The New New Normal

With everyone getting so antsy about "reopening" and "getting back to normal," there's lots of planning being done to help people prepare for some sort of life outside their own home. It's not going to be exactly like it was before. It's not like the government will just flip a switch and say, "Ok, live like you were in February!" So consider if this is the type of environment really worth rushing back to.

In Denmark, they reopened schools earlier than many other things, because they have so many working parents. Classes are cut in half, students are spaced out in classrooms and only allowed to play with a small number of other kids in a small section of the playground. And they wash their hands about 6 times a day. (I don't see most schools in the US having the infrastructure to make this work, let alone kids going along with these rules.)

I was on a call today for work where they were talking about what our office would look like when it reopened. People will be issued a mask when they enter in the morning and have to wear it for the day. There will be hand sanitizing and cleaning wipe stations everywhere. "Sneeze guards" will protect people like the receptionists and computer help desk technicians. Marks on the floor will remind people to space appropriately. Elevators will have a capacity of one. Starting next week they're removing half the chairs from the conference rooms and marking spots on the floor to space out the remaining ones.

What's the point of all that? If you're going to have to operate in such a highly modified and potentially dangerous environment, why do it at all? Even I am starting to get a little tired of being home all day every day, but the alternative is so much worse, I really have no desire to go anywhere else.

The governor is supposed to be moving some more counties (the boring ones, at the other end of the state) from Red to Yellow status tomorrow. My corner of the state is still far from being ready (also I am mentally far from being ready). In order to move to yellow, a county needs to report fewer than 50 new reported cases over 14 days per 100,000 residents. The math is a little tricky, but my county is currently like six times higher than that. And I'm not a huge fan of doing it by county because I'm right on the corner of three counties, what if mine opens and people from one that's still closed come over here and reinfect everyone? It should be done more regionally somehow...

In other news, my husband went to his office today to pick up his desk chair - he was getting tired of spending so many hours working from our dining room table without it 😂 He's much more comfortable now!