The transparent children

When I was growing up, I remember that in the summer there were mothers who would not let their children inside until 8 p.m.. When asked why, they said it was in order to keep their house clean. The beach by the river was so full of people that one had no place to step because the blankets were so close to each other. There were groups of children who'd play there all day. They'd play football or various other games, and jump in the water and scream. The streets were also full of children who played ball.

Today, the opposite is true. Children are always inside. The streets are empty except for perhaps a token child who drives his bike forlornly looking for company and finding none. When I go to the beach by the river, almost everyone there is retired. There are a few middle aged ladies, and the rest are retired men, who enjoy each other's company. Most come alone while their significant others cook, clean, care for grandchildren and/or watch TV at home. About once or twice in the summer a grandchild is torn away from his electronic devices, and dragged to the beach. There they play a bit in the dirt, and do not come again the next day. There is also a mother with twin daughters in their early teens. They came once when she took their phones away while the mother comes daily -- alone or with their dad. Gone are the days when children would skip chores to go for a swim with their friends or beg to go on vacation. Often the parents go on vacation alone because their teenage children don't want to come. They'd rather be home on their phone without their parents in their hair. As for the chores, their ability to do them is more and more limited, and even in villages the number chores is decreasing. People often have empty yards that maybe host a dog, and buy food from the store.

As we walk by a place that sells phones I hear voices. Two older ladies with long, wide skirts and an accent are buying a phone. Their port, their speech, and their hands show that they are from the country and that they are no strangers to work in the fields. So, they are offered the simplest, cheapeast kind of phone. It has buttons and costs 50 lei. They return it and say "please give me one with a mirror so that the grandchildren can come to visit" (by mirror they mean screen). The grandchildren no longer come to help with the harvest or even to eat the good food cooked by grandma and play outside. If they come at all, they come to be on their phones just like at home.

I hear people in their seventies discussing: "I still sit straight, but my granddaughter does not because she is always crunched down buttoning her phone." Back problems have become so frequent in teenagers. Gone are the tanned imps who'd run around all day and skip chores to play ball.

Sometimes I look at the younger children who are inside all day on their phone or tablets. Their skin is often so white that it seems trasparent. They look so fragile, and yet so beautiful. In the same time somehow they seem out of this world, and without much life in them. Some walk on their toes. Others don't speak, but can write words in English because they use them to look for movies on their phones. The parents are proud of their child's phone use. I shudder. Autism is so frequent nowadays, and so are tantrums that happen if the phone or tablet is briefly taken away. The lockdown and the switching of school to the online medium has made the screen addiction so much worse for those who were somewhat functional. I wonder when will society admit that screen adiction is dangerous and makes one disfunctional just like alcohol and other drugs. For now everyone is encouraged to be on their screens, just like everyone was encourgaed to smoke for most of the 20th century.

The daughter of the beach

The summer was particularly long this year. It ended with September, and temperatures are predicted to rise again towards the beginning of October. The second, really dry part of the summer was wonderful for swimming and for hanging out by the river. We went almost daily. The only child that was there reliably was a little girl. She is a year younger than James, and looks a bit like him. At two, she is stunningly beautiful with long blond hair and very talkative. She knew everyone on the beach -- each person, and each dog -- and talked to every person who came. An old couple called her the daughter of the beach, and the name stuck with me.

Since there were, generally, no other children to play with she would come talk to the adults. She knew their professions, and many fed her from whatever food they brought for themselves. She picked and chose from the food as any well-cared for child, but she loved the attention. She was particularly fond of James as the only other child close enough in age to play with. She taught him to put away his clothes and toys. How? James left his clothes on the grass as usual, and once when he returned after a walk with Andy, David and Edward she was wearing his clothes and playing with his toy plane. Since then, James put his clothes back in the car after he undressed, and carefully put away his toys. When asked why, he clearly explained it was so that she would not have them. She had plenty of toys herself.

She came to the beach with her father -- a former kick box champion, who is about fourty, and two of his friends, who are young men in their twenties. He loves her, and lets her be herself. They often swim along the river together and she sits on his shoulders. Sometimes her grandma comes along. She is a retired nurse.

Last year this little girl had a mother. She was not following other people along back then -- but still liked us because of James. The mom is a stunning young woman in her early twenties; one of the most beautiful women I had seen to date. They came to the river all summer. Sometimes the grandmother would come along, and towards the end the grandmother stopped getting along with the young woman and the son took his mother's side. The young woman stopped showing up.

This year they separated. The father proudly tells me he has full custody of the child, and assures me the child no longer remebers her mother because she is only two and too young to know. When asked where her mom is by one of the old people on the beach, the daugther of the beach answers that her mom is home sick. He explains that mom offered to drop all charges in exchange for visitation rights, but he insisted on a full win where he is entitled to call the police if the mom comes near her child. He justifies his choice by saying that if he sees her, he might hit her again.

The feminist in me shudders. This story is a reminder that money and power still matter more than any other aspects, and also that things are not always black and white. It could be worse. The child is healthy. She is tanned, runs about all day on the river bed surrounded by a community who loves her and seems happy. It would be better for her if her parents were together and got along, but it's unclear what seeing her mom now and then + more fights would do.

