elizabethlevett

“State keeps mask mandate”

For schools. This fall. For kids.

And desks three feet apart.

This is on the front page of the SF Chronicle yesterday, July 10th. Below the fold. Where a story appears in the Chronicle is significant. It says something about where we are and what’s important to us. It says something about what we choose to prioritize.

Above the fold is a story about a “beloved” bar reopening.

Above the fold is a photograph of unmasked people drinking and hugging in a bar.

Below the fold is a picture of first graders in masks lined up in a school corridor. Their teacher is showing them how to stand three feet apart. I’m not sure why she’s showing them this since they’re already standing on those now familiar floor stickers – the green ones with the outlines of two bare feet. Nobody goes to school barefooted. The children are on the stickers. The stickers are six feet apart.

Above the fold the people in the bar are pictured smiling.

Below the fold the little kids are just standing.

I’m happy for the people who can go to the bar. They can have drinks together. They can hug each other. The bartender is happy too.

When I look at the photo below the fold that shows what school is going to look like – again – I feel a wave of sadness and panic at the thought of facing another year like the one we just came out of. Again. Again the priority will be to teach our little kids to stay away from each other instead of teaching them how to be close, how to play and paint and read right next to each other. Again we’ll most likely have to stand on those green stickers six feet away from somebody’s children.

And yes, I do understand. We have to wait for the CDC and the FDA to wave their wands and tell us that kids can be vaccinated and then that kids will actually be required to get the vaccine. Just like all the other vaccines that kids need to get before they can go to school. And hug. And be happy. Like the people in the bar above the fold.

But I look at the paper and I see what’s happening. And I see what we’ve pictured above the fold and below it – what we’ve chosen to prioritize. And I have no idea what else to say.