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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Angelika While you guys in Germany can already look forward to easing restrictions, things are not really progressing here. Far too few people are still being tested for Corona in the USA, and even in California. No one really knows how many people are actually infected here. A look at the statistics reveals that officially 2,131 people in San Francisco (as of May 18, 2020) have been infected with the coronavirus. That makes it well under 1 percent of the 881,549 residents! However, the number of unreported cases could be enormously high.
Therefore, almost everything remains shut down here. What has been added to the list of open businesses such as grocery stores, farmers' markets, medical practices, hospitals, pharmacies, drugstores, banks, the post office, laundromats, gas stations, auto repair shops, and hardware stores that we mentioned in our last newsletter? Honestly, almost nothing. Only golf and tennis courts, as well as garden centers, were allowed to reopen under certain conditions on May 5th in San Francisco. And construction sites are allowed to resume work. My dentist is open but is currently only treating emergency patients. Other medical practices are just starting to slowly allow routine visits again. Until now, this was either done via video conference or the appointment was repeatedly postponed.
Restaurant owners in San Francisco are still trying to stay afloat with take-out service. When they will be allowed to serve guests at tables again is still up in the air. However, starting today (May 18), Phase 2 of business reopenings has begun in San Francisco. It is somewhat unclear how exactly this will proceed. Customers are still not allowed to enter the stores; instead, goods must be picked up at the curbside. Logically, the store would need a proper website where customers can select their goods. However, many small stores do not have their entire inventory online or are not set up for online orders at all. Orders via phone or email would theoretically be possible if customers know what they want. I am curious to see how this will work out, as customers visit smaller stores precisely because they want to choose something on-site. We will report in the next newsletter on how things have settled. By the way, the regulations here are sometimes just as confusing as in Germany, because while our Governor Newsom sets the guidelines for the whole of California, individual counties and cities can impose their own stricter regulations.
Schools, however, are closed throughout California until after the summer holidays. When this was announced, we educators at my school were a bit taken aback, because distance learning sometimes frays the nerves of us, the parents, and the children. That's why I can only laugh when politicians boast that schools need to focus more on digital learning. Most of my students love everything to do with computers, but they want nothing more than to sit in the classroom with their schoolmates again. School conveys more than just learning content and is immensely important for social development. Anyone who has ever tried to get eight- or nine-year-olds to work independently, which digital learning requires, knows what I'm talking about. Many students still have difficulties with it.
Naively, I also thought that I'd have time to look into administrative tasks during work hours now. Far from it. I actually spend the whole day in video conferences with students and parents or in email contact to help, calm, and motivate. Honestly, I have more to do than usual. I also teach my social-emotional learning class live via Zoom almost every day. By now, I am quite skilled at designing games that we can play over video conference.
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