Umm, so… I am supposed to leave for Denmark (transiting through Norway and Sweden) in 10 days. EU just recommended against us travelers, countries now need to decide if they will follow the recs.
Do we think I am gonna go? 
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. MIL is going to Denmark tomorrow. She’s doing testing today. Denmark has been chill about covid so far, but do you have a reason ready? They are doing a colour code system. Canada is yellow, so test but no reason. Red I think needs a reason. Also only European and Faroe islands and one other place count for entering on a vaccine
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Nope, we’re just doing tourism. We really can’t justify it any other way. USA is currently yellow as well for Denmark which is no test, no reason, no quarantine if you’re vaccinated.
Your MIL shouldn’t have to do a test according to the Danish site if Canada’s yellow and she’s fully vaxxed: https://en.coronasmitte.dk/rules-and-regulations/entry-into-denmark/categorization-of-countries
EU rec might mean they change it in the coming days, if USA drops down to orange, then we might need to test but not quarantine. If we drop to red, we need worthy purpose and quarantine.
It’s unclear what we fall into as foreign nationals going through sweden via denmark, as there are different rules for coming from nordic countries.
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So sorry 
Really frustrating.
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I highly recommend following Imani if you don’t already, she’s one of the best disability advocates out there. I feel she gets fewer follows than some of the more bubble gum pink /fashionable/positivity disability influencers specifically because she talks about such important topics. She also has a patreon! Hint hint 
Best quotes:
“News media still takes a paternalistic approach in covering disability stories and non-disabled people in close proximity to disabled people are more likely to be given platforms to speak about how our disabilities affect them rather than the disabled person in their lives. Just this month, the Washington Post published a piece by Amber Ferguson titled, “Unpaid Caregivers: How America Treats Women Caring for Paralyzed Partners.” On Twitter, Ferguson shared that she’d spent “nearly a year” reporting on the struggles of women caring for paralyzed partners, with no mention of how the disabled partners are managing their own disabilities or what danger they may be in should their non-disabled partners choose to abandon them. Instead, they are nameless props, photographed next to their non-disabled wives whose names and ages are listed prominently in the captions. It’s the non-disabled wives’ story, after all.”
“Many non-disabled people, often without prompting, have told me that if they were to become disabled that they would want to die. “If I were you, I’d kill myself — but you’re brave.” To many non-disabled people, disability is worse than death”
(I’ve experienced this one quite a few times myself)
“Non-disabled parents of disabled children play a hefty role in the media narrative surrounding disability — often presenting their child’s diagnosis as the worst thing that can happen to their marriage, family, and finances.”
" Sia used Autism Speaks as advisors to her first film Music , which was widely panned for blatant ableism. In a gushing pre-release interview for the film, Shirley Halperin, executive editor of music for Variety Magazine, compares autistic people to “an inanimate object, like a wig” to which Sia enthusiastically nods her head and agrees, “Yeah!” Neither Halpern nor Variety apologized to the autistic community for those literally dehumanizing comments."
" medical professionals have also taken their turn shaping the dehumanizing conversation around disability. For the Atlantic, oncologist Ezekiel Emanuel penned the essay “Why I Hope to Die at 75.” In the essay he points to the likelihood of developing a disability as he ages as the reason for his line of thinking. He writes, “…living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world.” Emanuel has helped shape the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 policy and has since been floated as a contender for FDA commissioner."
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I’ve gotten this one so many times too. It is…distressingly blatant.
Thanks for linking to Imani’s article!
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Isn’t it? Ugh!
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If there are any other Texans around who are willing to give a bit of blood for science:
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Is it out of line to ask my daycare to require proof of vaccination from families?..
I’m not sure how likely they are to go for it. On the one hand they already are required to get proof of vaccination for the kids themselves at different ages. Asking for proof for the families rather than the kids will be different, plus some of the kids might have different home situations (two homes, single parent, staying with grandparents a lot) that makes it a lot more complex. Plus what if some family members cannot be vaccinated for legitimate health reasons? And that’s without getting into the flack retail workers have already gotten in mask compliance, I’m sure day care workers would also get flack about vaccinations.
Something that might work better is encouraging their staff to all be vaccinated with something -anything from a $5 Starbucks gift card (I know daycares tend to operate on thin margins so I was trying to think small) to allowing schedule flexibility/extra time off for when they go get vaccinated and might need a day off afterwards. Then the day care can send a hand out to all families and/or put something prominent in the pick up/drop off area saying something like “This is what we’re doing to help keep all of our families safe and healthy, we encourage everyone to get vaccinated”. Peer pressure, basically.
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Certainly you could ask, but I wouldn’t expect this to happen.
