![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneWe reopened on August 19, I have no idea what the rational is on starting on a Wednesday rather than a Monday, but that's the way it is. With few face-to-face exceptions, all classes are online or remote learning. Kinda hard to teach chemistry labs remotely. We have an absolute mask requirement for students, faculty, and staff when on-campus, and it seems to be going well, especially with fewer students wandering around.
For the previous two weeks, we were averaging a gate count of 40-45, which isn't bad. We have air conditioning and WiFi, and Alamogordo is still seeing temperatures of 90+, though it looks like it's cooling down a little this week. I only had to chide one young woman without a mask last week, she had one with her and apparently removed it when she sat down. She immediately and without complaint put it back on. I told her about me missing half my immune system, maybe this will give her a reason to remember.
My library has four private study rooms, and they're doing booming business! I put up signs with a warning that social distancing is not possible in these rooms, so we've done what we can. Elsewhere in the library, we've removed chairs and deactivated computers to enforce social distancing. It's a little sparse compared to the first 2.5 months of the year before the shutdown.
We're allowed to remove our mask when we're in our office, and while my office is a cubie without walls to the ceiling or an actual door, I sometimes take mine down. We have pretty strong air conditioning, so that circulation should sweep out any nasties in the air.
We also have a bonus of a very low case count in Alamogordo: Otero County has had a TOTAL of 218 cases and TWELVE deaths (excluding prison facilities: you do not want to know about them!). We apparently peaked in June/July, but that's no reason for complacency! There is still a state-wide mask requirement and my family unit is still strident about mask use and more, depending on the situation.
I don't know how long we'll stay open until main campus has major outbreaks among students or staff. My (proverbial) money was on not making it until October, so we'll see. I'm doing very brisk business with interlibrary loan, I currently have more books out on loan than I was averaging pre-pandemic, which is very good! And as a final bit of good news, with three of us being permanent employees, the library director decided that we'd work from home one week in three, so this is my first week of staying up later than is reasonable and not waking up to an alarm! Tomorrow I'm going to Las Cruces to take care of some shopping, but most importantly to get my firk ding blast glasses adjusted: the prism is off. We were watching the Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I was seeing two lines of subtitles. *sigh*. It'll make reading computer screens a lot easier.
And now the bad news.
It looks quite likely, though not yet confirmed, that Russet's observatory has a case in the day staff.
The symptoms look very likely that someone is infected. This person is one of the engineers who works in one of the outlying buildings and doesn't normally go into the main building where Russet and most of the astronomers work. With luck, testing results will come in today, and we'll know. But there's always the risk of a false negative, which is so vexing! There's no way of knowing what kind of test they did, so we'll have to wait and see. If positive, site shutdown for two weeks to see if anyone else is sick and contact tracing to see who else that works there needs testing.
And that's where trickiness ensues. The second big telescope, the 2.5 meter Sloan Digital Sky Survey, is in shutdown for its major maintenance window. And that's what the guy was working on. And he was in contact with some of the 2.5 astronomers. So in that indirect pathing, some of the people in the main building could have been exposed.
Everyone in the main building is supposed to scan a QR code with their smart phone when they enter a room. So naturally one member of Russet's team on the 3.5 meter did not have a smart phone, or a smart enough smart phone, that could scan QR codes. So he was supposed to maintain a paper log, which you can guess probably wasn't adequately maintained. And on his last work shift, which would overlap with the period when this guy was likely infected but not yet symptomatic, he forgot to scan codes. Which means that if they have to map everybody in the main building, there are going to be serious breaks. Which is a surprise to nobody, contact tracing is a difficult process.
So we're a bit on tenterhooks, waiting to find out the likely diagnosis of this guy.
For the previous two weeks, we were averaging a gate count of 40-45, which isn't bad. We have air conditioning and WiFi, and Alamogordo is still seeing temperatures of 90+, though it looks like it's cooling down a little this week. I only had to chide one young woman without a mask last week, she had one with her and apparently removed it when she sat down. She immediately and without complaint put it back on. I told her about me missing half my immune system, maybe this will give her a reason to remember.
My library has four private study rooms, and they're doing booming business! I put up signs with a warning that social distancing is not possible in these rooms, so we've done what we can. Elsewhere in the library, we've removed chairs and deactivated computers to enforce social distancing. It's a little sparse compared to the first 2.5 months of the year before the shutdown.
We're allowed to remove our mask when we're in our office, and while my office is a cubie without walls to the ceiling or an actual door, I sometimes take mine down. We have pretty strong air conditioning, so that circulation should sweep out any nasties in the air.
We also have a bonus of a very low case count in Alamogordo: Otero County has had a TOTAL of 218 cases and TWELVE deaths (excluding prison facilities: you do not want to know about them!). We apparently peaked in June/July, but that's no reason for complacency! There is still a state-wide mask requirement and my family unit is still strident about mask use and more, depending on the situation.
