearing any election cases a few months back is continuing to have an effect on Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett. 

Thank God for Justice Clarence Thomas who is not afraid to speak his mind.

“One wonders what this Court waits for,” understates Thomas in his dissent, adding “we failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence. Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us.”

Justice Thomas adds,

“The Constitution gives to each state legislature authority to determine the ‘Manner’ of federal elections…Yet both before and after the 2020 election, non-legislative officials in various States took it upon themselves to set the rules instead…. [T]he Pennsylvania Legislature established an unambiguous deadline for receiving mail-in ballots… the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended that deadline… (and) ordered officials to count ballots received by the new deadline even if there was no evidence—such as a postmark—that the ballots were mailed by election day. … these cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address (this) before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.”

Inexplicable . . . unless you are a duck!

“When is a person dead?” In the vast majority of situations when called to “pronounce” an individual, the physician will put the stethoscope onto the individual’s chest and listen for a heartbeat. If there is no heartbeat then that individual is pronounced dead. 

In less common situations an ICU physician might say to a family, “If we discontinue the breathing tube, your loved one will die.” If the ventilator is then turned off, often within a relatively short period of time, that individual does die. He/she is then declared dead when the heart stops beating. So far, so good . . . pretty straightforward.

A more difficult issue is that on the opposite end of life. Specifically, when does life begin? The pro-life answer: Life begins at conception, and thus abortion is the taking of the life of the fetus. The pro-choice answer: Life begins at birth, and thus abortion is not taking the life of anyone.

Is aborting a non-viable one month old fetus and aborting a full term fetus the same? An issue with Roe v Wade is that there was no wiggle room in that decision, as it implies that a one month fetus and a full term fetus are the same. But are they?

Some lawmakers do not think they are the same.

Last week in South Carolina a law was passed banning abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detected by ultrasound.

Planned Parenthood on 2/18/21, filed a federal lawsuit against the state, which questioned the bill’s constitutionality, saying that the measure would overturn “the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade.” The South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act, which bans abortions if providers detect a heartbeat on an ultrasound excluding cases of rape, incest, and physical danger to the mother, was signedinto law by Republican Gov. Henry McMaster on 2/18/21.

On 2/19/21, a federal judge, Mary Geiger Lewis, temporarily halted South Carolina’s law banning most abortions if fetal heartbeats are detected.

On this issue, to me, there are basically two questions:

When is a fetus considered to be a living thing? 

At conception? At birth ? Or somewhere in between?

Does a fetus have any rights?

In my recent novella, The Keneally Chronicles, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Keneally is faced with these same two questions in a contentious abortion case out of California. He realizes that as a moderate, in all likelihood, he will be the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision.

What is his opinion and what is his reasoning?

The Keneally Chronicles is available on both Amazon and Kindle.

Two of my college age grandchildren just cannot seem to get Covid. No, I do not mean the vaccine, but rather I am referring to the actual virus. You might think that is a good thing, but au contraire, it is not. Each has been in very close quarters on numerous occasions with friends and roommates who have tested positive for the virus. Keep in mind that their individual risk from Covid is extremely low, and each time they are exposed to someone with the virus, the result is that each one is in quarantine for two weeks. I have lost track of how many times each of them has been quarantined for two weeks  . . . in two different states. Repeated Covid tests (for the 21 year old, seven separate Covid tests) – all negative.

They have both gotten antibody tested, and both are negative, and according to present knowledge, this means that they have not been previously infected. How can this be especially with a virus that is supposed to be very infectious? Is it possible that an individual could have been infected with Covid, and not be antibody positive?

A recent article from the Wall Street Journal by Dr. Marty Makary addresses this issue as well as the recent plummeting of Covid cases.

(Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health.)

Why the recent dramatic drop in the number of cases? This decrease is occurring despite a number of things which would make one think that the opposite should be occurring. It is still winter, and in many parts of the country people are continuing to spend a lot of time indoors, as opposed to being outdoors where transmission is less. In addition in many parts of the country businesses are starting to open. Restaurants are opening. (Twice in the last two weeks I have eaten indoors at a restaurant.) Beauty Salons and barbershops are again seeing customers. Mask wearing and social distancing remain in vogue without any recent apparent change. From my personal unscientific observation there has not been any decrease in the number of people frequenting Costco or Walmart.

This significant decrease in the number of cases should not be happening . . . but yet it is! Why?

