This will be a short post. The Front page of the Chicago Tribune says it all today.

I do not personally know anyone yet who has received the first vaccination shot here in Illinois. I am certain those many thousands of healthcare workers are out there. But the elderly and the teachers? They are 1B — and we are hoping to start 1B next week in Cook County. Caveats are being issued all over the place — never mind the ongoing discussions of lack of overall vaccine, but I believe those vaccinations will be taking place over the next few months.

Those Chicago teachers? We are nearly on the cusp of vaccinating. Why are we forcing anyone into the classroom right now?

A few weeks or even months will not significantly change our students overall educational status. They might make all the difference in teacher health, however. This blog has been following long haulers from the earliest intimations that COVID-19 lingers in some people. Here is one last sobering article on this theme: Almost a third of recovered Covid patients return to hospital in five months and one in eight die (telegraph.co.uk)

This disease does not always come and go. The above article has the following subtitle: “Research has found a devastating long-term toll on survivors, with people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic conditions.” Those chronic conditions are proving to be many, with long-term extreme fatigue toward the top of that list.

Eduhonesty: In viral hotspots — almost everywhere right now, it seems — schools should remain closed until vaccinations begin to rein in this monster. Opening those classrooms under these conditions is criminal.

From the John Hopkins coronavirus map for Cook County, Illinois:

Cases: 435,888
Deaths: 9,065

Reader, I would like to ask you to focus on the cases, rather than the deaths. What is almost one-third of 435,888? Let’s use the 29.4 percent in the linked article above to get a rough number. That’s 128,151 people who may no longer be actively sick with COVID, but who are still unwell, if the research from Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Great Britain is correct. A number remain extremely unwell.

We must not open our classrooms prematurely.

P.S. Things I have learned from social media. They ran out of shots in New York. And in some states, teachers are not even 1B but are in the general pool.