I don't know how long we'll stay open until main campus has major outbreaks among students or staff. My (proverbial) money was on not making it until October, so we'll see. I'm doing very brisk business with interlibrary loan, I currently have more books out on loan than I was averaging pre-pandemic, which is very good! And as a final bit of good news, with three of us being permanent employees, the library director decided that we'd work from home one week in three, so this is my first week of staying up later than is reasonable and not waking up to an alarm! Tomorrow I'm going to Las Cruces to take care of some shopping, but most importantly to get my firk ding blast glasses adjusted: the prism is off. We were watching the Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I was seeing two lines of subtitles. *sigh*. It'll make reading computer screens a lot easier.
And now the bad news.
It looks quite likely, though not yet confirmed, that Russet's observatory has a case in the day staff.
The symptoms look very likely that someone is infected. This person is one of the engineers who works in one of the outlying buildings and doesn't normally go into the main building where Russet and most of the astronomers work. With luck, testing results will come in today, and we'll know. But there's always the risk of a false negative, which is so vexing! There's no way of knowing what kind of test they did, so we'll have to wait and see. If positive, site shutdown for two weeks to see if anyone else is sick and contact tracing to see who else that works there needs testing.
And that's where trickiness ensues. The second big telescope, the 2.5 meter Sloan Digital Sky Survey, is in shutdown for its major maintenance window. And that's what the guy was working on. And he was in contact with some of the 2.5 astronomers. So in that indirect pathing, some of the people in the main building could have been exposed.
Everyone in the main building is supposed to scan a QR code with their smart phone when they enter a room. So naturally one member of Russet's team on the 3.5 meter did not have a smart phone, or a smart enough smart phone, that could scan QR codes. So he was supposed to maintain a paper log, which you can guess probably wasn't adequately maintained. And on his last work shift, which would overlap with the period when this guy was likely infected but not yet symptomatic, he forgot to scan codes. Which means that if they have to map everybody in the main building, there are going to be serious breaks. Which is a surprise to nobody, contact tracing is a difficult process.
So we're a bit on tenterhooks, waiting to find out the likely diagnosis of this guy.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-01 04:48 pm (UTC)So naturally they should've made everybody keep a paper log, or at least followed a sign-in sheet, so that there'd be a backup because a plan that depends on everybody having a smartphone and having it with them at all times is stupid.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-01 04:55 pm (UTC)No cheap, easy, reliable solutions that people will reliably follow.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-02 01:48 am (UTC)Took me a minute to comprehend.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-02 02:55 pm (UTC)I can see that. I could refer to them as 2.5 meter astronomers, but then you'd think we recruit exclusively from retired basketball players. :-)
no subject
Date: 2020-09-02 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-02 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-02 02:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-02 03:14 pm (UTC)I read a library Reddit, and my heart goes out for you public library people. I don't think I could work in that environment.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-03 01:03 am (UTC)We're going to get people who legitimately can't mask and who will be happy with what alternatives we have thought of, and we'll get all the people who think it's a hoax, or who flash some faux-official something and insist that they don't have to obey the rules. Even if we keep them outside, we have to figure out what happens at that to remove the risk of infection spreading.
In theory, we're not opening, even in a limited form, for at least one more phase of operations, but that's still going to be a big exposure risk.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-03 03:20 am (UTC)One of the worst that I've seen recently was a city that wanted to turn a library that wasn't open to the public into a day care center for city employees WITHOUT SUPERVISION BY ANYBODY. They basically thought all these kids could be left alone and no damage to them or the library would ensue and there would be no liability.
I remember one question about an unmasked patron, and the consensus was "If you're not wearing a mask, we'll be happy to fetch anything you need for curbside delivery, but you're not allowed inside the library without a mask."
no subject
Date: 2020-09-03 03:52 am (UTC)I saw the proposal to make the library into a day care, and my Edvard Munch impression was on point at that particular posting.
The consensus is absolutely "no mask, no inside service, here's curbside," but the question of who has to enforce that usually means we're asking our front line people to get yelled at, or to try and physically stop a person who doesn't intend on being stopped, or otherwise to take abuse and risk infection to enforce these policies. And I doubt the management will be "oh, you had to deal with an aggressive infection hazard, so we're banning that person for a year and giving you two weeks paid time off, effective immediately, like right fucking now, so as to minimize the number of people that you could infect of you were unlucky." about it.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-03 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-04 01:11 am (UTC)I'll bet! I've seen two of my public regulars, I'm still missing two. One I'm curious about: she was using our computers to do her research for a PhD in Theology. I heard when she found out we were shutting down she was going to buy a computer for herself. I'd like to know how her work is going.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-05 10:13 am (UTC)Oh, and we have users sign ‘the book’ for contract tracing purposes.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-05 04:21 pm (UTC)I like that! Give 'em old and crappy equipment to discourage sitting around for hours! In my book that qualifies for diabolical, congratulations. I never considered a contact book, it would have been a good idea. I was reading about an RFID tracker using RaspPI kits and Bluetooth beacons. Sounded interesting. I think you enrolled people via their cell phones and then the RaspPIs just sat their logging when one walked by. It wouldn't be cheap, but it wouldn't be ghastly expensive.