Continuing Crazy Times

We’re a couple weeks into the new school year. Robert has opted for a green screen background so he can take classes from a variety of locations: star destroyers, McLaren F1 cars and Minecraft villages.

School is clearly less fun at home. But they are buckling down, getting new material covered and the kids are learning.

Truly crazy times!

Of course this graph remains interesting and important. Clearly much better than the spike early on, but it seems very stubborn about dropping much below about 20 news cases a day. I’m sorry that June / July dip didn’t continue down.

Some of the current thinking is that if the positive test rate gets below 5%, it may be time to think about school in person again. We’re not there yet in Alexandria. The city provides that data monthly by zip code: 5.6% to 20.3% in August. (We’re fortunate to be in the 5.6% zip code.)

And democracy can’t stop. This is a presidential election year — fortunately, Virginia has lost its swing state status so we’ve been spared much of the advertising.

With questions about how well the Post Office can deliver ballots (and a personal concern over my illegible signature) along with no question in who I’m voting for, I followed Sarah’s lead and voted early, in person and in mask today.

Alexandria has the best “I Voted” stickers!