From Dr. Makary’s WSJ article:

“The consistent and rapid decline in daily cases since Jan. 8 can be explained only by natural immunity. Behavior didn’t suddenly improve over the holidays; Americans traveled more over Christmas than they had since March. Vaccines also don’t explain the steep decline in January. Vaccination rates were low and they take weeks to kick in.”

Dr. Makary questions, “Could the reason for the recent dramatic decrease in the number of new infections be because we are approaching herd immunity.”

Herd immunity! How can that be? 

The various estimates on the number needed to achieve herd immunity range from 60-80%, and certainly we cannot be close to that number with the relatively low percent of positive antibody tests. Even adding in the the 15% of Americans have received the vaccine, no way can we be close to the number needed for herd immunity, can we? Could antibody studies underestimate natural immunity. Antibody testing doesn’t capture antigen-specific T-cells, which develop “memory” once they are activated by the virus. (Survivors of the 1918 Spanish flu were found in 2008—90 years later—to have memory cells still able to produce neutralizing antibodies.)

Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute found that the percentage of people mounting a T-cell response after mild or asymptomatic Covid-19 infection consistently exceeded the percentage with detectable antibodies. T-cell immunity was even present in people who were exposed to infected family members but never developed symptoms. A group of U.K. scientists in September pointed out that the medical community may be under-appreciating the prevalence of immunity from activated T-cells.

Dr. Makary feels there is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection. As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected . . . in other words, herd immunity.

Dr. Makary’s hypothesis about under appreciated T-cell responses could explain my granddaughters’ apparent inability to get Covid. In each of their situations, perhaps a T-cell response to an original mild or asymptomatic infection and then an antigen-specific memory T-cell response to further exposures to Covid could explain their apparent inability to actually get positive Covid tests despite recurrent close-encounter exposures and negative antibody tests.

For a variety of reasons I hope that Dr. Makary is correct because that would mean that the Covid pandemic could be going, going, and soon gone.

Here in California we are use to practices that hurt the poorest among us. For the most part these are initiated and subsequently pushed by the liberal Sacramento politicians here in our state. But why?

First, Increasing the minimum wage.

From Forbes, 2017:

The restaurant industry is the most intensive user of of minimum wage labour. A useful, although not wholly accurate, rule of thumb is that 50% of those making minimum wage are in restaurants, and that 50% of those working in restaurants are on minimum wage. So, whatever the employment effects of a minimum wage rise are they’re going to show up in the restaurant industry. Meaning that if w want to study the minimum wage effects on employment then restaurants are a great place to go looking.

The evidence suggests that higher minimum wages increase overall exit rates for restaurants. However, lower quality restaurants, which are already closer to the margin of exit, because of very slim profit margins, are disproportionately impacted by increases to the minimum wage. Estimates suggest that a one dollar increase in the minimum wage leads to a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of exit for a 3.5-star restaurant (which is the median rating), but has no discernible impact for a 5-star restaurant (on a 1 to 5 star scale).

In other words not only are those that work in medium rated restaurants more likely to lose their jobs, but restaurants in the less affluent neighborhoods that are frequented by less affluent patrons are also more likely to disappear. Furthermore the effect of Covid on restaurant closings is only going to aggravate this situation. 

Second, raising the gas tax.

Without question here in California the poorest among us cannot work from home, and so they are the most likely ones that have to commute to their workplace. On a national level the scuttlebutt is that there is proposal in the works to institute a “gas tax” based on miles driven, ergo the main effect of this would be on those who must commute longer distances because they cannot live in the more affluent city areas where their jobs are.

Third, raising the price of gas even before a tax kicks in.

Doing things like closing pipelines will inevitably cause the price of gasoline to go up. Surprise, surprise it is already happening! Likewise the fracking moratorium on federal lands will only increase the cost of heating homes in the next year or so. Who will suffer the most from this? Predictably, the poorest among us for a variety of different reasons.

Why do Democrats promote policies that are seemingly intended to hurt those who can least likely afford them?

Next the Dems will be going after the Costco $5.00 chicken.

This issue is another twist on the “me first” issue of which group should be a priority on getting the Covid vaccine. After health care workers and the elderly, who should be next? I warned about this months ago and now this sort of haggling is coming to fruition in spades. 

The Euro-zone is apparently having a significant problem with vaccine distribution, and the people of Europe are not happy. In fact Hungary has broken away and is getting its vaccine from Russia. Meanwhile France is trying a unique way to distribute its vaccine. As best I understand they are going to be distributing the vaccine according to areas that have a more significant Covid problem. In eastern France, there is a higher incidence and possibly a higher death toll from Covid, and so they are condoning off an area, and are going to prioritize distributing the vaccine to those who live in that area. 

