NorthSideSox72

Just to add to what everyone else has pointed out, here's a simple one: Illinois was the first state, and is still one of only a few states, that have met the CDC guidelines for doing any kind of re-opening. That covers all the metrics that matter - infection rates and trends, deaths, hospitalizations, ICU capacity, and ventilator capacity. After a huge early surge that hit the large cities hardest for obvious reasons, Illinois has done arguably a better job than any other state. To say otherwise is just denying reality. You can nitpick specific things JB and the state has done or not done for sure, and nothing is perfect, but Illinois has clearly outperformed just about every other state if not all of them in response to the pandemic. And this is coming from someone who did not want JB as our governor.

Yeah I was thinking more small lake, not necessarily on Lake Michigan. I am seeing a number of little places on AirBnB that seem good, on the water, in Wisco and Michigan. Prices are similar to or less than the hotel per-night costs from what would have been our Utah trip, and we get an entire house. Yes that was another possible risk, and sure enough Utah and Nevada are on Chicago's list. That said we don't live in the city. Still though, it tells you something. And I am much less concerned about that if we are in our own car just a few hours away in a nearby state, even if we do need to get back quickly.

After some consideration with the wife, we aren't going on that trip to Utah I mentioned earlier. I think we could do a lot to mitigate some of the risks, but the reality is the plane ride is just too much, plus we have no idea how crowded certain places will be and won't have a lot of choices if they are. Probably going to rent a house or cabin on the water for that week instead (probably Wisconsin or Michigan), stay mostly in the house except going out to canoe, fish, swim, hike, bike, etc. Get groceries, pick up food, maybe eat out just a few times when it's outside dining. Way less risk, still a week of fun for the kiddies and some time to relax. Also likely a much cheaper trip, so bonus there. Still really want to do Zion, Bryce, etc., they will just have to wait.

OK, I hadn't done my detailed route mapping yet so I didn't realize the road past the lodge was walk/bike/shuttle only. Good to know - another reason to start early! And good call on the hiker's guidebooks - I had done more of the online research but will probably order a book too. I know we plan to do the Narrows, and not do Angel's Landing, and Wall Street in Bryce. Other than that we don't have specific routes picked yet but we WILL have layers of backup plans in case of crowds. I am awaiting word from AA and UAL, who both supposedly will text me if the flights become more than 70% full. As for Zion, I have a feeling they won't be as crowded as normal since I looked the other day and saw there were still lots of rooms available in the park lodge at the time we are visiting. Usually lodges at the heart of popular parks like this, if you don't reserve a year in advance, good luck finding anything. But we shall see. Thanks for the info.

No special risks for any of us that are mentioned around COVID, unless you count me being 47 as "old". Yes we have good health insurance. Airlines are American one way, United the other way. None of the park features we care about - the outside ones - are closed. We don't care a whole lot about the Visitors' Center, but that is open at least for Zion anyway if we did want to. 7-day quarantine should be a non-issue, we get back in time to have about that long (actually 8 days) before kids' school starts. Might need to get some groceries delivered. We are actually staying at the Zion Lodge within the park, so we are one of the lucky few that gets to drive on the interior roads (the pass comes with the stay). We can avoid the shuttle which is preferable due to the virus. And we tend to start our hikes early. Also, we are NOT doing Angel's Landing, which is the one that would scare me as far as forcing close contact. I think these places will have some crowds, but nothing like a usual year. That said, we will take all the recommended precautions of course. The flights seem scary to me too, but the more I read, the more I get the impression that maybe I have my priority for scariness wrong. Close quarters, but very little talking or singing or whatever and the air is recycled pretty quickly - more so than on trains or buses for example. It's really about how crowded it is (right now the flights both appear to be less than half full, one of them barely a quarter) and whether or not people are masking up (UAL and AA supposedly are cracking down on this now). More and more I think you might be right about the Vegas hotel. Walking around the MGM Grand seems like it could be the highest risk thing, and we can change that without losing our trip potentially. Starting to lean that way now. I am sure Zion is still awesome. Myself, my wife, and even our girls are already pretty experienced hikers. Definitely plan to do The Narrows. We are considering moving out of Vegas for that last night (easily changed, possibly highest risk thing). I am not sure making a road trip out of it really helps though - that's like 22 hours of driving from Chicago, we would need to stop for sleep at least once and a bunch of times for food, gas, etc., so I am not sure that really reduces the risk meaningfully. But it is something we've considered.

