The View from the Hermitage, Day 66

I've been hiding in the basement today which is not bad since that's where my sewing room/studio is. I've got three more scrub caps in progress. I also did one of those "I really should do that" chores done, which was printing off each page of the quilt guild website I manage and making a website notebook. The dog came down to sniff me once, but I have not seen the cat.

The husband has turned the dining room table into his office as he participates in a proposal review meeting for--probably--the Department of Energy. Normally, this would have been done around a table in a room in Washington, DC or elsewhere. In the new normal, it's being done via Zoom. He came down on one break and noted that he missed being able to lean over to the person next to him and whisper something. He said that not being able to do that makes things go slower. The meeting is from 11:00 to 7:00 today; tomorrow's schedule will be determined by how things go today. I did warn the husband that I might, around 5:00, set a beer or glass of wine just off screen to tempt him.

The governor's presser was pretty matter-of-fact today. Phase 1 has been going on for five days, with Phase 2 being at least nine days away. I'll have to check the Health Department metrics next Thursday morning, since I imagine he will announce in Thursday's presser if Phase 1 will be extended. 

I'm seeing more and more colleges and universities say they will be person-to-person come fall. Most are more than tweaking the semester schedule, though. Several are starting in August, cancelling fall break and any fall holidays, and ending person-to-person mode at Thanksgiving. Exam review and exams will happen in December, but not in person. That schedule actually doesn't sound too bad. The kids aren't going home or away for any breaks from which they could gather nasty germs. They go home for Thanksgiving and then are gone until January. The other schedule template is to start in September, cancelling fall break and any fall holidays, holding classes on the day before Thanksgiving, and finishing everything else in December in person on campus. I can't say that plan thrills me. If someone goes home for Thanksgiving and brings the virus back, people would start getting sick as exams are starting. I think that plan needs work.

Survey people might be interested to know that the local university sent a survey to three years of the undergraduate student population asking about various schedule options. The response rate was 70 percent. Anyone who's done a survey knows that that is an incredibly high figure. That shows how important the issue is to students. The husband says no one has asked faculty members about what schedule option(s) they might prefer. That's probably to be expected. The students bring tuition dollars into the university while the faculty members take salary dollars away from the university.

Day 66. If I'm still doing this on Day 666, then everything really will have gone to Hell in a handbasket or via other transportation. 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 45

I used Zoom last night to chat with a friend I haven't seen in too long. Zoom wasn't too bad, but then I was speaking with just one other person. The husband's department had a faculty meeting this morning using Zoom. That's harder for me to imagine. In Zoom's favor, it was actually very easy to install unlike Skype which I never did get completely installed right before the start of the pandemic.

He Who Shall Not Be Named doesn't want to be unable to get his Big Macs, so meat processing plants have been deemed essential and must be kept open. Never mind that the workers while not dropping like flies are less than safe from the virus there. And now that the plants must be reopened or kept open, employees who choose not to go to work for their own safety will not be able to draw unemployment. Like too many other people right now, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I've read reports that polls show most Americans would rather things stay unopened than reopen so quickly. Still, cellphone location data compiled by the Maryland group investigating quarantine fatigue show that last Friday marked the second in a row that people stayed home less than usual. On Friday, April 24, 29 percent of Americans stayed within a mile of their home; on April 6, 35 percent did. Officials in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia say that while the rates of increase have slowed, there has been no downward trend in new cases or hospitalization rates. I haven't seen odds offered on what the numbers or rates will be like in reopening states in a week and a half, when the magic two weeks since reopening mark is reached. Could be interesting.

My alma mater, Radford University (it was Radford College when I attended) in Southwest Virginia has announced that it will reopen August 3, with in-person classes beginning August 24. I wonder if that will put pressure on the other state universities to follow suit. Virginia Commonwealth University would like to go with in-person classes in the fall if you believe their reaction to the Radford news. Virginia Tech is supposed to announce its decision by mid-May. I think that's about the time UVA will announce its plans, too.

The UVA Health System will start furloughing employees; they're losing $3 million each day. I told the husband that if I hadn't started to retire a year ago, I'd likely be laid off this summer. In a previous budget crunch, the university put all non-student wage positions on hold. I spent a short time--several weeks, I think--not putting in any hours. Of course, when things got better and I went back to work, I basically worked longer to catch up on the time missed, so they saved no money on my position.

The whole tenor of the pandemic has changed from health issues to economic ones. The headlines are not about the number of new cases or deaths or recoveries. They are about unemployment or the costs of reopening. The health numbers are now cited in terms of economics. How must the numbers change to make reopening the economy as safe as possible. Feature articles in print media are as likely to concern unemployed workers as they are to concern first responders or health workers. I wonder how much a decreasing emphasis on the health side contributes to the protests to ease mitigation measures and reopen businesses. I would think that daily reminders of just how many people are dying from covid-19 would make someone think twice about protesting the quarantine and social distancing factors, especially if the protest involved being shoulder-to-shoulder in a large crowd. But hey, that's just me.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 41

Am I a Luddite to admit that I have never Skyped nor have I FaceTimed? The latest person-to-person connection over the Interwebs app seems to be Zoom. The now-online classes at the local university are being offered via Zoom. The husband sat in on an online thesis defense via Zoom yesterday afternoon. One of my quilt guild chapters has done two meetings over Zoom. And some members in an international online quilt guild to which I belong have been talking about scheduling a Zoom session so we can see how each other is doing.

From what I can tell, Zoom is like Skype in that you see the person with whom you are speaking. Or the persons, each in their own window. I gather that a user can select (or develop?) a personal background in front of which their image will appear. The local university has a selection of university scenes, though professors are not required to use one of those for their lecture sessions. I saw a something on Facebook in which a professor (not local) said he was looking forward to lecturing from Hogwarts, using the image of Hogwarts used in the Harry Potter movies. The tailored background is optional; if you don't use one, whatever is behind you will appear with your image.

For some reason, using Zoom for a group something just seems a bit uncomfortable. The idea of people looking so closely at my face as I participate is funny. I mean, I don't like looking at my face too closely in the mirror, so why would I want to inflict it on others? Before we go further, I do understand that one does not have to use the camera and have one's face included; it appears you can go with audio only.

I'm not at all good in crowds or even in most smaller groups. Going to a quilt guild chapter meeting in person is difficult enough for me; taking it online just makes it harder. Others aren't seeing me from across the room; they're seeing me as if we were face-to-face, a distance I don't really want to be at, especially now. 

All that said, I may be having a Zoom conversation with one friend this weekend. For some reason, perhaps my dislike of groups, that does not make me nervous. I don't know that it will give me what I would need to feel comfortable Zooming into a larger gathering, but I guess I'll find out.

Tomorrow, I may even comment on the progression of the novel coronavirus and the re-opening of Georgia. There are no White House briefings this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon, so I might not even have to deal with whatever word salad He Who Shall Not Be Named is spouting. And if I've tried Zoom one-on-one by then, I can report on my comfort level.