Getting Schools Back Open

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If you want schools to reopen then we need to wear masks and close our social circles.

Spend outdoor time with your household, rather than reconnecting with your adult friends.

We will need to do this for the entire academic year.

Just the way it is.

Yesterday’s adventure. Square Top Mountain from Guanella Pass. That’s Grays & Torreys, back left.

Here’s why.

325,000 people in Boulder County with 1,650 positives, so far. That’s about 0.5% of our population.

There’s no reliable information on how many of us have been infected.

The lack of specific info does not matter.

We can be certain of the following… there are still plenty of people for the virus to infect.

One of the perks of hiking 13ers (early in the morning) is a complete lack of crowds. On this route, most everyone climbs the 14er on the other side of the pass. Another perk was this amazing sunrise.

But… you say, “Community transmission is only 20 cases per day.”

Dig a little deeper.

The CDC says we can shed virus for 10-20 days. Call it 15 days.

Assume we’re capturing half of the true infection rate with our testing.

15 days shedding virus * 20 infections per day => 300 people wandering around town shedding virus.

300 people in a county of 325,000.

“My chance of infection is less than 1-in-a-1,000.”

Are you sure?

You can just see the tiny flowers (front left) – Colorado often looks dry but if you get up close then there is a lot going on. Still lots of color in the backcountry.

Our school district has 30,000 kids in 56 schools.

Operate them at 50% capacity with some sort of daily rotation and you’re at 150/500/1000 kids per elementary/middle/high school.

Now, choose 150-1,000 kids from a community pool with a 1-in-a-1000 infectious rate.

Do this 112 times (two sets per school) and have them act like kids.

You don’t need to guess what will happen => NPR on the Israeli experience => back to exponential growth.

Israel was in much better shape than us when they reopened => look at the log-chart here, specifically late-May to now.

My son in the distance, on the ridge line. The white, sharp stones on top reminded me of the rocky beaches in Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. It’s going to a while before I get back to Salt Spring Island.

Community transmission needs to be far lower for us to keep our schools open.

This is what our health leaders mean when they say “masks are not enough.”

Wear a mask and close your social circle.