We are doing pretty well, too, as of Day 66.

(not counting the 35 days we were back in the spring of last school year. We still thought that spraying disinfectant everywhere did some good in those days...)

Our handful of cases (I think we have had about 7 in a school of 1100 students, since mid-August) have been isolated and could be traced to external sources, and we have evidence (via pool testing) that it isn't spreading in the school. So our measures are working.

One of our big challenges is that the health department is extremely conservative with its Contact-1 designations, so any positive case can knock out a large group of kids. So far, all of those Contact-1s have ended up testing negative and staying healthy, which is great. But it is still really disruptive to have large groups of students have to go out from one day to the next.

Our other big challenge is just the discomfort. The government mandates that our students keep masks on at all times (which is totally fine) and that we ventilate the classrooms--this means that windows and doors are required to be open for 5 minutes every 15. It's just...really cold.

We are waiting for the outcome of a meeting tomorrow with Angela Merkel and all of the Bundesministers ("governors"). They are looking for a unified approach. It is likely that a) the current lockdown will be extended until December 20, and b) we will go to a model where some of our grade levels will have to be divided in half and come in every other day. Not our decision, but we have to follow the mandates that we are given. Even though we are a private school, we need to follow the rules to keep our recognition.

Anyway, we are all giving this our absolute best shot, and everyone is a bit frayed around the edges. Looking forward to three weeks off at Christmas...