Today's Date is Tuesday February 16, 2021.
What is essential?
Well, let's start at the hospital. My wife works at the local hospital and the hospital never closed through the coronavirus pandemic. I remember a mostly empty hospital when I had my kidney stone surgery last spring, but the doors never locked. My wife was classified as the definition of an essential employee and had her first Covid shot at the very end of December. She had the second Covid shot at the end January.
In Texas today, they are having a once in a century winter event, but in Ohio, the storm will probably end up being about the third worst storm in the Cleveland area just this winter. For the second time this season, the garbagemen got a snow day. Yes, you heard that right, they'll try to come tomorrow. During the height of the pandemic, if you couldn't fit your garbage into the plastic bin that was picked up by the robotic arm on the garbage truck, the garbagemen wouldn't take your garbage.
For the third time this winter, the postal service didn't come. Don't get me wrong, the postman only brings bills, but when the weather gets bad, you can throw that "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night" crap right out the window. I saw both UPS and Amazon on my street throughout the day.
I had a snow day at my school district today, basically everyone in the area (that did in person learning) got a snow day. My district has been going 5 days a week, in person, K-8, since September. My kid's district has been going 2 days a week, in person, K-8, since September. The Cleveland Schools and the Akron Schools have yet to return to in person learning. I am scheduled to get my Covid shot next week. I am scheduled to get my second Covid shot at the end of March. All schools within 15 minutes of my home are either back full time or under a hybrid learning model.
Our home has had uninterrupted water and electric service since the pandemic hit and for that we are grateful. Our grocery stores and local fast food restaurants have been open every single day, but they have had restricted hours at times.
My partner at Beacon of Speech works at Iron Mountain Data Storage. When the snow storms hit, he has to work. When the pandemic came, he had to work. Iron Mountain never closes is their motto. When the pandemic hit, though, his company screamed "we are essential!" When it came to actually getting vaccines to their employees? Their urgency waned, "talk to your doctor."
I am convinced that the Covid numbers are going down, not so much due to the vaccines, even though I'm sure that's helping, but because we are in the depths of winter with few personal January and February gatherings.
Are we starting starting to see the precipice of normal? Not from my vantage point, we're still clarifying what essential is and what is vaccine protocol.
Updated 2/19/21:
It has really eating at me. What Ohio Schools aren't going in person, at the very minimum, in a Hybrid Model?
Fully Remote is still only 9 schools, but 3 of those are huge districts:
#2 Cleveland
#7 Akron
#13 Dayton
Jammy Dodgers