The previous daugthers of the beach were the twins who showed up once this year when their phones were taken away from them. They have two parents and are also blond and very pretty. Given the problems that we have with David and his phone, I sometimes wonder if we are often bound to lose our children early, sometimes to a partner, other times to technology and often to a world that does not appreciate our effort in raising them.

The yellow scenario

Summer is finally over. It is the evening before elections and it's raining. We are electing the local leaders -- the various city mayors. There is no school for the first two days next week because the schools are voting centers here, and they need to be cleaned to allow people to vote safely. Voting by mail is not trusted here.

Our county -- the Timis -- falls in the yellow scenario, which splits school children in two groups. One group goes to school each week and the other stays at home and attempts to connect to class via the internet. Then they switch. The children and the teachers wear masks, and the school hours range from 8:30 to 13:30 with some extra time online. The class size does not matter. David has 15 colleagues, and Edward has almost 30. Yet each group of kids is split in half as if they were the same size. It takes me a long time to get Edward to do his homework, but I hope we will enter into a routine at some point. Each week a new schedule is assigned, and both the children and the teachers are confused. They have no books because they used to be passed on from the previous generation and now the books are in quarantine for two weeks until they will become safe to use. The parents try to be supportive. My goal is to get Edward to do his homework, and to keep him off the computer and off the internet as much as possible.

The children bet on when schools will close again. We could go from the yellow scenario to the red scenario soon after elections or from the yellow scenario to the green scenario if the number of cases drop. Red means all classes would be online, and green means all students would go to school in person if there is room for them to obey the social distancing rules, and parents are willing to buy new seats and refurnish classrooms to make kids fit. Given that fall is coming, a switch from yellow to red is more likely than the switch to green, but they say it will depend on the number of positive tests. Most universities in Timisoara are already offering only online classes this semester.

Everyone is angry and afraid. The anger stems from the measures taken against COVID-19. It's not the mask wearing that disturbs. It is the fear that our freedom is slowly being taken away again, and that it's happening world-wide with no place to escape to. The number of deaths are still largely at noise level - well under 10% of the usual daily number. In Romania, about 800 people die every day, and COVID-19 has taken somewhere between 30 and 60 lives a day. This means between 1 and 2 people die daily in every county -- if one averages over the number of counties in Romania. So, the numbers are not large, but they are espected to increase this fall. Personally, those we know who tested positive to COVID-19 were either asymptomatic or with mild symptoms. My mother is a doctor, and many of her friends and colleages must have been exposed to the virus. Yet, luckily, we know nobody who suffers from side effects. The number of positive cases still largely depends on the number of tests, and has large error bars that do not seem to be well estimated.

The borders are still open and some planes fly. Andy went back to the UK last week, and David wanted to go to Germany to see his dad. They had not seen each other in a year, and Mihai repeatedly mentioned a visit of a few weeks. So, Andy extended his travel with a day and increased the price of his ticket to take David along. While life is still really hard with my father being paralyzed and the children and the animals and so many other things to manage, it became slightly easier without a moody teenager around. Although, we do miss David, we know he is having a good time and hopefully improving his German while doing his homework and participating in classes online. They've been watching the protests in Germany from a safe distance. I hope they will not escalate. Andy is in quarantine at his apartment -- busily writing a propsal. I sometimes wish my life was that simple again or that I had the time and energy to write about science, but I am also glad to be useful and to try to make my children feel happy and safe in spite of what's going on in the world. I, however, feel so alone, and so much not the responsible adult I should be.

I no longer read the news daily. I am tired of being afraid. Most protests don't seem to be in the international news -- I wonder if it's because there is a plan to impose more restrictions soon. Hospitals are dysfunctional and I pray that my children won't get sick any time soon. We are lucky to have my mom at home who is a doctor, but I would still prefer to not have any accidents. James spends most of his time chasing the various animals around. Edward reads and tries to help when he can. He also plays with James now that he is older and smacks him a bit too much, but it's hard to be patient when one is 10.

RIP Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The whole world has been mourning Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She passed away at the age of 87 after finally lossing her battle with pancreatic cancer. She is mostly known for serving in the Supreme Justice Court and for championing women's rights. She was a Cornell gaduate -- obtaining her Bachelor degree from Cornell at the age of 21. There she met her husband and had the courage to start a family before starting law school at Harvard. This did not stop her from changing the world as we knew it by founding the Women's Rights Project and fighting against discrimination on behalf of both men and women.

She left behind a career that led to a miriad of changes that have empowered women, and a family formed from two children, four grand-children, and a great-grandchild. Her most fevent dying wish was to not be replaced until another president is sworn in office. Of course, president Trump is trying to replace her. It remains to be seen if he will succeed.

Results from Iceland: Antibodies after 4 months + a fatality rate of 0.3%

In February, I estimated a fatality rate for COVID-19 of 0.2%. Here is a large scale Icelandic study that puts forward an estimate of 0.3%. The study also suggests antibodies are present four months after infection, which implies reinfection with the same virus strain will not occur.

Since schools have started or are preparing to start throughout Europe, this study is good news. Universities in the US are also testing entire populations of students, and some of the data is public. The kids who test positive are sent home and told to return after three weeks. While some closed soon after they started, I expect we will soon have enough data to open and stay open in spite of COVID-19.