My nephew was sent home from school sick on a Monday, tested positive on Tuesday, and the IN Dept of Health implied he likely contracted it from a school bus ride the previous Friday as there were other cases tied to that bus. 1/ https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1308536783303516161

The school didn’t close, buses continued to run and parents weren’t notified (at least not by the school — my sister called the parents of the kids my nephew sat with). The kicker: the bus was crowded (2-3 kids in every seat) and many kids took off their masks. 2/

The driver either didn’t notice or didn’t care, because mask-wearing wasn’t enforced. My nephew’s symptoms: fatigue, horrible headaches and some stomach pains. He had a sore throat for a few hours and his tempersture never topped 99.4. 3/

In other words: not typical symptoms, but he was positive, actively sick, could spread the virus and likely contracted it from a bus ride. BUT SCHOOLS AND BUSES CONTINUED TO RUN AS USUAL. 4/

When my high-risk sister, who had symptoms, tried to get tested based on her son’s positive result, she got the runaround. In the day between her son’s results and her own attempts to get tested, the state of Indiana changed its testing protocol. 5/

It took her a full day of calling doctors and hospitals and bureaucratic departments to arrange a test. But the test was no longer a drive-up as it was for my nephew: she and her husband were directed inside a hospital lab. 6/

The same lab dozens of patients go to and sit in and breathe in. Turns out they’d discontinued outdoor testing at most IN labs the day after my nephew got tested, too. 7/

In the middle of all of this, their family doctor shared some additional harrowing news: when IN changed their testing protocols earlier that week, they also changed their reporting and were no longer sharing certain information with the CDC. 8/

This is a pandemic in America in 2020 folks. 200,000 lives lost and counting. But to quote Trump on this virus: “It affects virtually nobody.” 9/9