Does this make sense? Instead of prioritizing the vaccine distribution according to which group can yell the loudest, distribute it according to Sutton’s law. (Sutton’s law is named after the bank robber, Willie Sutton, who reputedly replied to a reporter’s inquiry as to why he robbed banks by saying “because that’s where the money is.”) Insofar as vaccine priority, is it reasonable to prioritize vaccine distribution to those areas “where the money is,” or in other words prioritize the vaccine distribution to those areas where it is needed most.

In Chicago this exemplification of Sutton’s law is taking place.

The following is from an article the 2/17/21 Chicago Sun Times:

“The Latino-majority Belmont Cragin community is one of the city’s hardest-hit by the pandemic for cases and deaths and is one of 15 singled out by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to concentrate vaccination efforts.

Possibly this can be a model for the city’s other high priority areas, such as Gage Park, South Lawndale (Little Village) and Austin that are majority Latino or Black and disproportionately hurt by the virus.”

This plan sounds very similar to what is happening in France.

As much as I hate ever agreeing with mayor Lightfoot of Chicago, (because she is wrong most of the time), here, her plan seems to make sense. The city of Chicago instead of allocating the vaccine to group A over group B because of political clout or the “me first” selfish mentality, it is apparently going where the money is.

Egyptian Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz succinctly said, “Fear doesn’t prevent death. It prevents life.”

I find this quote interesting in these times of Covid lockdowns.

I find it somewhat bizarre how differently different people react to lockdowns. Within reason, I think that just about all individuals are doing their best. However it amazes me what some individuals will do . . . in the name of ?? Certain individuals just seem adverse to resuming certain basic interactions. It that because of fear? Are they afraid of dying?

One of our friends (and her husband) hasn’t seen three of her grandkids in over a year, as they live around a thousand miles away. No way will she fly to see them . . . too dangerous. No way will she drive to see them, even though that used to happen about twice a year, because she would have to stay in motels for a couple of nights while driving the thousand miles, and again a couple of nights driving back . . . too dangerous. Recently the son-in-law and these same three grandkids were going to be much closer, but she wouldn’t make the three hour drive to see them . . . something to do with the necessity of quarantining. From my way of thinking, here “fear is preventing life.” (As an aside to this friend – “you aren’t getting any younger!”)

Another friend has two children locally, a son and a daughter. Each with two kids, and so four grandkids within a few miles. The son says that his mother (grandma) cannot visit his house unless she quarantines for two weeks after visiting anybody including her daughter, his sister. As an expected consequence our friend has visited the daughter’s house much more than the son’s house. Again from my perspective, here “fear is preventing life.” (As an aside to the son – “your mother isn’t getting any younger!”)

I saw seven of my grandkids over Christmas, and six over Thanksgiving . . . two of them I saw on both occasions. I do not want to die anytime soon, but I am not going to let fear prevent life.

I have wrote often how I believe that “those in the know” have abandoned small business owners with incessant recurrent lockdowns. This abandonment has led to the turning of another entire group of innocent bystanders into victims. Are there more unfortunate groups of similar victims? Without question the answer is a resounding, “yes!”

The group that immediately comes to mind is school children. Without question they been abandoned, and to me, what is worse, is that there does not seem to be any plan on how to proceed. It’s one thing to lock kids out of school, but “Come on, man . . . have a plan!” Back in March, 2020, Congressman Devin Nunes (R,CA) said that it was a mistake to not open schools. But in California, listening to a Republican is a big no-no, and so our elite Governor went his own way, and now close to a year later, the school children are still abandoned.

However, there is another very large group that has been abandoned with close to zero fanfare . . . college students. The following are excerpts from a NYT article that is mainly focused on college students in Europe, but here in the USA, things are no different.

From 2/14/21 NYT:

With curfews, closures and lockdowns in European countries set to drag into the spring or even the summer, mental health professionals are growing increasingly alarmed about the deteriorating mental state of young people, who they say have been among the most badly affected by a world with a foreshortened sense of the future.

Last in line for vaccines and with schools and universities shuttered, young people have borne much of the burden of the sacrifices being made largely to protect older people, who are more at risk from severe infections. But the resilience of youth may be overestimated, mental health professionals say.

