Closing Schools, Containing Contagion

Last night at 10 p.m. the phone rang, jangling me out of sleep.  It was the emergency alert system from Miami Dade College, where my spouse teaches Philosophy.  The emergency alert system was activated to tell faculty, staff, and students that classes were transitioning to online, effective immediately.

I'm not criticizing this decision, mind you.  Yesterday was a day when many closings were announced, so a transition to online classes isn't a surprise.

But a 10 p.m. phone call?  An emergency alert?  This decision couldn't have been made during normal business hours?

I realize that I may look back on this post and marvel at my selfishness.  I don't want to be jarred awake in a time that mass death was just around the corner?

That's where my brain is at the moment:  expecting mass death while at the same time wondering if we're not overreacting.

But I also believe what historians and public health people tell us:  closing schools is a way of containing/slowing contagion.  And in a time when we can do so much of our educating online, why not do this?

I'm intrigued by the ways we're adapting, all of the approaches to modern life that we've been told just can't happen or aren't practical.  During a disability panel at the AWP, presenters pointed out that accommodations they've requested and been denied for years were suddenly put into place and rather quickly. 

Will we find out that we can do a lot of work from home?  Will we move more classes online?  Or maybe we could get to a point where classes take the best from both the online and the onground approach.

Most of us alive have no experience dealing with a disease like this new corona virus, and at this point, no one is immune.  I have found comfort in the regular ways; yesterday I ate at least 1000 calories of ginger snaps--yes, 1000 calories, about half a box.

But I am finding comfort in understanding the science.  This disease is not like the early days of AIDS--we have an understanding of this virus that we didn't have of AIDS, and there's a good chance of survival.

I found myself spending lots of time with this episode of the NPR show On Point.  It's got lots of good information about disease in general and viruses specifically, lots of good information about how to protect ourselves.

It also offered an important reminder that viruses are not human.  They don't have motives or evil purposes.  They grow in circumstances that are favorable.  We can make the circumstances less favorable.

We will make the circumstances less favorable.  With every closure, we make the circumstances less favorable.