Hits and Misses
The proposal to toll the bridge on I-79 near the Bridgeville exit has received a unanimous thumbs-down from area residents and elected officials, the latter of whom say it will cost jobs and slow investment in the area. The possibility of tolling that bridge, and eight others on interstate highways across Pennsylvania, has also generated opposition from the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association. They worry the tolls would have a “disproportionate impact on the trucking industry,” in the words of a spokeswoman, and costs could be as high as $5 or $10 for trucks. That would eat into already slender profit margins, and potentially add about $5,000 per year to the costs of operating a vehicle. Plus, the association believes the tolls will make life harder for truckers and other drivers as roads near the highways are clogged with drivers seeking to avoid the tolls. This is all the more reason for the tolls to be rethought.
No, Dr. Seuss is not being “canceled,” despite what some of the headlines of recent days have said. “The Cat in the Hat,” “Green Eggs and Ham” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” aren’t going anywhere. But Dr. Seuss Enterprises has opted to withdraw six of the beloved children’s books from circulation due to imagery that we now might consider racist or trafficking in stereotypes. The company has the right to do what it wants with the properties it owns, but we hate to see those books disappear. Rather than declaring the books would no longer be published, a more constructive approach would have been placing disclaimers on them, alerting parents and teachers to the potentially offensive content, and using that as a jumping off point for lessons on race, prejudice, and how what is acceptable and what is not has changed over the decades.
The primary stumbling block to schools reopening for instruction are justifiable concerns teachers have about the dangers reopening would pose to their own health, since COVID-19 is still raging. The day when full-time, in-person classroom instruction returns to Pennsylvania moved closer this week, thanks to the announcement that teachers and school personnel will soon be eligible to receive the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Once young people can return to school safely, it will boost learning outcomes, help with their socialization, and be a relief to parents who, in many cases, have had to juggle their own work responsibilities with managing the distance learning of their children.
As the days became shorter and colder in the fall, many medical professionals feared the country was going to be in for a “twindemic” of both COVID-19 and the flu. But this year’s flu season has turned out to be mild to the point of nonexistence. The Tribune-Review reported this week that Pennsylvania has recorded only 2,748 confirmed cases of the flu. To compare, in the 2019-20 flu season, there were more than 130,000 cases across the commonwealth. Allegheny County has reported no flu-related deaths, only three hospitalizations and just 180 cases this year. The reasons? It turns out that steps being carried out to fight the coronavirus, like wearing masks and social distancing, have also been handy tools in combating the flu.
Reporters who cover the White House have had to take COVID-19 tests every day in order to keep the president, his staff and family safe. The White House had been footing the bill for the tests, but now the cost is being shifted to news organizations. The tests cost $170 each, and exceptions have only been carved out for pool reporters who travel with the president and attend daily briefings. The White House says that the costs of administering so many tests have become prohibitive, but what about the costs to news organizations that are already dealing with strained budgets? The White House Correspondents’ Association has protested that charging news organizations for the tests “sets up a means test for White House coverage.” Unfortunately, they’re right.