The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 69 (569)

I'm working early voting this afternoon, so this is a morning post. Remember the CDC holiday guidance I wrote about yesterday? By the end of the day, it had been removed from the CDC website and replaced with a message saying that guidance would be coming. Dr. Fauci evidently was criticized for saying in a Sunday interview that it was too early to tell if there should be in-person Christmas gatherings. He was lambasted as wanting to cancel Christmas. He later backed down what he had said and noted that he would be having a Christmas gathering this year. Personally, it is too early to tell what people should do for the Christmas and New Years holidays. We're talking three months out. A lot can happen in three months, as we've been reminded more than once during the pandemic.

New Zealand will phase out its "elimination strategy" in favor of a model taking vaccination rates into account. Vaccines give more options for controlling spread and preventing hospitalizations. Strict lockdowns will end once 90 percent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated. Right now, just over 46 percent of the eligible population ages 12 and over is fully vaccinated, though 76 percent have had at least one dose. They have a ways to go to get to 90. 

Our neighbor to the north has some worrisome provinces. In Manitoba, the seven-day average of new cases increased over 50 percent in the last two weeks. The percent positivity and number of hospitalizations are also rising. New restrictions on business capacity and the size of both indoor and outdoor gatherings are coming. To the west, Alberta counted more covid cases in September than in any previous month. 

The results of a new survey suggest that covid has caused most US teachers to update their classroom style. Some 71 percent say that they will blend old and new styles tried during the pandemic; only 23 percent said that they would revert to the way they taught before the pandemic. Five percent said that they would change everything about the way they taught. In terms of communication, 56 percent say they are now more confident about collaborating with colleagues while 52 percent said they were more confident communicating with families. Finally, half say that they are more confident using technology to engage students. I'm actually a bit surprised that only half feel that way. I would have expected more would be more confident given the amount of technology they  learned to use for virtual or hybrid schooling. 

New York City's vaccine mandate for its schools went into effect yesterday. With 99 percent of principals and 96 percent of teachers having had at least one dose, I'd say it was pretty successful. Threats continue to produce more results than bribes.