Chester City clocked 100 new COVID-19 cases in the last 7-days. Rumor has it City Hall is closed for a cleaning and that is definitely the right thing to do if the rumor is true. But, will the people in City Hall be issuing any guidance on what the rest of the city should be doing to control the COVID-19 outbreak.

Rumor has it Chester-Upland schools were considering going to a hybrid model of some in-school and some home-schooling until they became aware of the level of outbreak in Chester. They have since decided to keep students and teachers home. For some strange reason, administrators are required to report to their schools including the entire school district administration staff who office on the first floor of Chester High.

There have been COVID cases in these schools but none of the schools have been shut down for cleaning (unless the custodians have the supplies to deep clean a school overnight). There’s no direction to the staff except to come to work the next day even if someone tested positive the day before.

I imagine school administrator’s only job is to have meetings. When they’re not in meetings they’re preparing for the next meeting. That seems like the perfect job to navigate from home. An administrator can come to the office on an as needed basis, but to be in these schools all day everyday seems foolish during a pandemic.

Some cities with outbreaks have issued limited hours of operation for local businesses. If that were to happen in Chester, how many people can survive if the fried chicken or Chinese food jawn is closed at 10pm? Do you really have to get gas at 11pm or can it wait til morning? Must bars tighten up their safety measures a bit?

To do nothing or try nothing is telling me leaders have just given up. The longer there’s no guidance the more difficult it becomes to enforce guidance if you ever get around to issuing it.

Maybe we’re already too far gone for government or the school district to issue COVID-19 protocols to attempt to protect citizens and employees. All signs indicate COVID is going to get worse before it gets better.

We’ll be watching to see which leaders lead and which ones just let things ride.