How much of the family do you expect to be vaccinated? Consider, a nuclear family with a mom and Dad vaccinated, a 7-year old who does not go to the daycare and can’t be vaccinated, and a 1-year old who does go to the daycare. This 7-year old is awesome, and always wears their mask at school. But they go visit their cousin, and the aunt/uncle are vaccinated, but the 8-year old cousin is not. That cousin doesn’t always do a good job wearing their mask at school. The family is outside, so no one is wearing masks and they think all is good. But now the 1-year old has been exposed to the 8-year old, and all their classmates, even if they are supposed to be wearing masks, and so has the 3-year old’s entire class. Then unvaccinated grandpa comes by and gives them all huge hugs. Would grandpa even have been a part of the “proof of vaccination” from the family? Would it have mattered because of exposure to 8-year old?
What if the family is all vaccinated, when they can be, but they love going out to dinner.
They wear their masks like they are supposed to, but take them off to eat. (I’ve never understood this logic for restaurants.) We all know covid doesn’t care if you are eating. Vaccinated people can still carry the virus. So did it matter they are vaccinated if they are going out and about?
To me, the best thing the daycare can do is have their staff be vaccinated, require everyone who is able to, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a mask, and to social distance whenever masks are off. (Our older kids now eat “picnic style” so they are far away from each other during meals.)
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I’m entirely unsurprised by this pettiness, and by the fact that he’s going to appeal the judge’s decision. This is amazing free publicity for him.
So far it’s only for Alachua and Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) because they were the first two to rebel against him and he wants to make an example out of them. Florida has 67 counties and I think last I saw ten of them are now in some sort of “rebellion” by having some variation of a mask mandate, including every major city and Sarasota which voted red in the last presidential election (the rest are all blue counties). He needs to show that he’s a “strong man” the way Trump supporters view “strong men” - defy me?! Well now you’re going to be punished! ( 
)
The Biden administration said they’ll cover the salaries already, plus Alachua county’s local government voted before the Biden announcement that they would cover the salaries also. Not sure about Broward, it might not have come up at their meeting before the federal level funds were announced.
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Literally no awareness of this issue beyond just seeing it here now but it seems like a great use of taxpayer dollars and government time
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We are up past a dozen now. Brevard and Lee counties just passed their own mask mandates for schools.
And apparently Taylor county is shutting down all schools for 2 days to “assess”.
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Yeeeeeeeeah.
I love that he’s supposedly from the party in favor of small government except he has both the federal levels and local levels against him so it’s very obvious that he’s just put out that people aren’t just doing what he told them to. It doesn’t matter what he told them to do, just that he’s the one who told them to do it.
Oh wait I almost forgot: DeSantis top donor invests in COVID drug governor promotes
Not at all suspicious. Not one little bit, nope. And I wish I could say governor/healthcare related shadiness was new, but in 2011 our governor came under fire for some policies that would benefit an urgent care chain of businesses that his wife owned. Y’know, his wife and not he himself owning it, so it’s not a conflict of interest.
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I’m sorry you have a dipshit governor. My Democratic governor probably won’t be re-elected because she tried to save lives with restrictions early on and pissed people off.
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The Atlantic is the worst, at least with some consistently awful outlets you know where you stand, but The Atlantic and The Guardian love to run mostly reasonable material with the occasional, say, transphobic screed thrown in.
I’m also disturbed by how media outlets have been covering long covid - it’s an important issue, but some headlines phrase it as ‘you may be cavalier about death, but look out! Covid could make you disabled!’
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Yeah it’s been weird overhearing the fear of long covid in general, like in the world as well as in publications. I mean on one hand I get it completely because who wants a lifelong medical issue? That is objectively bad news and not good news, I get it. But on the other hand it’s like…ok so the same group of people that consistently tells me some variation of “just buck up and deal with it”, or makes excuses for pretty shitty things I deal with, is absolutely petrified at the thought of being in a place adjacent to the one I occupy. Cool, cool. Almost like it’s not that easy after all?
Covid in general has been a lot for everyone, but emotionally it has been a pretty huge mind fuck to watch what happens when normal people face a physical health threat. I will never forget (my friends and I talk about it a lot) watching millions of jobs go remote over night. I lost a great career because going remote was “impossible”. That job is now remote. My friend is still going forward with her lawsuit against her company, which is currently operating 100% remote right now due to covid, because they won’t approve her for remote work due to disability. They’re still saying no, lol, even though everyone is remote. The kicker? They said it’s different because covid-19 is about HEALTH. Naturally the employer is one that prides itself on being very inclusive and diverse, because of course, lol.
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People really don’t listen to themselves sometimes. Wow.
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