“Many feel they’re paying the price not of the pandemic, but of the measures taken against the pandemic,” said Dr. Nicolas Franck, the head of a psychiatric network in Lyon, France. In a survey of 30,000 people that he conducted last spring, young people ranked the lowest in psychological well-being, he said.

The lasting effects on suicide rates, depression and anxiety are still being measured, but in interviews, a dozen mental health experts in Europe painted a grim picture of a crisis that they say should be treated as seriously as containing the virus.

“We are in the midst of a mental health pandemic, and I don’t think it’s treated with near enough respect,” said Arkadius Kyllendahl, a psychotherapist in London who has seen the number of younger clients double in recent months.

This issue is not confined to Europe.

In the United States, a quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds said they had seriously considered suicide, one report said. In Latin America and the Caribbean, a survey conducted by UNICEF of 8,000 young people found that more than a quarter had experienced anxiety and 15 percent depression.

And a study conducted last year by the International Labor Organization in 112 countries found that two-thirds of 18- to 29-year-olds could be subject to anxiety and depression.

Do colleges and universities have a plan for this additional abandoned group?

If they do, I am not aware of it.

Not to toot my own horn, but in my book, “The Keneally Chronicles” a small college town in the Southwest had a unique and ingenious plan to deal with the prospective abandonment of both its college students and its small business owners. (Keep in mind that this was written at the beginning of lockdowns, back in the spring of 2020.)

How did that work out? 

Without spoiling it for you, let’s just say, “prescient.”

I actually like tap-dancing. The rhyming movement and the resulting sound is mesmerizing. While tap-dancing is entertaining in an appropriate setting, that setting should not be in political leadership, and especially when it involves the well being of the nation’s school children.

Sleepy Joe told us that he would solve the problem of returning children to school. But how, Joe? Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki’s initial suggestion, on 2/9/21, that “teaching at least one day a week in the majority of schools by day 100” might be enough to clear the bar was met with a torrent of criticism from parents, teachers and administrators. “One day a week!” Every bozo realizes that one day a week would be absurd . . .err, except Psaki, who the next day started to tap dance.

While I do not make a point of listening to CNN, (I never watch CNN), I did see an article from CNN titled:

“Biden’s 100 Day Plan to Reopen Schools Meets With Messy Reality”

(If CNN is critical of Joe’s supposed plan . . . wow!)

The following is from that CNN article:

“CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky stirred the pot last week when she appeared to suggest that schools could safely reopen without teachers getting vaccinated.

“There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen. And that that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely,” she said. 

Very quickly the tap-dancing began when on the next day, Psaki said Walensky had been speaking in her “personal capacity,” even though Walensky had made the comments in an official administration Covid briefing.”

Is tap-dancing leadership?

Still from CNN:

“Without clear guidelines for a safe return, an already enormous public health challenge has increasingly become a political messaging contest: Democrats largely argue that reopening decisions should “follow the science” — without clear agreement on what that means — while Republicans have zeroed in on liberal-leaning teachers unions, accusing them of making unreasonable demands on the system.

Biden entered office three weeks ago with a pledge to reopen schools nationwide within his first 100 days in office. It was an ambitious goal from the outset, but that timetable is now in doubt and the parameters for success are muddy.”

It sounds to me that it was easy for Joe to pontificate from his basement, but when he gets on the stage . . . he tap dances.

Again from CNN:

“Nearly a year into the unprecedented national experiment in remote learning in the face of a growing pandemic, millions of children are still at home, with no expected return date. Studies show them falling behind, with low-income or Black and Latino children hurting the worst — but the science is unclear on how, or when, they can safely return to classes, even as some teachers get vaccinated and schools districts work to fit classrooms for reopening. There is scant information on the effects of bringing students back together, in close quarters, could have on the communities they reenter after leaving the building.”

(Keep in mind that this is from CNN.)

Perhaps instead of tap-dancing Psaki and Biden should pay attention to what is actually happening on the real stage.

In Clark County, Nevada, its school district is rushing to reopen schools as soon as humanly possible due to a spike in student suicides. And now, in San Francisco, they’re seeing the same tragedies, which prompted the city to yank its own school board into court in an effort to get kids back in the classroom. These schools have been closed for over a year (via NY Post). In San Francisco, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital has seen a 66 percent increase in the number of suicidal children in the emergency room and a 75 percent increase in youth who required hospitalization for mental health services, the lawsuit said, quoting pediatricians, child psychiatrists and emergency room doctors.

Joe, stop tap-dancing. Stop playing footsie with the teacher’s unions. 

Make a decision that helps the children.