So, we (myself, wife, 11 year old, 8 year old) still have all our flight, hotel and car reservations for our summer vacation. 6 days or so seeing the parks and monuments in Southern Utah (Zion, Bryce, Grand Staircase, etc.). Flying in and out of Vegas. Early August. Having a hard time deciding whether to go or not. I'm not overly concerned about our time in the parks, which is most of the trip (as long as we avoid Angel's Landing). And we can manage the hotel rooms and rental car with a major wipe-down upon arrival, then they should be fine after that. Can eat at places outside where possible, keep social distance, etc. I am keeping an eye on the stats for Southern Utah for infections - they have been staying pretty low, almost as low as Illinois in rate, though a slight uptick lately. My big scaries are the plane ride (4 hours each way), and on our last night we are supposed to stay at the MGM Grand in Vegas which also scares me. We could always cancel the Vegas hotel and get a place outside of town somewhere for that night I suppose, in some smaller town or whatever, since our return flight isn't early. But the flight is what it is and I can't control how full it is, or whether or not people will mask up (airlines are starting to get stricter on that which is good). We will probably make our decision in mid-late July. Good news is we can get full credit for the flights still, and should still be able to get most if not all our hotel deposits back. What would y'all do?

Dr. Pepper sucks. ?

Yeah, this is what worries me as an Illinois Resident. A lot of people travel in and out of Chicago, even when air traffic is severely depressed. And some nearby states with shared Metro areas (Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana) have shown a poor record of handling things. Some bleed-in is inevitable - I just hope it isn't terribly bad. Again, while not perfect, if most of the country literally just wore masks, avoided indoor congregations with close quarters, and kept some social distance, we could be in a MUCH better place. A combination of ignorance and selfishness is what is killing people at this point more than anything else.

I probably shouldn't belabor this point, but I want to make clear (again) I was responding to the "crush" the virus statement, which I took to mean nearly or fully get rid of it within the population. That is not attainable short of an actual, real, full-on lock down IN THE UNITED STATES WHERE THE VIRUS HAS ALREADY TAKEN COMMUNITY HOLD. We can't go back and make TrumpCo take it more seriously to start with - that is long gone. We are where we are. At this point the best thing we can do to have the least overall negative effects on the population is to deploy and enforce (latter being key here) common sense measures like masks, distancing, avoiding super-big crowd scenarios, and protecting the especially vulnerable.

What do the three of you think I was saying? I never said other countries didn't do better - that would be absurd. In fact MOST countries with modern health care have done better than the US. Go look at what I was responding to - the statement about "Crush the virus", which I take to mean make it nearly non-existent. That is not a reasonable or attainable goal in the US short of locking literally everyone in their homes 24/7 no matter what for a few weeks.

Not any that are good analogs for the United States. New Zealand did a great job, but I don't think I need to list the reasons why they were in a much different position than the US.

Oh I agree, they need an e-learning substitute available for kids in families with someone vulnerable, if they choose to stay home. I mean at some point, the plateau is a statistical inevitability. The virus is actively spreading in Illinois, and even more so in some neighboring states, so at some point the positivity rate can't go down any further.

35 kids per classroom? I mean I know the numbers go up in Jr High (my sampling was most recently in 5th and 2nd grades), but that seems insanely high to me. Anyway, back on the central topic - the schools are going to have a very hard time with all of this, but I just do not think e-schooling is a real solution unless we see some enormous explosion in COVID deaths and have no choice but to shut it all down again. Barring that, get the kids into school, even if their days will be pretty weird for a while.

All the elementary schools in our district (three of them, District 28) have no cafeterias. They eat their lunches in their classrooms generally, but sometimes in the gym by grade level. I don't think that change is going to be the biggest issue. It's going to be more purely classroom size, I believe. We are lucky in that our district has pretty small class sizes. Elementary classrooms are ranging 14 to 18 typically in our district, and if you add in that some parents will be keeping kids home for health or other reasons until Phase 5, we are very lucky that our schools can probably do the 15 or fewer thing without a ton of problems. I recognize that in some other districts it will be a very different story.

I see that the state literally, in the last hour or two, just released a high level guidance description (press release) and a detailed plan for opening school in the fall (the real meat of it).